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A brand new and really enjoyable Birds of Prey e book debuted this week. Written by Kelly Thompson and drawn by Leonardo Romero, with some stellar colour work from Jordie Bellaire, the brand new ongoing collection finds Black Canary placing collectively a brand new group to assist rescue her sister Sin, who’s at the moment imprisoned on Themyscira.

We have recognized precisely who could be in that line-up for some months now, with Thompson slowly revealing every character on her private Twitter account (there will likely be no referring to it as X on this web site, thanks very a lot). We beforehand lined the line-up right here, however to rapidly recap, the brand new group is made up of: Black Canary, Batgirl, Huge Barda, Zealot and Harley Quinn. 

For essentially the most half the primary situation is all about getting that gang collectively. Dinah has put a listing collectively of potential candidates (names which were crossed off embrace Barbara Gordon, Huntress, Selina Kyle, Vixen, Talia al Ghul, and lots of extra) and units about recruiting them one-by-one. The intention is to, in Oliver Queen’s phrases, get a group collectively that may make their enemies “$@#% of their pants earlier than you say a phrase or strike a blow.”

In observe because of this Dinah exhibits as much as every of the characters in flip and talks them into becoming a member of her new crew. Cassandra Cain/Batgirl is immediately offered on the concept (“What’s extra vital than a sister?”), Huge Barda agrees when she learns that Sin is in peril, and Zealot joins as she owes Black Canary a favor.

The fifth member of the group is a extra controversial alternative. Dinah is firmly towards recruiting Harley till Cass Cain surprisingly, uh, goes to bat for her occasional enemy, stating pretty convincingly that Harley’s chaotic spirit will give them a robust component of shock.

We mentioned up prime that the e book reveals a secret sixth member, although, and it does on the ultimate web page. Simply because the gang are making ready for the mission at hand, a brand new determine enters the room. Meet Meridian – AKA a grown up model of Maps/Mia Mizoguchi from the long run.

Mizoguchi was launched again in 2014 in Gotham Academy #1, the place she rapidly turned that e book’s breakout character. That Maps was a younger lady who idolized Batman and fantasized about being a Robin at some point (one thing that did really occur in Batman: Black And White #3). 

The brand new Maps is a much more imposing determine, with a bug-like masks, a translucent cape over her go well with, and reversed out black speech bubbles. She says that she has come again from the long run to rescue Sin earlier than the Amazons unintentionally carry concerning the finish of the world – so that is the e book’s stakes successfully raised.