Anna Daniels
The women in the film version of Birds of Prey aren’t bad, exactly, but you couldn’t comfortably call them the good guys. You’ve got Harley Quinn, for one thing, who’s spent her entire cinematic career as a Batman-fighting, Arkham-escaping, joyride-taking villain. Huntress, Black Canary, and Cassandra Cain’s pasts have been shaped by thieving, mob affiliation, and violence, and though they’re working towards different ends now, they’re not exactly joining the Justice League. The Birds aren’t good guys, yet neither are they bad. If anything, they’re trying to figure out what “good” even means to them anymore and how they might achieve it, even if it’s through their less-than-squeaky-clean skills.
The Birds of the comics, in contrast, are firmly aligned with the DC universe’s forces of good. Of the team’s core members, Huntress is probably the one most comfortable with law-breaking, but even then, she’s hardly a hellion. The Birds are good guys in the Batman mold, doing good by night, largely through subterfuge and science. That approach might come with darker costumes, more contact with organized crime, and a tad more espionage than the likes of the Super Friends, but it’s still very much in line with what it means to be a superhero in the world of Superman and Wonder Woman. Hard-bitten ex-cons looking to claw their way into a better, if not necessarily more law-abiding life, they are not, except in movies led by Harley Quinn.
Written by: Looper
