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I briefly mentioned in one of my previous posts how the controversial Batman crossover event, War Games, was briefly referenced in an issue of Gail Simone's Birds of Prey run. But believe it or not, that wasn't the only reference to War Games in this series...

💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · Ooff… a deep cut reference to not one, but TWO then-recent controversial storylines at DC! But rather than succumbing to th

So in my Birds of Prey by Gail Simone Omnibus (Vol. 1), there's a bizarre interlude in which Simone's run is briefly interrupted by Batman (1940) #633, authored by Fables writer Bill Willingham. The reason why I describe this issue's inclusion as bizarre is that the omnibus doesn't even include the full issue. It only features the first 3/4ths, which detail the climax of War Games in which Black Mask holds Oracle hostage at her clocktower, and Barbra is forced to activate her headquarters' self-destruct sequence when Batman displays a death wish during his fight with Black Mask (thereby allowing Barbra to distract Bruce by forcing him to save her life instead). Heck, the issue immediately ends on the page with Batman learning about Stephanie Brown's torture at Black Mask's hands while he and Barbra are emerging from the burning rubble.

So basically… the most controversial scene of War Games, i.e. Stephanie Brown's death, is completely absent from the omnibus.

Now the reason why this random interlude issue was included in my collection is that the very next issue of Simone's run centers around Barbra dealing with the emotional aftermath of losing her Gotham headquarters whilst deciding to relocate her team into a new mobile airjet piloted by Lady Blackhawk, who joins the Birds of Prey in said-issue. But my question is this: why did DC even bother including the War Games issue at all? Especially if they weren't even going to bother reprinting the issue in its entirety?

It just feels completely superflous since not only is important plot point of Oracle's clocktower self-destructing perfectly recapped in the opening pages of Birds of Prey (1999) #75, but DC could have easily instead taken a page from the Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus (Vol. 1), which not only included text-recap pages for the events of Final Crisis, but also featured brand-new art pages by Chris Burnham recapping the events of The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul crossover storyline event that took place during the issues not written by Morrison.

However, if DC’s reasoning for including Batman #633 was also to try and encourage readers to want to pick up War Games (which was also recently reprinted in omnibus format), then I hate to break it to them but it made me less than interested in wanting to read the rest of that notorious event. All it really did was take me out of the fun & engaging spy-thriller adventures of Oracle, Black Canary & Huntress, and threw me right into the middle of the third act finale of a bloated gang-war storyline. In essence, Batman #633 felt like an extremely rushed single-issue of Black Mask invading Oracle's clocktower, the GCPD outlawing masked vigilantes, Batman's fight with Black Mask, and the clocktower burning down, with little to no context of the previous issues of the event. Also, screw Bill Willingham since he's a hardcore zionist who openly injected his pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian beliefs into the text of his Fables series.

Thankfully, the Birds of Prey issue that immediately followed Batman #633 was downright phenomenal! Simone does an excellent job portraying Barbra's struggle to deal with the loss of her headquarters, along with all of her memories & possessions from it, while also featuring fun action scenes in the form of Barbra joining Dinah & Helena on the field for one last night of action in Gotham before transferring to their new mobile HQ! Plus, there's an awesome back-up storyline recapping Lady Blackhawk's backstory as a time-displaced WWII pilot, as well as the events leading up to her joining the Birds of Prey.