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When DC Comics decided to reboot their entire line of book series’, I thought it was dumb. However, I overlooked the opportunities to improve and simplify. One example was the introduction of Starling, a DC character brand new to the Birds of Prey title. Established as one of the first members of the group, it was not surprising to find out later that she would turn and betray the group. This is typical, and done in other comic series’ such as Danger Girl.
Starling is seen from the very first issue of Birds of Prey. Her real name is Evelyn Crawford, a firearms expert and marksman. She seems smart, good at strategy as well. But things are always suspicious when new characters are introduced on a team. Since this was the New 52 reboot of Birds of Prey, I suppose there was a chance that she could have been a new legit hero. But really, it seemed more likely that Starling would be a prop. She may die or be a traitor. Or both.
Another red flag was that she used guns. This meant killing people. Does this sound like the actions of a hero to you? An anti-hero maybe, like The Punisher. But for Starling to team up with legit people like Black Canary or even Poison Ivy, it seems like a weird combination.
If some of the artists like Jesus Saiz and Javier Pina are good at one thing, it is drawing characters like Starling looking at hot as the sun. Jesus Saiz in particular has drawn pretty much every major comic book character ever to exist for both Marvel and DC. But in this particular series (Affiliate Link) he does an amazing job.
Starling proved to be a character popular enough to be inserted into the television series Arrow. However, her full name and background is different. The reason for this sort of thing has always eluded me. I imagine it may be for some sort of legal reason, since television rights may be separate from book rights. But it is clear that in both mediums the character Starling is intended as the same. This amount of similarity or difference would not be enough to avoid a lawsuit, I am guessing.
So what gives? I would love to hear your opinion on this character. Leave a message after the beep. BEEEEEEP!