Reviewer: Tim Stevens
Story Title: Donor
Written by: Jim Alexander
Pencilled by: Brad Walker
Inked by: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colored by: Hi-Fi Design
Lettered by: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Joan Hilty
Publisher: DC Comics
You read comics long enough and every now and again you’ll have the good fortune (sarcasm intended) to come across an issue of an otherwise strong book that is…well…lousy. Such is the case with Birds of Prey #91.
Jim Alexander (who I am not familiar with) and Brad Walker (ditto) step in to deliver the story of the BoPs working to make sure a young man is able to donate his kidney to a dying relative he barely knows. The fact that the dying relative also happens to be a crime boss means there are a lot of parties interested in preventing this transplant from ever occurring.
It is actually a pretty cool conceit. Too bad the rest of the story never fails to rank even close to “pretty cool”.
For one, there is motivation. Barbara wants to make sure the criminal Joseph Bull gets a kidney just so she can say, “Haha, I saved your life,”? The kid later adapts a “donating my kidney is the right and heroic thing to do, but why the heck did he fly out to do it in the first place? Why do the cops kidnap the kid when they could just hold him on trumped up charges? If they are willing to kidnap, why not just off Bull themselves? Ditto with the Royal Flush Gang. Especially since the Royal Flush Gang are supervillains. Why would they so complicate things?
Speaking of the Royal Flush Gang, boy, are they lousy in this issue. I’m pretty okay with Joker having taught them a lesson in Infinite Crisis now.
The issue also ends bizarrely abruptly. It talks about how the operation went fine for Bull, but the donor had a harder time. It seems like it is going somewhere with that. But then it doesn’t. It just felt herky jerky.
