Precinct1313 Recommends: Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey #1

Welcome fellow fans of fantastic fiction to an eclectic, eccentric and exceedingly effervescent episode of Precinct1313 Recommends! That’s right, our beloved DC Comics have daringly deigned to deliver upon us hapless Harley fans this week, not just one but two titanic and terrific takes on our absolute favourite mischievous minx of mayhem – one Ms Harleen Quinzel.

Not content with ably assaulting our senses (in the absolute best possible way, of course!) with the recently released ‘Birds Of Prey And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn’ (which was Quinn-tastic by the way, review coming soon) they throw all caution to the wind with this bombastic Black Label release – Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey, a brand new mini-series by Harley gurus and dynamic duo of comics, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti.

Harley and Ivy enjoying a desert island getaway together… or are they?

When we first catch up with our hellacious hellcat of hi-jinks, she has fallen on hard times, local loan sharks have burnt down her hotel and beat her friend Big Tony so badly he ends up in intensive care, her relationship with Poison Ivy is on the rocks, and her Gang of Harleys, now homeless because of the hotel’s inconsiderate incineration, have temporarily moved into Harl’s place. To combat this Harley hatches a plan to leave her Coney Island home and return to Gotham to gain the funds she needs to rebuild her hotel. Unfortunately, waiting back in Gotham for Harley’s eventual return is her ex Puddin’, The Joker, and let’s just say he ain’t gonna be waiting for her with open arms… nope, more likely Smilex gas, a ton of dynamite and a killer smile (emphasis on killer, of course!)

The Power Girl/Harley meet up is worth the comic’s admission alone… it’s bowel achingly funny!

Once again the titanic team up of Conner and Palmiotti deliver the gleefully gung-ho goods, their wit and wonder is seemingly unbound! Using DC’s mature Black Label imprint for Ms Quinn’s brazen adventures is essential, because this book contains so much toilet humour, overt violence, sexual innuendo (stuffed Beavers ahoy!) and fantabulously offensive material that it probably shouldn’t be read by anyone… well anyone without a sense of humour that is, the rest of us should dive on in to one of the most fantastically funny comics EVER! The dynamically delightful and dazzling artist/writer team of Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti once again prove that as far as comedic story-telling in comics is concerned they are unequivocally the virtuosi of the art!

“Watcha mean ya didn’t pre-order my new Black Label comic, ya mooks!”

Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey #1 is available at your local comic-book emporium right now, head on down and secure yourself a copy, you don’t want Harley to find out you didn’t, right?

 

The Week In Geek… With Precinct1313

Welcome fellow agents of Precinct1313 to another exhilarating episode of  The Week In Geek  where we love to share our favourite Comic-Book, Video-Game and Cult Movie news for your perusal and pleasure. And so once more unto the geek, dear agents, once more…

And ‘hoo boy’ do we have a wondrous line up of fantastical female fiction courtesy of our beloved DC Comics and their two biggest selling and widely renowned female characters – The Themysciran Titan – Wonder Woman and the Hellacious Hellcat – Harley Quinn. So grab your lariat of Hestia and comically oversized mallet ’cause the girls are back in town to spread love, joy and also kick arse (there ain’t no gum!) and spout incredulously funny one liners…

We Can ‘Harley’ Wait For The New Birds Of Prey Movie, But Whilst We Do, Let Us Indulge In The Newest Quinn-tastic Trailer…

I mean, how awesome does that look? honestly this film seems to be beautifully capturing everything we love not just about Harley, but also Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti’s stunning and character defining recent run on her monthly comics… and that friends, is a wonderful thing (and Bernie’s in it, I mean you can never have too many stuffed Beavers, right!?)

Also of note are the fantastic posters that Warner and DC have been releasing in the run up to the highly anticipated movie. Of particular note are the influences behind the promotional images – including Italian renaissance paintings such as Sandro Botticelli’s – ‘The Birth Of Venus’ amongst others. Astounding!

“Great Hera!” Wonder Woman #750 Covers And Interior Art Released For Incoming Iconic Issue…

By the golden grace of Gaea, Princess Diana of Themyscira is just two short years away from celebrating eight decades since her illuminating inception, but we don’t have to wait that long to celebrate THE greatest fictional female of all time, ’cause in just six weeks time DC will be releasing the 750th issue of the astonishing Amazon’s eternal adventures!

That’s right my astounding Amazonian associates, Diana has been fighting emancipation, gods of war and anthropomorphic super-villains in her own comic since June of 1942 (though her first ever appearance was in 1941, courtesy of Sensation Comics) and in celebration of 750 illustrious issues, DC are bringing together some of her finest ever creators for a 96 page Amazonian anthology of awesome!

Writers and artists of such inspirational ilk as – Gail Simone, Nicola Scott, Kami Garcia, Jose Luis Garcia, George Perez, Greg Rucka, Jim Lee, Brian Bolland and Stanley Lau to name just a few will be creating a cavalcade of classic and compelling comic covers and stunning storylines commemorating our absolute favourite comic-book creation. “Suffering Sappho!” January 22, 2020 can’t come soon enough for this WW fanatic!

Why not join us again next time friends for more Week In Geek!

 

Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, The Huntress, Black Canary, and yes, Bernie the Beaver are Copyright: DC Comics.

Birds Of Prey Trailer Courtesy Of Rapid Trailer.

The Week In Geek… With Precinct1313 – Harley Quinn And The Birds Of Prey Special

Welcome fellow agents of Precinct1313 to another exhilarating episode of  The Week In Geek  where we love to share our favourite Comic-Book, Video-Game and Cult movie news for your perusal and pleasure. And so once more unto the geek dear agents, once more…

The Girls Are Back In Town – The Birds Of Prey Are Here To Chew Gum And Kick Arse… And They’re All Out Of Gum (but they do have baseball bats, crossbows and a penchant for ass-kickery!)

Birds Of Prey And The Fantabulous Emancipation Of One Harley Quinn

Well what can I say, but, how excited am I right now… really, really excited! I just finished watching the first trailer for DC’s newest upcoming blockbuster movie ‘Birds Of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of one Harley Quinn’ and after viewing it for the umpteenth time I must say… I absolutely love this movie already.

I Can ‘Harley’ Wait For This To Come Out!

That’s right fellow fans of fantastic fiction, the hellacious hellcat of hi-jinks is back, once again brilliantly brought to life by magnetic Margot Robbie cementing her hold on DC’s wild child villain/anti-hero with what looks like another priceless performance as Ms Harleen Quinzel. This time though she isn’t in the corruptible company of the Suicide Squad or her former lover Mr J, but is striking out with the feisty, fiery, femme fatale’s and all round arse kicking bodacious baroness’ of broody brawls -The Birds of Prey.

Based upon DC’s top rated comic-book series, The Birds of Prey weaves the tale of Gotham’s favourite female fighting furies, and the costumed crime-fighters from this popular series being brought to the silver screen include two of my absolute fave female Superheroes – Black Canary as portrayed by Jurnee Smollet-Bell and The Huntress, ably brought to crossbow wielding life by the marvellous Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And if that wasn’t enough of a geek overload, brilliant British thesp – Ewan McGregor is cast as big, bad Batman villain – Black Mask! Revel in the trailer below, and whilst you do I’m off to invent a time machine ’cause I’m not sure I can wait until February 2020 for this to appear…

 

Comic Cover Of The Week: Detective Comics #43 – Bombshells Variant

(Copyright: DC Comics)

New comics Wednesday springs forth once more my comic collecting cohorts, and this week heralds the start of DC’s highly anticipated Bombshells variant month. Bombshells takes classic DC characters and melds them with a 40’s World War 2 era art style to great effect. The cover spotlight this week falls upon this stunning Emanuela Lupacchino variant of Detective Comics #43, depicting Gotham’s resident crossbow wielding, costumed crime-fighter – The Huntress, performing her classic 1940’s hit “My Crossbow… Your Heart!”

Detective Comics #43 is available at your local comic book emporium right now. Written by: Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul. Cover by: Francis Manapul. Alternate cover by: Emanuela Lupacchino. Interior art by: Fernando Blanco.

DC Comics Dropping Bombshells This August…

(DC Comics, 2015)

This August DC Comics will drop Bombshells on an unsuspecting public, with these amazing variant covers inspired by vintage World War 2 style artwork. This follows on from June 2014’s extremely popular Bombshell variant run, which saw the alternate cover comics become very scarce and highly sought after collectables, this time they are taking the design run even further, by adding character statues and an ongoing digital comic series entitled “DC Comics’ Bombshells”. 

DC Bombshells #1 will follow the adventures of Batwoman, Supergirl and Wonder Woman as they take the fight to the axis of evil on the front lines of World War II. The first issue of DC Bombshells will be available digitally on August 12, and throughout August every major DC comic release will also ship with a variant version of the cover, and judging by how successful the previous run was, these will sell out extremely fast. So why not head on down to your nearest comic book emporium and reserve yourself a Bombshell today, you won’t regret it.

Power Girl Unleashed…

Well this is awesome, Sideshow Collectibles once again show their superior sculpting skills with this amazingly lifelike statue of Kryptonian – Power Girl, aka  Kara Zor-EL. Kara hails from the alternate dimension of Earth 2, where she is known as Supergirl, after being stranded on Earth One with her best friend and fellow Superhero The Huntress, she changed her name to Power Girl/Karen Starr to differentiate herself from Earth One’s resident Supergirl. Cousin to Superman with the same powers, PG is one of DC Comic’s most enduring and beloved characters.

Original design by the amazing Stanley Lau

Sideshow’s premium format statue follows hot on the heels of last month’s Wonder Woman statue and is equally as gorgeous. Designed by the extremely talented Stanley Lau, this amazingly detailed statue stands at an impressive 21 inches in height. 

Sculpted in polystone by the very talented team of Andy Bergholtz, Mark Newman, Earl Ellis and Joe Menna, with the meticulous paintwork by Kat Sapene and Mireya Romo-Bowen. Sideshow are the kings of statue makers, Power Girl is limited 3000 statues worldwide and is also available in an even more exclusive limited variant edition with an interchangeable head. 

Variant version

We are huge fans of Power Girl here at the Precinct, you may recognise her as our header image for the website, so it goes without saying that we will probably have to get this at some point (as soon as our wallets recover from the expense of the Sideshow collectibles Wonder Woman purchase) Sideshow pre-orders begin November 13th, so if you like the look of this stunning statue head on over to their site PG fans.

We Love Kotobukiya – #3

Welcome back fellow collectors to part 3 of our regular look at Japanese toy and statue manufacturer extraordinaire – Kotobukiya. This time we shall be focusing on the amazing double team of Power Girl and her best friend and partner in crime-fighting, The Huntress.

Earth 2 superheroes Power Girl and the Huntress are two of DC comics most popular female characters, after being pulled through a dimensional rift and ending up on the parallel world of Earth 1, Kara and Helena must make a new life for themselves whilst also fighting crime and attempting to find a way back home.

Power Girl, Kara Zor-L, is beautifully sculpted by Tsukada Takashi from an original design by the amazing Shunya Yamashita. The statue stands at 1/7 scale, approximately 9″ and as ever is rife with detail, Kara is dressed in her fan favourite outfit and is posed dynamically with her red cape seemingly billowing behind her. The actual design of the character, especially the face, very much reminds us of previous Power Girl artist Amanda Conner’s classic take on the character…for us Amanda Conner will always be ‘THE’ Power Girl artist (though we did also enjoy replacement artist Kenneth Rocafort’s version)

The Huntress, Helena Wayne, also stands at 9″ in height and was sculpted by Masahiro Takashi. Cape and hair flowing in the wind, Helena stands with one foot on a gargoyle staring softly from behind her mask. The costume is amazingly detailed replete with armoured boots, utility belt and her iconic staff. Once more, as ever Kotobukiya have outdone themselves with this piece just exuding beauty and power, the eyes are especially amazing on this statue and are reflective of the quality craftsmanship that goes into each and every piece from Kotobukiya. As separate statues, Kara and Helena are amazing but if you can afford both, they definitely are – the Worlds’ Finest.

Precinct1313’s all time favourite comic-book characters..daily countdown.

Welcome friends…

NUMBER 6 is: Power Girl.

Power Girl was created by Gerry Conway and Wally Wood and was first introduced in All Star comics #58 in January of 1976, she is from the alternate reality of Earth 2 where she was known as Supergirl. Her origin story has varied over the years but currently is the same as her equivalent Earth one counterpart, when her parents learn that their planet-Krypton 2 was going to be destroyed they sent Kara Zor-L (PG’s real name) to Earth in a capsule to escape the destruction. At the same time her cousin Kal-El..Superman was also being put aboard his own escape capsule by his parents, though they left at relatively the same time Kara’s pod took longer to reach Earth 2.

There have been differing versions of what happened after this event in the comics, but the current story as told by the reboot New 52 version is that Earth 2 is attacked by the Apokolips ruler and God-like being of Darkseid, during this struggle the alternate versions of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are killed and Kara and her friend..fellow crime fighter Helena Wayne (known as the Huntress and daughter of Earth 2’s Batman and Catwoman) are thrown into a dimensional rift and end up on Earth one. Discovering that another Supergirl exists in this dimension PG changes her name to Karen Starr and renames herself Power Girl.

Though they are essentially the same character, the differences between Power Girl and Supergirl are many, PG is physically bigger than Supergirl and is a few years older and a lot less naive. Running her own billion dollar business, PG spends her off time fighting crime alongside the Huntress in the monthly World’s Finest comic-book.