Who Are the Birds of Prey? | Heat Vision Breakdown - video Dailymotion

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This week on Heat Vision Breakdown, host Patrick Shanley and producer Natalie Heltzel explore the comic book origins of Black Canary, Huntress, Cassandra Cain and Renee Montoya.

Transcript

00:00Hello friends!

00:01So, Birds of Prey is finally flying into theaters, and while you already know who Harley Quinn

00:06is, you may be less familiar with the other characters.

00:08Which one of them is the daughter of Bruce Wayne from an alternate Earth?

00:11Which one was attacked by a raccoon as a child?

00:13Yeah.

00:14And which one survived growing up in Reno?

00:15Ooh, that last one was you.

00:17I try to forget most of the things from my childhood.

00:20This week on Heat Vision Breakdown, my producer Natalie joins us to help explain everything

00:23about Birds of Prey.

00:25Alright, let's start with Harley Quinn.

00:30So very few people know this, but the character actually originated in a 1992 episode of Batman

00:35the Animated Series.

00:36Everybody knows that.

00:37Everybody knows that?

00:38Yeah, it's true.

00:39Everybody knows that.

00:40Alright, well.

00:41Moving on.

00:42Black Canary.

00:43In the comics, multiple women have donned the role of Black Canary dating all the way back

00:46to 1947.

00:47Dinah Drake was a florist by day and costumed crime fighter by night.

00:52You might say she was selling tulips by day and giving fat lips by night.

00:56Oh.

00:57Oh my god.

00:58Oh.

00:59That was a good joke!

01:01She initially had no superpowers, but during a trip from an alternate Earth, she gained

01:05a canary cry, which is basically a sonic scream.

01:08Things got stranger in the comics in 1983 when a retcon revealed that Dinah Drake was now called

01:12Dinah Lance after getting married.

01:14Even though that's not really...

01:16It's not really that strange.

01:17The strange part is that we learned Dinah Lance actually hadn't gained superpowers.

01:21No, that happened to her daughter, who was also named Dinah Lance, and her mother had

01:26been in stasis.

01:27Okay, you know what?

01:28This retcon stuff is super confusing, so let's just skip ahead to what's important.

01:31The second Dinah Lance became a mainstay of the Justice League and also dated Green Arrow.

01:35But it wasn't until 1996's Black Canary Oracle Birds of Prey Number One that she fully

01:40managed to step out of the shadow of Green Arrow, becoming a member of a new team not related

01:44to superheroes and giving her the chance to build her own fan base with readers.

01:48When DC rebooted its entire history in 2011, which was called The New 52, Black Canary's

01:53story changed once more.

01:54In the new reality, she'd never met Green Arrow nor been a member of the Justice League.

01:58Instead, she was a widowed secret agent working as part of the newly formed mercenary team

02:03Birds of Prey.

02:04Squawk, squawk.

02:05When that series ended, she launched a music career in the critically acclaimed 2015 Black

02:08Canary series before finally running into Green Arrow the following year, becoming part

02:12of the supporting cast of his relaunched comic book series and ultimately joining the Justice

02:17League.

02:18Huntress.

02:19While there have been numerous Huntresses throughout DC's history, including Helena Wayne, daughter

02:23of Batman Bruce and Catwoman Selina Kyle, the iteration of the character we're currently

02:27concerned with is Helena Bertinelli, who sounds like a fancy heiress to a sparkling cider fortune,

02:32but is actually the sole survivor of a crime family wiped out by rival cartels and trained

02:37to get revenge on those responsible.

02:39Bertinelli debuted in The Huntress No. 1 back in 1989, where she eventually went on to join

02:43the Justice League.

02:44Is anyone not in the Justice League?

02:46It's easier to get into than the University of Kansas.

02:48Hey, I went there.

02:49Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn't have written that joke about Reno.

02:52Aaron.

02:53Anyway, much like Black Canary, Bertinelli's Huntress was given a significantly different

02:57backstory in the New 52.

02:59This time around, her father is still a crime boss, but she goes on to become an agent of

03:02spy agency Spiral, which she eventually leaves to settle down, relax, and focus on getting

03:07revenge on those responsible for her father's murder.

03:10And that's how she meets up with...

03:11The Justice League!

03:12No!

03:13The Birds of Prey.

03:14Oh.

03:15Cassandra Cain.

03:16Cassandra first appeared in 1999's Batman No. 567 as the daughter of David Cain, a mercenary

03:21who is not quite Father of the Year.

03:23Cassandra is trained to be the ultimate assassin from birth before deciding, oh wait, this sucks,

03:27and running away to Gotham to fall under the tutelage of Batman and Barbara Gordon, who, unlike

03:31her father, are vigilantes, not mercenaries, which is way different.

03:34Cassandra goes on to become the next Batgirl, and eventually joining the Outsiders and,

03:38you guessed it, the Justice League.

03:40Wow.

03:41Eventually, she confronts both her father and the woman in charge of her training as an assassin,

03:45defeats them both, and kills her father as a result of their fight.

03:48Disillusioned, she forfeits the title of Batgirl and goes to live underground.

03:52She's really sad that she had to go and live in a sewer like Charlie Kelly.

03:56She didn't live in a sewer, she went, you know, underground.

04:00Do you not know what that means?

04:02Yeah.

04:04Doesn't matter anyway, because it was revealed to be a misdirection, and Cassandra was actually

04:09working under the guise of Black Bat and Hong Kong at the direction of Batman himself.

04:13At no point during that time does she live in a sewer.

04:16Right.

04:18With the new 52, Cassandra went back to her roots of being the manipulated daughter of

04:21David Cain.

04:22Though this time, she worked under the name of Orphan, and eventually trains a new generation

04:27of heroes through the mentorship of Batman and Robin.

04:30Currently, she's a member of the Outsiders working alongside Black Lightning.

04:33Sweet.

04:34It is sweet.

04:35Renee Montoya.

04:36Renee Montoya is a detective who first showed up in 1992 as Batman number 475.

04:42After her partner is murdered by a corrupt cop in the department, she quits to become a

04:46private investigator and eventually partners with The Question, a dude with no face who apparently

04:51goes to the same tailor as Spike from Cowboy Bebop and Rorschach from Watchmen.

04:55That's a mouthful.

04:56When Question succumbs to his lung cancer, Montoya takes up the mantle and becomes Question

05:01herself.

05:02Until the...

05:03New 52!

05:04Correct!

05:05She's now back with Gotham PD and in a relationship with Batwoman Kate Kane.

05:10Oh, and it was also revealed last year that she's still active as The Question, working

05:13with Lois Lane as a top secret source to unearth corruption.

05:16All without a face.

05:18Black Mask.

05:19If you haven't noticed so far, all the characters have squarely fallen into the good guy pile,

05:23albeit with some gray areas.

05:24We're bad guys.

05:26Are you the bad guys, Harley?

05:28Are you?

05:29Is she?

05:30Natalie, is she even a bad guy?

05:31What is going on?

05:32No, they're not the bad guys in this movie.

05:35The real villain here is Roman Sionis, also known as The Black Mask.

05:39He's sort of like what would happen if Bruce Wayne went wrong.

05:42In other words, probably Bruce Wayne in the world of Joker.

05:45You don't have Joaquin Phoenix push his fingers into your gums and grow up normal.

05:48I mean, am I right?

05:50First appearing in 1985's Batman number 386, Roman was born to a wealthy family that cared

05:55so little for him that it hushed up both his being dropped on his head as a baby and also

05:58him being attacked by a raccoon.

06:00He ended up murdering his parents to take control of the family fortune and related business.

06:04Soon after, he was struck by lightning and took his survival to be a sign of divine intervention

06:08and proof that he was meant to be a criminal mastermind, because, you know, that makes sense,

06:13leading him to form the False Face Society, a group of criminals hiding behind masks as they

06:18plotted out how to carve up the Gotham City underworld.

06:20Surprisingly, little has changed for Roman in the wake of DC rebooting its comic book continuity

06:25in 2011, with the exception of it becoming canon that he has two distinct personalities,

06:30Roman Sionis and Black Mask, with new technology inside the mask allowing the wearer to have

06:34some level of telepathic influence over the weak-minded in the immediate area, sort of like

06:38Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.

06:40So did you guys know that Harley Quinn actually first showed up in the animated series of Batman?

06:44Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You guys, let us know if you're excited for Birds of Prey,

06:47or who your favorite character is from the movie in the comments right down there,

06:51and be sure to subscribe for more episodes of P-Fish and Breakdown.

06:53We did it!

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Who Are the Birds of Prey? | Heat Vision Breakdown

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