3 out of 5

On the one hand, this is a pretty amazing accomplishment of a tough task: as part of DC’s every-so-often-reboots of the 2000s / 2010s, Julie and Shawna Benson needed to introduce three main leads, not only doing some normal stage setting and the light character work of a first issue, but also meet the Rebirth mandate of quickly explaining how this continuity differs from / syncs up with what came before. You can partially assume some reader familiarity, but it’s also a new #1, so you have to write it all accessibly. Doing this in a single issue is difficult for one character, much less three. And the Bensons hit the beats really well, with artist Claire Roe making an impression by balancing over-expressive faces – kind of nibbing from a cartoonish Boom! style – with flashes of bombastic layouts, and then proves an ability to go moody and dark whenever Huntress come onto the scene.

On the other hand, for both story (and thus maybe the varying tone of the art as well) that is too much for these few pages, making the flow of the book from start to finish abrupt – doing some initial buildup of focusing around Batgirl Barbara really effectively, then somewhat speeding up with the addition of Black Canary Diana, then kind of barreling into the mystery the duo are exploring – figuring out who the new “Oracle” is; Barbara’s previous nom de guerre, who’s helping out the badguys – and fully sprinting through Huntress Helena’s intro and inclusion and shorthanding her as the gruff batman type to Barbara’s flightiness and Diana’s snarkiness. Finally, a last page drop of off-screen ominousness to lure us into the series proper.

Technically efficient; effectively satisfying, if clunky.