Talon

Yes, yes, I know. Ramsey’s covering another comic I’ve never heard of. Why does he keep doing this? I don’t know, you guys. I guess I just hate success. Or maybe it’s because I said I’d cover every New 52 comic ever and, dammit, I meant it.

Though, I have to say, it’s surprising this comic isn’t better known. Because once Scott Snyder created the Court of Owls for his Batman run, DC did what any mega corporation would do when they had an obvious hit on their hands. 

They capitalized the hell out of it. 

The Court of Owls would not only dominate the first two story arcs of Snyder’s Batman, but would be the first major tie-in for all Bat-family titles. And there were a bunch. One of the talons, which is what the Court of Owls called their army of mysterious owl themed ninja assassins, would appear in Batgirl multiple times and even join the New 52 Birds of Prey. The Court would also be part of the first technically post-New 52 Bat-family crossover as the secret villain behind the Robin War. And further than that, we would get this comic, an entire series about yet another of the Court’s talons. 

The series would be written by James Tynion IV, who is by now a very well known name in the comic book world for writing some big name series including ones I’ve covered already like Batman/TMNT and The Backstagers, or for his four year run on Detective Comics for the DC Rebirth. But when this comic came out, he had mostly just worked on backup stories with Snyder during the New 52 Batman, including some of the backstory setup for Snyder’s Court of Owls saga.

So while being lead writer on a comic would be a pretty new thing for Tynion, he was also somewhat uniquely suited to create a story that would further explore the secret history of the Court of Owls through the lens of a talon who didn’t become the dark avenger the Court wanted him to be, and instead would end up trying his hand at being a superhero. Check out how that goes for him by clicking on the video above!