Originally Posted by
Badou
It's sad to see Babs again pushed out of the team she founded. Maybe Taylor didn't want to share her character more or something and we don't know all the details, or it is simple as them not using her because she wasn't in the BoP movie, but it is now back to back BoP series where Babs isn't in the book. At least this one isn't called Harley Quinn and the Birds of Prey like the last ongoing, lol.
I don't really like modern Harley Quinn, but it was obvious she was going to be on the team. The BoP movie wasn't that long ago and even if it didn't do well that is still by far the biggest exposure for the property in its existence. It is difficult to pivot away from that, but people need to be honest about why Harley is there. She is there because Harley's actress decided to make a BoP movie over a Gotham City Sirens one and turned the BoP IP for the movie into a Harley Quinn promotional vehicle, and I think everyone that sees her on the team and kind of envision what role she will have on it. Which is either a selling point or a turnoff depending on what you think of modern Harley.
At least the Harley promotion has died down some compared to its peak. She's overtaken the Suicide Squad brand where she is the face of the IP now, but it was a handful of years back where DC was pushing her in everything it felt like. She was being billed as DC's 4th Pillar by Jim Lee I think. She was defeating Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman in Heroes in Crisis, Bendis was using her in his JL run, she was a mainstay in the Batman book, they morphed Ivy into being Harley's girlfriend over being her own character first it felt like, and all that was on top of having several different ongoing books. Both in the DCU and in OGNs.
Overall the team is an odd mix. I'm actually very surprised there is no black female hero or one of color. I can't remember the last DC team book that didn't have at least one black hero in the book. I assume one will show up if the team's cast will rotate some then and Vixen and Onyx were in consideration.