00:00Hello friends!
00:01So, Birds of Prey is finally flying into theaters, and while you already know who Harley Quinn
00:05is, 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.
00:13And which one survived growing up in Reno?
00:15That last one was you.
00:18I try to forget most of the things from my childhood.
00:19This week on Heat Vision Breakdown, my producer Natalie joins us to help explain everything
00:23about Birds of Prey.
00:28Alright, 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.
00:35Everybody knows that.
00:36Everybody knows that?
00:37Yeah, it's true.
00:38Everybody knows that.
00:39Alright, well.
00:40Moving on.
00:41Black Canary.
00:42In the comics, multiple women have donned the role of Black Canary dating all the way back
00:46to 1947.
00:48Dinah Drake was a florist by day and costumed crime fighter by night.
00:51You 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.
01:15Even 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.
01:24And her mother had been in stasis.
01:26Okay, you know what?
01:27This retcon stuff is super confusing, so let's just skip ahead to what's important.
01:30The 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 No. 1 that she fully managed
01:41to 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
02:02Birds of Prey.
02:04When 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.
02:17Huntress.
02:18While 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
02:28concerned 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.
02:49Hey, I went there.
02:50Yeah, 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 backstory
02:57in the New 52.
02:58This 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.
03:22Cassandra 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,
03:31unlike her father, are vigilantes, not mercenaries, which is way different.
03:34Cassandra goes on to become the next Batgirl, and eventually joining the Outsiders and, you
03:39guessed it, the Justice League.
03:40Wow.
03:41Eventually, she confronts both her father and the woman in charge of her training as an
03:44assassin, defeats them both, and kills her father as a result of their fight.
03:49Disillusioned, 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.
03:55She didn't live in a sewer, she went, you know, underground.
04:00Do you not know what that means?
04:04Yeah.
04:05Doesn't matter anyway, because it was revealed to be a misdirection, and Cassandra was actually
04:09working under the guise of Black Bat in Hong Kong at the direction of Batman himself.
04:13At no point during that time did she live in a sewer.
04:15Right.
04:17With the new 52, Cassandra went back to her roots of being the manipulated daughter of
04:21David Cain, though this time she worked under the name of Orphan and eventually trains a
04:26new generation of heroes through the mentorship of Batman and Robin.
04:30Currently, she's a member of the Outsiders working alongside Black Lightning.
04:33Sweet.
04:35It is sweet.
04:36Renee Montoya.
04:37Renee Montoya is a detective who first showed up in 1992's Batman number 475.
04:42After her partner is murdered by a corrupt cop in the department, she quits to be
04:45become a private investigator and eventually partners with The Question, a dude with no
04:50face who apparently goes to the same tailor as Spike from Cowboy Bebop and Rorschach from
04:54Watchmen.
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...
05:04New 52!
05:05Correct!
05:06She'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, all without a face.
05:17Black Mask.
05:18Okay, if you haven't noticed so far, all the characters have squarely fallen into the good
05:22guy pile, albeit with some gray areas.
05:25We'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.
05:38He's sort of like what would happen if Bruce Wayne went wrong.
05:42In other words, probably Bruce Wayne in the world of Joker.
05:44You 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, cause you know, that makes sense.
06:13Leading him to form the False Face Society, a group of criminals hiding behind masks as
06:18they plotted out how to carve up the Gotham City underworld.
06:21Surprisingly, little has changed for Roman in the wake of DC rebooting its comic book continuity
06:25in 2011.
06:26With the exception of it becoming canon that he has two distinct personalities, Roman Sionis
06:30and Black Mask.
06:31With new technology inside the mask allowing the wearer to have some level of telepathic
06:35influence over the weak-minded in the immediate area.
06:38Sort of like Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.
06:40So did you guys know that Harley Quinn actually first showed up in the animated series of Beckett?
06:43Oh my god, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.
06:45You guys, let us know if you're excited for Birds of Prey or who your favorite character
06:49is from the movie in the comments right down there and be sure to subscribe for more episodes
06:52of Peep Vision Breakdown.
06:54We did it!
06:56Swack, squack.
06:57Birds of Prey.
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