Shawna Benson and Julie Benson are bringing Batgirl, Black Canary and Huntress back together for Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth, your new favorite female-led comic book series.
You know them as writers for The CW’s The 100, but now Shawna Benson and Julie Benson are taking the leap from TV to comics, bringing the Birds of Prey back to life for DC Comics and discovering just how many zoo animals they can stuff into an issue without upsetting the production department.
Batgirl and the Birds of Prey: Rebirth stars a trio of DC’s most famous heroines: Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), the Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), and Black Canary (Dinah Lance), three very different women reuniting to battle Snake Men and Oracle — a villain using Batgirl’s former codename.
Various DC heroines have been on and off the squad since Birds of Prey’s inception. But for the DC Rebirth era, Shawna and Julie Benson are bringing the team back to its roots, drawing on the characters’ rich histories while telling a brand new story with the original heroines of the series.
Hypable spoke to the Benson sisters at San Diego Comic-Con about their love of comics, their dislike of the phrase ‘strong female characters,’ and their takes on Batgirl, Huntress and Black Canary.
Hypable.com: Most people know you as TV writers on The 100, but this is obviously a very different and exciting new project for you!
Shawna Benson: Yeah! I never imagined we would be writing comic books, that was not something I had in the cards for us. But it happened, and it’s amazing. I’m enjoying it so much!
Julie Benson: And I’ve always wanted to write comics. I’ve been reading them since I was little. My dad was collecting them all, he was a big Silver Age [of Comic Books] guy. I read through his boxes, and then he didn’t collect any more. So there was a whole period of time where all I read was Silver Age, and then I realized, oh, they make more of these! I’ve been devouring them ever since, and now I’ve got Shawna addicted too.
Shawna: Yeah, I was a sci-fi book person growing up, so she was reading comics, which somehow I didn’t know was happening (laughs), and I was reading mostly novels. But I did read Star Trek: Next Generation comics, that was a big thing for me. (Julie laughs) That was a good series!
Julie: It’s a good series.
Shawna: It was a good series, I don’t wanna hear any denigration of it!
So why these characters, why this team? Were you approached to do it or was it something you wanted to do specifically?
Julie: We had a meeting with Geoff [Johns] and Batman editors Mark Doyle and Chris Conroy. They pitched the book to us, which was really exciting, and they asked for our take on it. So — assuming they took a lot of takes — it was sort of an audition.
And what a book to start with! It’s such a great title. You’ve got the three coolest chick characters in DC, short of Wonder Woman and Supergirl: You’ve got Batgirl and Huntress and Black Canary — it’s the original dream-team! And yeah, eventually we would love to add more characters, but right now three has proven to be plenty of work!
Shawna: Yeah, there’s a lot to mine just with these three characters. We’re trying to take the best of every version of Birds of Prey, and kind of cherry-pick what we use. So we get to take the things that’ve worked the best for that team and bring it back for continuity, and then continue the recent runs for these characters.
Helena Bertinelli (Huntress) is coming off of being in Spyral in the Grayson book, and Black Canary coming off of being in a band… So these characters are still [the same], but we’re pulling back into it some of the things that people loved about the old-school Birds of Prey. We love these characters, these are amazing stories. Chuck Dixon, Gail Simone, everyone who has written Birds of Prey has done some amazing things. And the fact that we get to follow in their footsteps is just an honor.
That’s so cool. And I know that in comics obviously it’s already very diverse and progressive compared to film and TV, but I love that it’s three of these women working together. And they are the stars, and they’re a team. I just think that’s really special.
Shawna: Yeah, and there’s no real stereotype, they’re three very different people. Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) is a very by-the-book person, she grew up with her dad being the Commissioner of the police department, she believes in law and order, she doesn’t wanna kill people. And that comes in direct conflict with Helena Bertinelli, who came out of the spy world and is now on a revenge agenda to hunt down mafia that wronged her family, and she’s willing to kill for it. So those are diametrically opposed viewpoints.
And then you’ve got Dinah Lance (Black Canary), who can kind of go either way. But she’s gonna end up being more of a mediator. And maybe even coming up with the third-way solution, which is very The 1OO of us (laughs). It’s like Clarke, who’s finding the third way to sort of make it all work for everybody. So having those three characters, and having those three viewpoints being very defined, allows us to explore different parts and make them three-dimensional and real. We don’t like using the term ‘strong female character’ because every female character is strong in their own particular way.
Julie: But I think what’s cool about these three is that they’re strong on their own, but they’re even stronger together. And so when they realise that in the story and in the arc, that’s when it really sticks so that’s been fun.
Yeah, ‘strong female character’ is kind of a limiting term.
Julie: They have to have flaws!
Shawna: One of the things we really looked into is finding where these women have their strengths and weaknesses, that they have to constantly struggle against. For Barbara it may be dealing with this issue that’s very personal for her — someone has taken her name and is using it for ill — and that really hits her to her core. So she’s going to be a little impulsive, she’s going to be a little emotional about it. And that can’t always be on the positive side, you know, if you’re using your heart over your head.
She’s a very logical head person for the most part, so that’s a possible weakness for her. It’s a flaw. And that’s something you want to explore; you want to explore that Helena may be a little tunnel-vision in her revenge agenda and not see around how it might impact other people. So those are things that you want to be able to look at, and deal with on an individual basis and also as this team.
Julie: I also like that the women, although they might have different ways of doing things, respect each other no matter what. That’s the best part.
You’ve worked on TV and now you’re coming to comics — what’s that like? What does it allow you to do that you haven’t been able to do before?
Julie: It’s been amazing. In TV you have to think production like okay we can’t have a herd of monkeys in this scene…
Just one gorilla.
Julie: Just one gorilla! Just maybe, if we’re lucky. In this they’re like, ‘More gorillas, guys!’ That was actually one of the first notes we got, that we didn’t think big enough! And we were like, oh god, yeah of course, we can put a zoo in this thing!
Shawna: It’s whatever Claire can draw for us; Claire Roe, who is amazing, our artist, we love her. She is our third Bird of Prey — we consider the three of us the Birds of Prey.
So who is who?
Julie: Well I think I’m Black Canary just because of the hair.
Shawna: Yeah I think I’m more aligned with Huntress to some degree. Although…
Julie: But I think Claire is Batgirl.
Shawna: I think so, too.