Serial Killers And Superheroes: Here’s A Rundown On Everyone In The ‘Birds Of Prey’ Trailer
No idea who the Huntress is? We'll help you out.
The first trailer for Birds of Prey, the new Harley Quinn-starring DC epic, is a smorgasboard of familiar characters and story arcs.
Well, ‘familiar’ if you’ve spent at least five years hoovering up every inch of comic book lore, that is. For newcomers, or even casual visitors to the pool of DC, the thing’s presumably a neon-lit shot of pure confusion, stuffed with strange characters making their big screen debuts.
Without a guide, it’s very easy to get lost. Hence, this very article, a guide to every single character in the Birds of Prey trailer.
Strap in.
Harley Quinn
Not entirely convinced that we need to run down the history of Ms. Quinn, given that she’s, uh, Harley Quinn, but hey, let’s get into it for the sake of completion.
Interestingly, Harley Quinn made her debut not in the comics, but in the lauded Batman: The Animated Series. Originally designed to be a walk-on character, Quinn morphed into a female version of the Joker, before ultimately settling into the canon as an all-time great Batman villain.
A prison psychiatrist named Harleen Quinzel whose romantic obsession with Mr. J was the main motivation for her hideous deeds, Quinn is notable for her thick accent, fondness for giant hammers, and sick sense of humour.
So far, her cinematic incarnation has followed her small screen journey pretty closely. That does seem like it’ll change with Birds of Prey, which promises to see her jettisoning her ties to the demented clown who made her, and going it alone.
Renee Montoya
Early on in the trailer, we get a shot of a badass Rosie Perez striding through an office clad in shades and with a box under one arm. Perez is playing Renee Montoya, another character created for Batman: The Animated series. A Gotham cop who becomes fed up with the violence and corruption that she sees around her, Montoya is a pure force of moral good.
Indeed, in one significant comic book arc, she becomes the Question, a masked vigilante with an unshakeable moral code.
It’s fairly unlikely that Montoya will become Question over the course of Birds of Prey. She’s never been introduced to the big screen before; it’d be pretty odd to have her take on a new mantle partway through her cinematic debut.
A more educated guess is that she’ll be a cop assigned to the case of Black Mask (more on him in a moment). In tracking down the Mask, she’ll presumably become embroiled with Quinn and her gang, all of them becoming uneasy allies, united by a common enemy.
Black Canary
Like all long-standing comic book heroes, Black Canary has had hundreds of incarnations. The DC hero has variously been the wife of a cop, a mother and a daughter who trade the one superhero mantle, and a martial artist with the otherworldly power of unleashing a decibel-shattering scream.
But as much as those incarnations might vary, one thing has been a constant: Black Canary is a singularly skilled fighter, and an arbiter of moral good.
Given the age of the actress who portrays her, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, it’s safe to assume that Black Canary’s arc in Birds of Prey is something of a coming-of-age story, as she transforms from capable barroom singer to vigilante.
Here’s my guess: she and Quinn run into each other when the latter stops for a drink in the bar in which the former works. While there, the two get embroiled with the villainous Black Mask; maybe they witness him commit some crime that he has to cover up later by getting rid of the witnesses. That way, Quinn can become a mentor to Canary, protecting her from the character we already know will be the main antagonist of the story.
Speaking of which…
Black Mask
Black Mask is a legendarily great Batman villain who’s never quite been given his dues, making his appearance in Birds of Prey genuinely cause for excitement.
Real name Roman Sionis, Black Mask is a gangster born into a life of wealth and luxury who had a uniquely shitty childhood. His doctor dropped him on the head as a baby, and he was bitten by a rabid raccoon (no shit) at the age of six. Those injustices caused him to become a sociopath, convinced that the world owed him significantly more than he was getting. Thus his decision to don a, uh, black mask, and his quest to wreak havoc on Gotham.
It’s not quite clear what Sionis’ deal is in Birds of Prey. Early rumours suggested that he was to spend the film trying to stem the leak of his nudes (no, seriously) after losing a mobile phone they were saved on. But those are just rumours — we’ll have to wait and see what he’s really up to come February next year.
It is worth noting that the character never dons his iconic black mask in the trailer. Maybe that’ll happen after some kind of terrible accident disfigures his handsome chops?
Victor Zsaz
Batman’s rogue’s gallery is mostly full of colourful, vaguely humorous baddies, as menacing as they are good fun.
Then there’s Victor Zsasz.
Victor’s just straight up a serial killer. He carves a tally onto his body for every victim that he dispatches, loves knives, and is addicted to the sound of human suffering.
It’s not clear how he fits into Birds of Prey aside from the fact that he seems to be in some kind of uneasy alliance with Black Mask. Which is exciting in and of itself: two Batman villains for the price of one!
Cassandra Cain
Cassandra Cain is one of a small catalogue of characters that have assumed the mantle of Batgirl. But out of all the caped crusaders, she’s the one with the most interesting backstory.
Cain was raised in complete isolation, trained up to be an expert assassin. As a result, though she boasts unbeatable martial arts skills, she lacks the ability to read or write, not to mention an understanding of how to make meaningful social connections.
That doesn’t seem to have carried over entirely into her Birds of Prey iteration, mind you. In the trailer, she seems more like a fish out of water heroine, an innocent young girl mired in some deeply fucked up situations. After all, her biggest setpiece in the whole sneak preview involves her hiding behind Quinn, getting shot at.
My guess is that she’s the one that Black Mask is after, for whatever reason. Maybe, if those early rumours are indeed true, she has the phone onto which his nudes are saved. Which would be wild, to say the least.
Huntress
The daughter of a key Gotham mob family, Helena Rosa Bertinelli had a singularly unpleasant childhood, culminating in the moment that she watched her parents murdered as part of an organised crime hit. Swearing to put an end to the mafia for good, Bertinelli became the vigilante Huntress, a martial arts master who would later morph into the third iteration of the Batgirl character.
Given those mob connections, one would assume her role in Birds of Prey will be spent seeking revenge on Black Mask. It makes sense that, in the continuity of the film, he’d be the one to put out the hit on her parents, and that she in turn would be gunning for him. Moreover, that’d explain how she gets drawn into the world of Quinn, Cain and Canary, forming the backbone of the titular birds of prey.
Guess we’ll find out this forthcoming February 2020.
Joe Earp is a Junkee staff writer. He tweets @Joe_O_Earp.