Birdman gets kind of a bad rep among the Hanna-Barbera superheroes. He may be one of the most powerful thanks to his solar shield and ray blasts, but he has a habit of overexerting himself and may be more inclined to use brute force than even Mightor, and Mightor’s a caveman that fights dinosaurs. (Just go with it.) I think he just needs to learn to control his strength. Still he is able to pull it off in the end…sometimes OUT of his end.

“Assassin” round 8

The Battlefield: Cartoon Network Presents #5 (DC Comics; December, 1987) “Act of Kindness”

The Promoters: Terrance Griep (writer), Peter Gross (artist), John Costanza (letterer), and Noelle Gippings (colorist)

In the show Birdman implied that his powers come from Ra, the Egyptian sungod. Well this story flat out says it when Birdman is called to Egypt to stop the return of Set.

That didn’t work out so well, did it?

Even as weakened has he’s become, Set is still a god, while Birdman has used up most of his solar power (as usual) fighting Set’s minions of darkness. (No, they’re literally made of darkness.) So naturally Set tosses our hero around…and then makes two classic villain blunders.

Oh threaten the kid in front of the superhero for no good reason. Nice move, stupid.

The first was threaten a little Egyptian girl (there are a lot of those in Egypt, you know) who thanks Birdman for fighting off Set’s shadow locusts earlier with a handful of the flowers she sells, and yes that’s a plot device. The other is attacking Avenger the falcon (no, not that guy), Birdman’s pet and sidekick. (Birdboy and Birdgirl, and yes those were actual characters, never appear in the Toonami stories in this comic.)

Told you they were a plot device.

Later Birdman explains that he used the stored solar power inside the flowers for this blast, but that strains even Super Adventure physics if you ask me. Still, an act of kindness was rewarded with kindness, and that saved his life. End moral.

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