Birds of Prey is ending at DC Comics with December’s Birds of Prey #28. And while speculation online pointed to the series wrapping up due to writer Kelly Thompson’s schedule, she took to her newsletter to clarify that no, it wasn’t her choice to end the book.
“I’m seeing a lot of people speculating that it was my choice to end the book because I’m busy with other books and that is just not the case,” Thompson wrote. “I mean, yes, I am fortunate to be very busy, and my health, as many of you know, has been really frustrating the last couple years and made me slower than I want (and need) to be, but I didn’t leave Birds to make room for other books.”
Thompson, in addition to Birds of Prey, is also writing the lauded Absolute Wonder Woman for DC Comics, Jeff the Land Shark for Marvel Comics, and is spearheading both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as part of Dynamite’s upcoming reboot of the franchise. That’s in addition to other titles she’s done while working on 28 issues of Birds of Prey, and whatever other unannounced projects she has coming up. So, a lot of stuff. But, as she continues to explain, the decision to cancel Birds of Prey came from DC, first.
“When DC suggested they thought we needed to cancel the book, I DID pitch a sort of ‘light reboot’ of BIRDS to see if we could tweak the formula a bit and keep going with something ‘slightly new/different’ but it didn’t quite come together in a way that we all thought would have real legs on it,” Thompson continued. “And to DC’s credit, if I had really put my foot down about doing a new version and staying on the book, I think they would have let me keep going and see if we could make it work.”
Ultimately though, Thompson explains that, “once you feel like things are working against you… it starts getting really tough. So it felt like maybe we’d be piling on some rough challenges that we couldn’t realistically defeat and for diminishing returns, so in the end, I felt like ending it strong and on our terms was a good offer that we should take.”
Though Birds of Prey is done, Thompson isn’t done with the characters — or DC Comics. She teases that she has “something else at DC that’s quite big and that I’m very excited about,” which does indeed involve a couple of characters from Birds of Prey. But she also notes that, versus the cancellation, which was not because of her workload or health, she is behind on submitting her pitch for this project. So its future is TBD — though she is committed to working on it, and with DC further.
You can read the rest of Thompson’s goodbye to Birds of Prey at her newsletter, and you should. And you should also read Birds of Prey: at this past year’s Eisners, Kelly Thompson was nominated for Best Writer for, among other things, her run on Birds of Prey, while BoP letterer Clayton Cowles and colorist Jordie Bellaire both won their respective Eisner Awards.
Summing up, Thompson wrote, “I hope for those of you that have loved BIRDS OF PREY — and thank you so much to all of you who have been reading and talking about the book, it has brought me so much joy to see — that this is bearable — at least we have a few more issues to go through our mourning process — and I’ll do my best to end it well and leave it ready for future BIRDS OF PREY creators and readers.”
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