Inside the Birds of Prey story Gail Simone and Jamal Igle never got to tell

(Image credit: Jamal Igle)

Gail Simone is one of the best-known writers of DC's Birds of Prey franchise, with an extended run that expanded the team and defined their place in the DC Universe for many fans. But despite being one of the best-loved writers of the title to date, there's more Simone had planned with the team but never got to do – including a creative team-up with artist Jamal Igle for a run on the title.

"Look at that art," Simone said, retweeting some of Igle's most recent works. "We were supposed to do Birds of Prey together."

"This not happening is the one thing I'm still mad about with DC," she said in a follow-up tweet.

Igle himself chimed in, sharing a series of sketches of core team members Black Canary, Huntress, Oracle, and Lady Blackhawk as well as Hawk and Dove and offering some insight into why their run never came to be – and what might have been.

"I want to say, publicly, that when Gail approached me about drawing [Birds of Prey] she laid out a story that would have been DC's version of 'The Heroic Trio'. It all began with Dinah Helena and Barbara," Igle explained. "I had this vision for Dinah, for everyone, based on specific fighting styles. I wanted to have Dinah to be a drunken boxing style brawler, Helena using Wushu. Hawk was going to be pure pro-wrestling moves, bodyslams, clotheslines, Dove would be all dance-based capoeira."

But it all came down to behind-the-scenes differences with editorial, Igle says.

"Stupid, shortsighted politics got in the way," he explained. "Basically, it was leaked to Bleeding Cool that I was taking over the book. It was partially my fault because I made a teaser trailer and was going to show it to DC. I posted it to my old website but it wasn't as secure. That was used as the excuse to pull me from the book but I found out later there was more happening behind the scenes."

"This kills me," Simone concluded. "There were editors who thought they had it all figured out why BOP was successful. If it’s so easy, why couldn’t they make it happen? Then they’d leave and the book would disappear. Makes me bonkers."

Simone and Igle didn't reveal when their run would have taken place, but Igle's art is dated 2010.

I've been Newsarama's resident Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've also been the on-site reporter at most major comic conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many weird pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)