I'm sure there's some juicy dish there somewhere, but Gail has been nothing but gracious about it in public. Though she would return a year later for three issues to wrap up the series which died in her absence, Gail would eventually sign an exclusive contract with DC, and to date she has yet to do anything more for Marvel.

Shortly before she jumped ship to DC, Gail created The Marvelous Adventures of Gus Beezer. Gus was Peter Parker's nephew, and though he had no super powers, his imagination was good enough. Gus Beezer debuted in a series of three one-shot issues, and though it was geared towards younger kids, it still benefited from Gail's multi-layered scripting, which worked equally as well for adults. Gus would receive one final one shot before his creator defected to the competition. Any further adventures will probably be directed by much less skilled hands.

This brings us to Birds of Prey. Gail took over the BoP series with issue #56. She followed the footsteps of Master action series writer Chuck Dixon. With an extremely tough act to follow, and tons of negative press surrounding the horribly inept Birds of Prey television series, Gail slammed into the comic series full force with a story that set the Birds against a criminal mastermind that captured the Black Canary, got the better of Oracle, and nearly defeated The Huntress.

Gail's run on Birds of Prey proved to be immensely popular, and she continues her work on the series to this day. Now coming into her fourth year on the series, she continues to deliver consistently excellent stories, occasionally shaking up the status quo, and always maintaining her exceptional sense of humor.

My absolute favorite story is her arc from #62-#65. Black Canary returns to China to visit her old Sensi who is dying. Unfortunately, Sensi also instructed master assassin Lady Shiva. Mayhem ensues when Canary and Shiva form an uneasy alliance when they discover their Sensi has been murdered. The story brings together all the great elements from Hong Kong action films and establishes Black Canary as one of the pre-eminent martial artists in the DC universe.

Gail was actually confronted at San Diego con this year by a fan who asked, “If Black Canary is the number three martial artist in the DC universe, who is number one and two?” Gail gave the standard dodgy answer, but I'll go out on a pretty safe limb here and say one and two are Batman and Wildcat, in that order.

Gail's other work for DC has included stellar runs on Legion of Super Heroes, Justice League Classified, her Rose and Thorn mini-series, a fabulous run on Action Comics, and two issues of Teen Titans, which marked the controversial return of artist (and I use the term loosely) Rob Lifeld.