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.
Article comments
1 - spiralsheep
"the color purple (that's the color, not the Spielberg movie)"
You mean "The Color Purple" the world famous work of literature by Alice Walker? The world famous work of literature by Alice Walker which had a film adaption which was directed by Mr Spielberg. I'm assuming you've heard of the world famous author Alice Walker and your ascribing of her work to a man was merely an ironic slip-up on an article about a woman writer. Right?
2 - Dan Traeger
One comment and I get this bullshit. Fuckin' great! Okay look, nowhere in this article did I mention Alice Walker's amazing and yes, "world famous work of literature," The Color Purple. I was writing about the marvelous comics writer, "unfortunately not yet world famous," Gail Simone. I happened to reference as a humorous aside, the equally "world famous" movie adaptation of Ms. Walker's fine novel, and its "world famous" director, the "world famous" Steven fucking Spielberg. Never, ever put words in my mouth. I did not and never will ascribe Alice Walker's work to anyone other than herself, because I never mentioned her work at all. If I had written an article about Alice Walker, and had attributed the novel, The Color Purple, to Steven Spielberg, that would be an ironic slip-up (and stupid.) As it sits, I wrote an article about a damn fine writer, who happens to write comics, and happens to be female. Next time catch the spirit of the thing, enjoy it, and leave the nit-picking to people who actually pay attention.
3 - gnat
Calm the fuck down, Dan.
4 - Courtney Fifer
Grrrrrrr... must... not... bite... readers...