Let it be known there are major spoilers for Brightest Day: Birds of Prey issues one, two and three.

As a fan of Gail Simone's first run on "Birds of Prey," I can say that I was a bit annoyed when DC decided to give it the axe. It just seemed like there were too many plot points that needed to be addressed: Black Canary's impending marriage, Oracle's infection with the Brainiac virus and subsequent regaining of toe function, Lady Blackhawk's prowl for men... all good story threads, I assure you.

What annoyed me was that with over 125 issues under its belt, the title had really come into its own as a place for a lot of the second-tier characters in DC to mingle and congregate between Crisis #504897. As Dick Grayson has ties to nearly everyone in the DCU, the Birds had ties to him; that gave them an immense supporting cast, even without having to create their own.

The characters Simone did come up with, like ex-Spetznas Creote and his unrequited lover Savant, actually acted like real people, instead of caricatures of cartoon villains. Characters from the JSA and JLA would show up from time to time to help out on missions, Lady Shiva would kick the crap out of Black Canary every once and awhile, and every so often we'd see the glimmering romance between a certain wheelchair-bound hacker and a dashing vigilante.

Wait. I mean... boobs. And butts. Boobs and butts.

I think DC realized that killing "Birds" would hurt their universe as a whole; Simone, god help her, kind of got shoehorned into writing anything with a positive female lead. From all her work tying Wonder Woman to the delightful team book Secret Six, Gail's put her heart and soul into what she does. This results in genuine characters who, again, act like real people. With "Birds" being her first major project, it comforted me to know that when the company decided to resurrect the series under its "Brightest Day" imprint, Gail would be at the helm.

And then things got confusing.

I've picked up the first three issues, and at the moment I can't tell what exactly is going on. It's almost like DC hired someone else that was named Gail Simone, gave her a week to catch up on plot points, then set her loose. So far, we have:

• A surreal sequence where The Penguin fantasizes about each of the different Birds. There's no setup for this, so for the first few pages of issue three, we think they're going to jump his avian bones.
• Hawk being added to the previously-all-girl team, providing as much depth as he usually does: smashing things and being used like Lieutenant Worf (read: getting his butt handed to him) when a threat needs to be established.
• A clusterfuck of a storyline that's trying to establish that someone is trying to use the Birds' weaknesses and ties to the hero community against them.
• A "White Canary" showing up, who can harm Hawk's invulnerable body, fight Black Canary to a standstill and who (as of issue three) wants to "void her bladder" on Black Canary's family's corpses.
• Savant and Creote committing suicide in the second issue, cursing Oracle with their dying breath, and going against their previously established characters of being... not idiots.
• Savant and Creote being resurrected during the next issue, saying it was all a fake-out and Savant claiming responsibility for said clusterfuck. They then kidnap Oracle at gunpoint and lead her into a car.

Here's my problem with this: it's all happening too fast. I know that Simone probably wants to take us on a "rollercoaster ride of a series" and all that promotional jazz, but readers need time to catch their breath.

At the moment, we're juggling some beloved characters almost-dying in issue two, a new team, the Gotham PD chasing our heroines, The Penguin being under their charge, the supposedly-dead characters NOT being dead and acting completely different from years of stories, a hostage situation featuring a main character, a villain who's a rare physical challenge for Canary and the possibility that White Canary is Black Canary's long-lost-daughter, Sin, from the previous series. Who was artificially aged. Or something.

These plot points are all ongoing, and frankly, when I need to make a list in order to keep track of them all, it should be a sign that it's a bit overwhelming.

I'd like to close by saying that my predictions for the series is that it eventually will get better, as soon as Gail gets back into her groove.

I don't believe Savant and Creote are the big bad guys, as they have no motive for all of a sudden wanting vengeance after years of amicable partnership with the Birds. It's almost like Simone forgot who she was writing, and that the two badguys-who-almost-were have backed up the Birds time and time again. If we're going to sacrifice established characters for their use in a creepy "kidnap and overtly misogynistic torture" scene that will probably just end in their imprisonment, I will have lost a little bit of hope in the Simone magic.

Here's hoping Nightwing/Batman doesn't get dragged into this.