SIRENS: LOVE HURTS #1 / Script by TINI HOWARD / Art by BABS TARR / Layouts by XANTHE BOUMA / Colors by MIQUEL MUERTO / Letters by BECCA CAREY / Published by DC BLACK LABEL

It’s tough being a Woman in a Batman’s world.

That fact led Selina Kyle to form a sort of support group with fellow grey-hats Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel. They’re not exactly villains, but they are a bit more morally flexible in just how they fight crime. Typically by robbing the thieves who hurt innocent people, killing the CEOs of polluting companies and… well, Harley is still finding herself after being dumped by The Joker.

Selina thinks that Dinah Lance might fit in with their brunches, despite being a legacy superhero and Justice League member. Harley and Ivy disagree pretty firmly when it turns out that Dinah is strictly straight-edge when it comes to the law, despite being a punk princess on stage. However, the one thing the four women can agree on is the need for action when a serial killer starts targeting women on their birthdays and the GCPD dismiss all the deaths as suicides, despite some ornate patterns written in the women’s blood.

The past three decades have seen multiple attempts to try and make a “Sex in the City” or “Gossip Girl” style book centering around a group of superheroines. The most successful of them were the ones that weren’t really trying for that and were just trying to tell good stories with the characters as they existed. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of these involved the anti-heroines of Gotham City.

I mention this because, whether by design or accident, Sirens: Love Hurts has captured the perfect blend of romance drama, superhero action, and dark comedy those earlier attempts failed to grasp. Maybe it is because this is a DC Black Label series, so it doesn’t have to dance around adult language or the image of Batman having sex. Maybe it’s because the scripting and art seem more appropriate to a josei manga than an American comic.

Whatever it is, it works.

Tini Howard has a clear love for and knowledge of the four leads. While this is clearly another Earth set somewhere in the DC Multiverse, these takes on Black Canary, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Catwoman will be familiar. The biggest differences is that Harley and Ivy are both still graduate students, which enables them to use their respective educational credentials to gather information on the murder victims the police are hiding.

Relationship drama also plays a key role in the proceedings. Dinah is engaged to Green Arrow, but worries he may not appreciate the real her and sees her as an accessory. Selina is keeping everyone guessing, hiding the fact that she’s started a real romance with Bruce Wayne by pretending she’s just taking advantage of his money to hide his secret identity. Pamela is a “house plant” who spends most of her nights at home alone watching zombie movies because she enjoys watching stupid people die. Yet it’s clear that she’s somewhat jealous of all the girls that Harley (who is in full-blown disaster bisexual mode) is bringing home for one-night stands.

Babs Tarr is the perfect artist to bring this story to life. Her work on Batgirl was the best aspect of the Burnside era and she shows similar skill in her designs for the other Gotham Girls. With all apologies to Uma Thurman, I think this is the first time that mask has ever worked for Ivy. And there’s something about a pink-haired Harley that just seems so right. So kudos to whoever made that choice and to colorist Miquel Muerto for adding an appropriate neon sheen to everything that offers a distinctive style compared to most Bat-adjacent books.

Sirens: Love Hurts was not what I expected in a femme-focused superhero series that premiered on Valentine’s Day week. That is not a criticism. It is an observation of how surprising this book was and how it is the best thing to be done with Black Canary, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn or Catwoman in some time. If you love these characters or a bit of romantic drama and comedy mixed in with your superheroics, you will want to grab hold of this one.