Birds of Prey #1 (2012)

At a church in Gotham City, Gotham Gazette reporter Charlie Keen is beginning to doubt that his informant's story is true. His informants claim that there is a covert ops team being run by a bunch of supercriminal hotties, but as yet, Charlie has seen no evidence to this fact. Unbeknownst to Charlie, his unseen informants have a sniper rifle trained on the back of his head. As in if answer to his skepticism, a car suddenly smashes through the wall behind him, driven by Starling. The informant, a sniper in a suit which seems to have chameleon-like properties, is confident in his position, ordering his men to kill the driver while he takes care of the other one. The other one happens to be Black Canary, who has already snuck up on him, and delivers a kick to his face. He whips out a blade, but she dodges it carefully, delivering another kick, which sends him over the edge of the balcony, and crashing down onto the pews below. Suddenly, a cord loops around Black Canary's neck, and she dangles over the floor below, which has filled with more chameleon-armoured thugs. Starling drags Charlie into the back of her car, dodging attacks and shooting back with her pistol. Two weeks previously, Dinah noticed Charlie spying on her through a camera from underneath a car. Fortunately, he would not see who she was meeting with: Barbara Gordon, once Oracle, and now Batgirl. Dinah hoped that Barbara would reconsider rejecting her offer to join the new Birds of Prey team. Barbara warned that being a part of a team like that is dangerous, given that Dinah is still a wanted murderer. Barbara was also unimpressed that Dinah had teamed with Ev Crawford, who she had seen on several government watch-lists. Even so, Barbara offered Katana as a potential recruit. Black Canary cuts herself free from the cord, landing in the midst of her attackers. Knowing she is outnumbered, she unleashes a powerful Canary Cry, blowing out their eardrums and incapacitating them. They are not down for long, though, and Dinah is nearly overtaken. Starling recklessly drives through the church over Charlie's complaints, trying to get to her partner. Two weeks ago, Charlie had tracked Dinah Lance to a bar where she met with Ev Crawford. They didn't speak, but he could tell that they knew each other. Afterward, he followed Starling as she bar-hopped around Gotham, but ultimately, he found no evidence that she was part of a covert ops team. With doubt in his mind, he arranged a meeting with his informant at the church. As Starling and the car approach, Black Canary leaps onto the hood, dragging one of her attackers with her. As they brawl on top of the moving vehicle, she manages to rip off his mask. When she demands to know who he is, he responds "I'm the one who just killed you", and plants a kiss on her lips. Angrily, she punches him off of the car, only to see that the car is about to crash all of the pews again. She climbs back into the car through the window as it thuds over top of the destroyed church's remains. She reveals to Charlie that she knows he's been following them for two weeks, and that she doesn't believe he was the intended target. He was merely a pawn used in order to draw the Birds of Prey out into the open. The girls take Charlie to the Gotham International Airport, hoping to help him out of the country. However, Dinah suddenly feels something strange coming on inside her. Meanwhile, Charlie's phone rings, and as he reads it, his eyes and nose begin bleeding. Moments later, Charlie's entire body explodes in a flash of flames, knocking the girls to the ground.