WHO COUNTS IN COUNTDOWN? Episode #34 - BLACK CANARY By Bruce MacIntosh
This week Black Canary and Green Arrow are getting hitched, and we're all invited to the Bachelorette party in DC's weekly series Countdown. (Even the guys!) If you're going to be sitting on the groom's side of the aisle, and don't know much about the pretty bird on his shoulder relax! The Pulse will see to it you can fly through the comic without wondering what they are chirping about.
The character of Black Canary goes back a long way to the Golden Age of comics and although the basic elements of her story have not changed much over the years, her history ("origin") has changed every time the DC universe is rearranged with the latest Crisis. Let me explain:
DC's "Blonde Bombshell" was one of the first attempts in comics to explain (or at least "get around" the issue of) why characters don't age. It worked pretty well to explain why Black Canary didn't age in the 20 years between the putative end of the Golden Age and the character's return in the late 1960s. However, DC writers at that time ended up painting future writers in a corner forcing them to create a new Crisis (and/or new origin story) in part to explain why comic characters don't age!
Let's take a trip down memory lane and explore all the paths that Black Canary's story has taken leading us to her bachelorette party in Countdown. Naturally, we'll start with a recount of her brief stay in the
GOLDEN AGE
Black Canary first appeared in Flash Comics #86 (Aug 1947), created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino. She initially appeared to be a criminal, but readers learned that she was working undercover. It was not long before she was given her own feature in that anthology title (Flash Comics #92, Feb 1948).
In those early tales, she was brunette Dinah Drake a florist who assisted her beau Larry Lance, a Detective for the Gotham City Police Department. She initially wore a domino mask to complement the black outfit and unbuttoned black jacket, and best of all, the fishnet stockings but soon ditched the mask. (Apparently the long blond wig was sufficient to protect her secret identity.)
As DC's newest heroine, it was only natural that Canary appear with the rest of the heroes in the Justice Society of America. She made her first appearance with the team in All-Star Comics #38 (Dec 1947 Jan 1948), and officially joined the team in Issue #41 (Jun/Jul 1948) after assisting on the "Case of the Patriotic Crimes".
The camaraderie was short-lived, however, as the title was converted to All-Star Western with Issue #51 (Feb/Mar 1951). As we discussed previously in this column (and its predecessor, Who Is This Justice League? still available online at the Pulse!) the superhero genre largely disappeared in the early 1950s, leaving Black Canary and the rest of the Justice Society a distant memory.
SILVER AGE
As I detailed in my special companion piece to Who Counts in Countdown? #48 (Click this link to read more: "Who Monitors the Monitors?"), many of the Justice Society were "brought back" in the early 1960s by DC Editor Julius Schwartz, crossing over with their Silver Age counterparts (before they knew it was the "Silver Age"). It was revealed that there were actually two (and later more) versions of Earth one containing the members of the JLA (Earth-1), and the other existing contemporaneously on a different vibratory plane and featuring the members of the JSA (Earth-2). So the JSA and its heroes never disappeared They were simply on "hiatus"!
Since Black Canary had been a member of the (Earth-2) Justice Society of America in the late forties, she made several guest appearances in the Justice League of America when the two groups met for their annual team-ups more than a decade after the team initially disappeared. Her first Silver-Age appearance, was in fact, prominently featured right there in the center of the cover of the first JLA-JSA crossover issue, Justice League of America #21 (Aug 1963).
The unusual double-issue story that spanned the pages of the Justice League of America #21 and #22 (Aug & Sep 1963) detailed the "physics" behind the two Earths for readers curious why all these heroes hadn't previously been tripping all over each other: "Unknown to the Justice League of America at this same moment on a duplicate Earth occupying the same space as our own Earth, but separated from it because it vibrates at a different speed is gathered a similar organization the Justice Society of America
"For those readers unfamiliar with the two Earths in which Barry (Flash) Allen and Jay (Flash) Garrick operate, we point out that two objects like our planet Earth and its duplicate can inhabit the same space if they vibrate (as all matter does, to an extent) at different speeds."
Independent of the JLA-JSA cross-over events, Black Canary also had the distinction of being one of the first team-ups of Golden Age during the Silver Age, in the pages of one of DC's "try-out" books. She and fellow former JSA member, Starman were featured in The Brave and the Bold #61 & 62 (Aug/Sep 1965 & Oct/Nov 1965).
In 1969's summer cross-over event (Justice League of America #74, Sep 1974) new JLA writer Denny O'Neil decided to shake things up by killing off Dinah's husband Larry Lance in a battle with alien baddie, Aquarius. The mourning Canary returned to Earth-1 with the JLA, hoping the change of scenery would help her get over the death of her husband.
Superman recommended Black Canary for inclusion in the team in Justice League of America #75 (Nov 1969), but Hawkman objected on the basis that she lacked super powers. (Said the man from Thanagar, whose "super power" consisted of a set of mechanical wings and a closet of ancient weapons.) Really, the team desperately needed an infusion of female heroes, since Wonder Woman resigned several issues earlier (JLA #69, Feb. 1969).
While the "He-Man Woman Hater's Club" debated the merits of including Dinah in the team, she became understandably upset and cut loose with a hitherto unknown "sonic scream", scattering everyone across the room.
That was enough to convince even the grumpiest male chauvinists on the team, so Black Canary was installed as the League's resident female hero, and retained that position for years. Despite her mastery of martial arts and newfound screaming ability, she was used primarily as a love interest for Green Arrow, who moved in on his "lady bird" as soon as they pushed up a chair for her at the meeting table.
BRONZE AGE
The interesting part about Black Canary's origin occurred much later in the Justice League of America series, (specifically, in the final JLA-JSA cross-over events of Issues #219 220, Oct - Nov 1983.) In one of the earliest attempts to explain why superheroes never seem to age, this storyline revealed that Larry and Dinah Lance had a daughter who had been cursed with the sonic scream by the Justice Society's old nemesis, the Wizard. The baby was unable to control the scream, so fellow Society member, the Thunderbolt, exiled the child to his own dimension for her own protection and erased all memories of her parents. (A subtle lesson to kids in the '80s: Control your temper, or we'll send you to limbo and make your parents forget about you!)
Turns out that after Larry Lance had been killed, it was not the original Black Canary, but her daughter (all grown up) who went to Earth-1 and took up residence with the JLA. The original Black Canary had been mortally wounded in the same battle with Aquarius that had killed Larry, and to fulfill her dying request the Thunderbolt retrieved her daughter from limbo and had her take her mother's place. Memories were erased and rearranged again, and arrrgghhhh! What a mess. This had to be at the top of the list of reasons why DC chose wipe clean the "alternate-Earth" slate with Crisis on Infinite Earths series soon after. (Following Crisis, the events of the previous two paragraphs never happened. So you, too, can erase your memories of these events. You're welcome.)
Just in time to have her origin retconned (below) Black Canary II that's what we call her now that we know she was actually the second hero by that name changed her costume and broke from mother's legacy in Detective Comics #554 (Sep 1985). Isn't Dinah a fox in that gnarly 80s headband?
POST-CRISIS (The "Modern Age")
In the Legends mini-series (1987), Black Canary helped re-establish the Justice League after its original incarnation had fallen apart (and the series canceled) with Justice League of America #261 (Apr 1987). The new Justice League debuted the following month (May 1987) and the title changed to Justice League International with Issue #7 (Nov 1987) . The title changed again to Justice League America with Issue #26 (May 1989), but Canary had earlier resigned from the team (Issue #19, Nov 1988).
Ironically, as she was resigning from the Justice League, Secret Origins #32 (Nov 1988) was retconning the team's (and Canary's) origins making her one of the original founding members. This posed a bit of a problem, because if you were paying attention above, Canary was originally a Golden Age hero who moved to Earth-1 from Earth-2 and joined the League a decade after its inception.
The problem was that after Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985), Wonder Woman's origin had been retconned so that she had never been around in the Silver Age, and therefore couldn't have been one of the founding members of the Justice League. So with the Secret Origins revision, Black Canary was a founding member and Wonder Woman joined later.
At the same time as these Justice League stories were being told (and re-told), Black Canary was playing an integral role in two other series. Starting in 1987 with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters, artist and now writer, Mike Grell redefined her back-story for the grim comics 80s. This miniseries told of how Dinah was kidnapped and tortured. This resulted in the loss of her destructive sonic or "canary" cry. (Although it had been only occasionally used since its introduction in 1969 see above it had been her only actual metahuman "power".) It was also later established that as a result of the torture, she no longer can have children.
As a result, her attitude hardened considerably, and her civilian identity of Dinah Lance would be much more prominently featured than Black Canary. The Green Arrow series that followed (#1-#75, Feb 1988 - Jun 1993) featured Dinah in a major supporting role.
The ill-fated Action Comics Weekly in 1988 also featured two solo stories with our super songbird, but I'm still not entirely sure about that since the stories in that anthology experiment were so chopped up as to make them unreadable. The cover to Issue #609 is cool, though, especially since she is burning that unfortunate costume atrocity.
Secret Origins #50 (Aug 1990) re-defined Black Canary's origin again filling in some of the gaps left by the earlier Crisis revisions. That story told how the "Golden Age" Dinah had been trained by her father, Det. Richard Drake, and wanted to follow in his footsteps on the Gotham City police. Unfortunately, she was turned down by the force and her disillusioned father died from a heart attack soon after. Nevertheless, Dinah wanted to honor his memory and vowed to fight crime as a costumed hero not only flying solo, but as a member of the Justice Society of America.
Dinah went on to marry private investigator Larry Lance, and the two soon had a daughter. Unusually, the child was also named Dinah, and was raised among all of her mother's super-powered pals in the JSA. She idolized these heroes and vowed to grow up to be one just like her mother. Mom forbade her from doing so, but little did she know that her namesake had somehow inherited a metagene which endowed her with the "sonic cry" ability.
The younger Dinah sought training from Mom's friends, especially Ted Grant (WilDCat) who instructed her in physical combat such as boxing. Like the Silver Age version, this new story told of how Dinah Drake grew up to join the Justice League and hook up with the Green Arrow. Her mother passed away due to radiation poisoning, Canary quit the League and moved to Seattle with Oliver Queen and opened a flower shop.
It is during this time that Dinah was kidnapped and tortured, subsequently requiring extensive therapy. It is also the time and place that Ollie got his reputation as such a dick, leading to her justifiable hesitation to accept his proposal earlier this year. In this dark time in Dinah's life, she learned that Ollie had taken money from the florist shop, fathered an illegitimate son, and was making time with Dinah's assistant.
Things got even worse for Dinah: Her shop was destroyed, leading to near bankruptcy. Then to top it all off, she found out another illegitimate son (Connor) that Green Arrow had been killed.
Like the Phoenix, this bird also managed to rise from the ashes of her former life. Writer Chuck Dixon created a new series Birds of Prey in 1996, which was an immediate hit and is still going strong. The series paired Black Canary with Barbara Gordon who had become the resident electronics, surveillance and information expert after the Joker's bullet crippled her and ended her costumed crime fighting career as Batgir. (See WCIC? Episode #39)
Barbara gave Dinah an electronic device in Birds of Prey #7 that would artificially reproduce her missing "sonic cry". However, in Issue #34, Black Canary was seriously injured and subsequently dipped in one of Ra's Al Ghul's revitalizing Lazarus Pits. The Pit healed Dinah, as well as restoring her Canary Cry (and supposedly, her ability to have children. Not to get all "tabloid" on you, but now that she and Ollie are tying the knot, how long will it be before this bird starts building a nest for some little Canary chicks?
POST INFINITE-CRISIS (The Really, Really Modern Age)
Birds of Prey established Black Canary as a top-tier character in the DC Universe, and her popularity continues to soar. After 2004's Infinite Crisis event, most of the superhero books went through a period called "One Year Later". OYL examined the lives of the heroes during the year that the "Big Three" (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) were off finding themselves and all the "seond-tier" heroes were picking up the slack. In Birds of Prey we learned that Black Canary was especially busy in that interregnum period.
Dinah went to Vietnam to train with the same martial arts masters who instructed Lady Shiva, an assassin-for-hire who can kill with her bare hands. (Shiva is also mother of Cassandra Cain the most recent Batgirl.) Meanwhile, Shiva traded places with Dinah on the Birds of Prey Team, and due to her obsessive (Oracle called it "sociopathic") personality, insisted on being called "Jade Canary".
While in America and on the BoP team, Shiva came up against the one opponent who can beat her so she went into self-imposed exile as punishment. At the same time, Dinah training in Vietnam - realized that following Shiva's path would cause her to do things that do not fit within her moral code. She terminated her training and decided to return to America and her teammates.
There was one problem, however, for which Canary felt responsible due to her experiment in trading places with Shiva. Shiva had another young daughter, Sin, who was training with the League of Assassins to become her successor. Canary refused to allow Sin to follow in Shiva's previous mercenary ways, so she brought the youngster back to America with her.
Shiva has been seen only once since (in Birds of Prey #109) when all "Birds" past and present appeared to show solidarity for Oracle in her power struggle with Spy Smasher for control and leadership of the team. After the confrontation, Oracle asked the rest who invited Shiva, and no one knew. So she continues to feel a connection and responsibility to the team, despite her exile.
Dinah, meanwhile, continues to feel responsible for Sin, and strives to raise her as a normal grammar-school child. Dinah resigned from the Birds of Prey team in Issue #99 of that series, so that she could devote more of her time to being a surrogate mother. Sin is clearly a good-hearted child, but her prior mercenary training comes through when confronted by taunting schoolmates in the recently-concluded Black Canary mini-series.
Although Dinah left Birds of Prey to focus on her child-rearing duties, she could still not resist the allure of super-heroing. In the first arc of the new Justice League of America (2006) series, she joined with Green Lantern and Red Arrow to locate the Red Tornado's body. She then helped Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Vixen, and Black Lightning, to beat Amazo.
Those heroes decided to re-form the Justice League of America, finally making Dinah the Chairwoman, because of her analytic mind and leadership abilities. The team's first mission with Dinah as leader was to deal with the presence of the previously-unknown team from 1000 years in the future, the Legion of Superheroes. As we discussed at length previously, these events also crossed over into Countdown: "Who Counts in Countdown #50 Karate Kid)]
Meanwhile, in the pages of the recently-concluded Green Arrow series, Dinah returned to Star City to help Oliver, Connor and Mia in their fight against Merlin. During that mission, Dinah learned that Ollie had finally grown up and had apparently lost all of the character traits that had previously made impossible having a positive relationship with him. Dinah was hooked when Oliver admitted to her that the changes he made over the previous year were mostly for her benefit. The series GreenArrow ended recently with Issue #75 (still on stands), when Oliver proposed to Dinah.
As you might suspect, she ultimately accepted Ollie's proposal, because now that the Black Canary miniseries has concluded, DC will publish three one-shot comics this month revolving around the Green Arrow/Black Canary wedding: The Black Canary Wedding Planner (out last week), the JLA Wedding Special, and The Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special.
The Black Canary momentum will continue in a new monthly series scheduled to begain October 10, 2007, titled Green Arrow/Black Canary. It will be written by Judd Winick, who wrote the Green Arrow series.
NEXT WEEK IN WHO COUNTS IN COUNTDOWN?
Mister Mxyzptlk. (I'll even reveal how his name is really supposed to be pronounced.)
Posts: 20777 | From: PA | Registered: Aug 2002
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I know Judd Winick will write an awesome Black Canary. I just wish he didn't have to do his usual awful Green Arrow in the same book...
Posts: 124 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Nice article, sorting out all the details of her somewhat convoluted past. Minor correction: "specifically, in the final JLA-JSA cross-over events of Issues #219 220, Oct - Nov 1983"
There were still 2 more crossovers, #231-232, and #244/InfInc #19.
Posts: 34 | From: Long Beach CA USA | Registered: Sep 2001
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That's partially true, Jen - Canary didn't appear in the remaining two cross-over "events" (except for a very brief flashback in #231).
But I also probably let a bit of personal bias show through in that statement: The story in #231-232 sort of set the table for the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which - since it destroyed the very concept of Earth-2 - pretty much sucked the fun out of the cross-over concept for me.
The last two cross-overs are DEAD TO ME, I tell you!
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