Black Canary
| Black Canary | |
|---|---|
| File:Bcanaryx.png Detail from the cover of Birds of Prey #79. Ed Benes, artist | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | (Dinah Drake) Flash Comics #86 (August 1947) (Dinah Laurel) Justice League of America #219 (October 1983) (This issue ascribed previous stories from Justice League of America #75 (November 1969) and onward to her.) |
| Created by | Robert Kanigher Carmine Infantino |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | - Dinah Drake Lance - Dinah Laurel Lance |
| Team affiliations | (Both) Justice Society of America (Dinah Laurel) Birds of Prey Justice League |
| Notable aliases | (Dinah Laurel) Siu Jerk Jai |
| Abilities | (Dinah Drake) Expert in hand-to-hand combat (Dinah Laurel) "Canary Cry", an ultrasonic scream; peak human level athlete; exceptional martial artist, expert motorcycle rider. |
Black Canary is a fictional character, a DC Comics superheroine. Created by writer Robert Kanigher and artist Carmine Infantino, the character first appeared in Flash Comics #86 (August 1947).
Black Canary is noted for her martial-arts skills and her "Canary Cry" – a high powered, sonic scream with the ability to shatter objects and incapacitate villains. Among the first generation of superheroes, she was a member of the Justice Society of America, the first superhero team to appear in comic books.
In the 1980s, the character's history was rewritten to make her two entities: Dinah Drake Lance, who took part in Golden Age adventures and married Gotham City detective Larry Lance, and their daughter Dinah Laurel Lance, who has appeared in modern stories.
The combination of the Black Canary's courage, fearlessness, fighting prowess, and her sex appeal (accentuated by her characteristic fishnet stockings) has resulted in her being referred to as "The Blonde Bombshell."
Fictional character biography
Golden Age History
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Black Canary first appeared in Flash Comics #86 in 1947, as a supporting character in the Johnny Thunder feature of the Flash Comics anthology. Initially, she seems to be a villainess; Johnny Thunder is instantly infatuated with her and is reproached for this by his Thunderbolt. However, she is in fact infiltrating a criminal gang, a modus operandi she would follow throughout her career.
Black Canary proved to be popular enough that in Flash Comics #92, she was given her own anthology feature, Black Canary, replacing the Johnny Thunder feature. The new series fleshed out Black Canary's backstory; in her real identity, Dinah Drake is a black-haired florist whose romantic interest was Larry Lance, a detective on the Gotham City Police Department.
Her costume includes a blond wig, fishnet stockings, pirate boots, bustier, and an unbuttoned jacket. Initially, she also wears a domino mask, though this is soon jettisoned. Black Canary soon joins the Justice Society of America, but ceased being published along with the rest of the team by the early 1950s.
Silver Age History
Black Canary was revived along with the other Golden Age characters during the 1960s, and was shown as existing on the parallel world of Earth-Two (the home of DC's Golden Age versions of its characters).
It is also revealed that Dinah has married Larry Lance during the 1950s. Dinah also takes part in various annual team-ups between the Justice Society and Earth-One's Justice League of America.
In a 1969 JLA-JSA team-up against the rogue living star-creature Aquarius, Larry Lance is killed while trying to save Dinah's life from an attack. Out of grief, Canary decides to move to Earth-One to create a fresh start. The Black Canary also joins the Justice League. Sometime afterwards, she begins dating her JLA colleague Green Arrow, and discovers that she has somehow (possibly due to exposure to radiation) gained the ultrasonic scream later dubbed the Canary Cry.
In Justice League of America #219 and #220, it is revealed that this Black Canary is actually the daughter of the original Black Canary and her husband. Born in the 1950s, the infant is cursed by the Justice Society foe the Wizard with the "gift" of a devastating, yet uncontrollable, Canary Cry. Dinah asked her old friend Johnny Thunder to summon his Thunderbolt in hopes of a cure, but it was to no avail.
Instead, the Thunderbolt keeps the child in suspended animation (but aging all the while) in his native Thunderbolt dimension, until, the Lances hope, a way to cure or control her power can be found. Seeing his friends in pain, the Thunderbolt decides to erase all memory of the child, letting everyone think she has died.
After the battle with Aquarius, Dinah realizes she is dying from the radiation she was exposed to during the battle with the star creature. She discusses possible solutions with the Thunderbolt and Superman of Earth-1.
The three arrange to transfer Dinah's memories into the body of her now-adult daughter, still held in suspended animation, while not letting Dinah believe anything unusual has happened to her. (This retcon was established to deal with the fact that Dinah was originally older than the rest of the Justice League characters.)
Modern Age history
Following the retroactive continuity change in 1983, Black Canary became two distinct characters, mother and daughter, named Dinah Drake Lance and Dinah Laurel Lance. Dinah Laurel would become the current Black Canary. Some references, notably those in James Robinson's Starman series, would attempt to distinguish the two Canaries further by referring to the first as 'Diana', but more recent accounts have confirmed 'Dinah' as Canary Sr's given name.
In post-Crisis continuity, Secret Origins #50 revealed that the first Dinah had been trained by her father, Detective Richard Drake, and intended to follow in his footsteps on the Gotham City police. She was turned down by the force, however, and her disillusioned father (unable to use his connections to change the decision) died of heart failure shortly thereafter. Dinah was determined to honor his memory and fight crime and corruption by whatever method possible. This led to her debut as a costumed vigilante; she would use her inheritance to open a florist shop as her day job.
The elder Dinah married her beau, private eye Larry Lance (still maintaining her florist business). In a Times Past-style story in Birds of Prey, Lance was an acquaintance of Jim Gordon, father to Barbara Gordon. A few years later, their daughter, named Dinah Laurel Lance, was born. (In Birds of Prey #66, which is a flashback to a cold case investigated – but never solved – by the elder Dinah, Laurel was the name of a librarian that Dinah consulted during the case and later befriended.)
Growing up, Dinah Laurel was surrounded by her mother's friends in the disbanded JSA and looked to them as uncles and aunts. Dinah wished to become a costumed heroine like her mother before her. However, instead of encouraging the younger Dinah, her mother forbade it, thinking the world had grown into a darker, more dangerous place than when she herself fought crime, too dangerous for the younger Dinah to succeed.
However, Dinah Laurel had her own "Canary Cry" – in this version, the result of a metagene not present in either parent – which (unlike the Silver Age Black Canary) she is fully able to control.
With this weapon, the younger Dinah next sought out numerous fighters to help her hone her skills, including former JSA member Wildcat. Years of training and intense dedication paid off, and Dinah took on her mother's mantle, even though it was against the elder Dinah's wishes at first. She took an active role in the 'Silver Age' of heroes, operating, like her mother before her, out of Gotham, while maintaining a day job in the family florist business.
In an early issue of Birds of Prey, writer Chuck Dixon established that Dinah had married at a very young age briefly before divorcing. Her ex-husband showed up in a storyline needing her help (Birds of Prey: Wolves), but actually wanted her to rejoin him after he had stolen funds from the mob. This early marriage and ex-husband were not referred to again until the 2007 Black Canary miniseries.
Shortly into the League's history she met Green Arrow (Oliver Queen). While Dinah couldn't stand him at first, they later became romantically involved despite the difference in their ages (in the Modern Age Oliver is substantially older than Dinah, the reverse of the earlier depicition). Dinah remained a member of the League for roughly six years, including a brief stint with Justice League International (JLI), of which she was a founding member. It was during that time her mother died due to radiation poisoning she experienced during an earlier battle with the villain Aquarius. Her mother's death affected Dinah deeply, and led her to accept that her time in the JLA was over.
She moved to Seattle with Green Arrow after the breakup of the Justice League, and would open her own florist shop, named "Sherwood Florist" (the name is a play on Sherwood Forest, the domain of Robin Hood, who Green Arrow (in costume) somewhat resembles).
For a brief period in the 1980s she wore a traditional blue and black costume with a bird motif, rather than her regular black outfit with fishnet stockings. This proved short-lived, and later artists restored her original look.
The Despondent Canary
The move to Seattle with Green Arrow would result in a string of bad luck for the Black Canary.
During this period, she took part in a failed operation to bust a drug ring. Kidnapped, Black Canary was tortured (despite popular belief, she was not raped according to series writer Mike Grell) before being rescued by Green Arrow. The physical and mental effects of this experience were severe: Dinah's vocal cords were mutilated, resulting in the loss of her Canary Cry; she also lost her ability to have children (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters). [volume & issue needed] She required extensive counselling after this experience, as did Oliver Queen.
Simultaneously, she and Green Arrow would have major conflicts in their relationship. Among other things, she would learn that Green Arrow fathered a son, Robert, with Shado (though Shado had drugged him beforehand), as well as taking money from the business (Black Canary #1). The relationship would end when Dinah walked in on Green Arrow kissing her florist shop assistant, Marianne.
Yet even more bad luck would hit when Sherwood Florist was destroyed, leaving Dinah with no means of paying the debt collectors who were now calling.
The worst blows of all would come when she learned from Connor Hawke that Oliver was killed (Green Arrow #101), and that Connor was yet another of his offspring. Although Dinah and Conner later develop a close friendship, the knowledge that Oliver had kept his existence from her was painful.
Though Black Canary would continue to fight crime off and on (at some point Black Canary became a pen pal of the youthful hero known as The Ray, who had a crush on her, and she participated in some of his adventures, even having a brief romance) [volume & issue needed], the effects of her misfortunes were taking their toll.
Oracle and the Birds of Prey
Around the time that Dinah's life began to spiral out of control, the former Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, was gravely injured by the Joker. Not one to give up easily, Barbara re-established a crime-fighting career as Oracle, an information broker to the super-hero community. After briefly working with the Suicide Squad, Barbara forms her own covert mission team. Barbara concludes that of all the superheroes, Dinah had the most potential and was most in need of direction. Consequently, Oracle asks Black Canary to become an operative.
Black Canary takes to this role with great satisfaction. Feeling that a new chapter in her life requires a few new changes, Dinah decides to abandon the blonde wig, choosing to bleach her hair blonde. Her relationship with Oracle proves somewhat rocky at first, in which her impulsive nature clashed with Oracle's tactical planning. However as time passed they begin to fully understand how to work together as a team and as friends. Later, when Oracle flees from the villain Blockbuster, Dinah comes to her rescue and Dinah meets Barbara Gordon face-to-face (Birds of Prey #29). This adventure leads to them establishing an even stronger friendship.
In Birds of Prey #7, Oracle provides Dinah with an electronic version of the Canary Cry. In Birds of Prey #34, Black Canary, who is dating a mysterious European named "Raymond", (who Oracle guesses – correctly – is actually supervillain Ra's al Ghul), is seriously wounded and immersed in a Lazarus Pit. Birds of Prey #35 reveals that the Pit restored Dinah's metahuman Canary Cry. (Also restored is Dinah's ability to have children — this was impaired several years earlier; the recovery is implied but not explicitly stated in the issue.)
Black Canary was a member of the JSA and is one of the few heroes in the DC Universe to hold memberships in both the JSA and the JLA.
Working with Oracle, Black Canary cultivates a covert team of female operatives in the series Birds of Prey whose members include Huntress, Gypsy, and Zinda Blake (the original Lady Blackhawk). In #64, Oracle shows Black Canary the retail space that later houses a re-opened Sherwood Florist.
Since they were both trained by the same sensei, Black Canary has fostered a kinship with Lady Shiva. Shiva, impressed by Black Canary's formidable martial arts prowess, offers to provide her with further training. Black Canary turns down the offer, thinking it would compromise her morality. The two communicate nonetheless, with Shiva conveying recommendations to assist Canary in honing her skills.
Black Canary has had her own four issue mini series titled New Wings, as well as a twelve issue ongoing series. Both were written by Sarah Byam.
Infinite Crisis
Infinite Crisis produced a re-creation of the Earth with a new timeline. It is revealed that Wonder Woman is a founding member of the Justice League. In 52 Week 51, a back-up feature revealed that Black Canary was present at the battle that formed the League. The core of the League consisted of Black Canary, Hal Jordan, J'onn J'onnz, Barry Allen, and Aquaman; Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman joined shortly thereafter.
However, the 2007 Black Canary mini-series established that Black Canary and Green Arrow joined the Justice League at a time after it was founded, and that they were tested by founding member Batman early on in their membership.
One Year Later
During the publication of the Infinite Crisis limited series, the majority of DC Universe comic books skipped forward one year in their narratives. Following the "One Year Later" jump, Dinah trades life experiences with Lady Shiva in hopes of softening the warrior, undertaking a harsh training regimen in an unidentified Vietnamese bidonville, or shantytown. The regimen replicates Shiva's early life and training; Shiva, meanwhile, assumes Dinah's role in Oracle's group and demands that her associates call her the "Jade Canary".
When Dinah realizes following Lady Shiva's path will require her to fundamentally change who she is as a person, she ends the training and returns to the United States. She brings with her a little girl, Sin, who also had begun the harsh grooming process to be Lady Shiva's successor (Birds of Prey #95; the now resurrected Oliver Queen uses his connections to allow Sin to immigrate into the country). Dinah hopes to balance her duties as a superhero with the responsibilities of being a surrogate mother/sister to the child.
In Birds of Prey #99 Dinah informs Oracle that she is quitting the team, having decided to devote herself to raising Sin. Issue #100 shows Dinah and Sin leaving Metropolis. It is hinted that their final destination is Star City; Dinah jokingly tells Sin that she can rip out Ollie's beard if he isn't nice to her.
After leaving the Birds of Prey, Black Canary joins with Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and Red Arrow (Roy Harper) on a mission to locate the Red Tornado's body, (stolen by his creator and Solomon Grundy). The three heroes join forces with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Black Lightning, and Vixen to defeat Amazo.
The assembled heroes re-form the Justice League of America; Dinah is made the Chairwoman, due to her strong abilities and strategic mind. The team's first mission with Dinah as leader sees the JLA and JSA discover that members of the Legion of Super-Heroes (a team that lives in the 31st Century) have been located in the 21st Century.
In Green Arrow, Dinah returns to Star City to aid Oliver, Connor and Mia against Roadblock and Merlin. During their mission, Dinah rekindles her relationship with Oliver, feeling that he has truly changed and that all the parts of him that she hated are apparently gone. Oliver admits to Dinah that many of the changes he made over the last year were for her. As the Green Arrow series ends, Oliver proposes to Dinah and appears in a four part Black Canary miniseries (beginning in July 2007).
Countdown and the present
During the events of the Countdown miniseries, several books included tie ins and runups to the wedding between Dinah and Ollie, and the event was advertised as part of the "countdown continues" series of ads. The Black Canary Wedding Planner gives various details on the preparations for the wedding, while Birds of Prey #109 concerns Dinah and Barbara discussing the event and Ollie in great detail. Countdown, Justice League Wedding Special, and Justice League #13 deal with various aspects of the wedding, particularly the bachelor and bachelorette parties beforehand. a major plot thread through these books, which ties in to the Piper and Trickster arc of Countdown, is that the Injustice League, for their first mission, plans to attack the wedding.
The wedding special itself covered a number of events, including pre-wedding planning and events, as well as the reactions of friends who recieve the wedding invites, the wedding itself, the attack, and the honeymoon. While the attack on the wedding seems to be a failure, Deathstroke remarks that it worked a little, despite no one being hurt. LAter, during the honeymoon, Green Arrow sudenly has a blank look to his face, and goes berserk, trying to kill Dinah, prompting her to stab him in the neck with an arrow, seemingly killing him.
The story arc continues in the Green Arrow/Black Canary series, in which everyone offers condolences to Dinah, and tells her to move on, but she refuses to believe it was Oliver that she killed. Batman agrees that it is not Ollie, and after a very extensive autopsy by Dr. Mid-Nite, they discover that the body is actually Everyman, a shapeshifter. The final pages reveal that Ollie is alive and being held captive on Themyscria. While Dinah does not yet know his whereabouts, she is greatly relived,, shedding tears of joy, that she did not kill Ollie.
Powers and abilities
Black Canary possesses a "Canary Cry" – a high-pitched, sonic scream which she can deploy to shatter objects and incapacitate her opponents. Analyzing her capabilities, Dr. Mid-Nite found that she can reach ultrasonic frequencies outside the audible spectrum which render human beings unconscious.
Black Canary lost the Cry during the Green Arrow series. Although she fought crime without it for several years, she regained it after being immersed in a Lazarus Pit during her time with the Birds of Prey.
Black Canary is extremely proficient in the various styles of martial arts, and is among the world's best fighters, on par with Batman, Richard Dragon, and Lady Shiva. She is also an expert motorcycle rider.
Despite her often heated arguments with Oracle, Dinah serves as a peacemaker between the team's sometimes argumentative members. She works to instill a sense of humanity within her colleagues, most notably Huntress, who is prone to the use of excessive force.
Dinah is a strong leader and strategic thinker — qualities recognized by the other superheroes, who have selected her as the Chairwoman of the JLA. Having fought crime for many years, she also possesses great detective skills.
A running gag in the Birds of Prey series is Black Canary's lack of proficiency with computers (and very little interest in them). She is the polar opposite of team leader Oracle (who is a computer genius). The first page of Birds of Prey #1 features Dinah's desire to have a distasteful item removed from her presence – the next page shows the object of her dislike to be a desktop computer.
Other versions
In JLA: The Nail, Black Canary leads the Outsiders. She forms the team after Oliver Queen is crippled at the hands of Amazo. However, they break up after Queen admits to feeling like the team's mascot. It is also revealed that in a prior battle Canary's sonic scream, coupled with Black Lightning's blasts, vaporised Brainiac.
In the DC Elseworlds comic Kingdom Come, Black Canary sides with Batman and acts as one of his generals together with her husband Green Arrow (Oliver Queen). In this future world, the longtime romantic partners have a daughter (Olivia Queen), who also operates under the name Black Canary.
In Frank Miller's All-Star Batman and Robin #3, drawn by Jim Lee, the Black Canary's name is derived from the seedy bar she works in; the clothes she wears while tending the bar comprise her costume. The male patrons of the bar relentlessly harass her verbally. Deciding that she has finally had enough, Black Canary beats up all of the male patrons in the bar. When her boss asks her what got into her, she simply replies "Batman," and then leaves the scene on a motorcycle stolen from one of the men she has just battered. Also, in Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again Black Canary is a member of the pop music trio "The Superchix". She is depicted as a dumb blond of unspecified age, and is apparently from County Monaghan, Ireland. She is more likely to be a copycat of the original. These stories are both in Miller's Dark Knight Universe .
In the Amalgam Comics title JLX #1, Black Canary and Mockingbird are merged together as Canary. Also, she is merged with Jean Grey to form Jean Black.
While not an actual version of the Black Canary, the mother-daughter relationship of the two Silk Spectres in Watchmen was in part inspired by the character, as were their costumes.
In Justice, there has only been one Black Canary, who is mentioned as having been widowed, but not as being a member of the Justice Society (which may not exist in this continuity). She is involved with Green Arrow.
Black Canary has appeared in the Justice League Unlimited spin-off comic book.
Other media
Live action
- In 1979, the character appeared in two television specials Legends of the Superheroes, where she was portrayed by Danuta Wesley.
- A modified version of Dinah Laurel Lance, named Carolyn Lance made an appearance on the 2002 WB television series Birds of Prey, where she was played by Lori Loughlin. The character was depicted as a former member of the team and the biological mother of Dinah Redmond (played by Rachel Skarsten), a teenager with psychic abilities who has been taken in by Oracle/Barbara Gordon after running away from her adoptive parents. In her only appearance, her "canary cry" is portrayed as being activated by whistling, rather than screaming. This version of Black Canary appears to be killed off at the end of the episode, though the writers left her fate ambiguous in order to allow a possible return later. When Birds of Prey was first announced, the producers indicated that the teenaged Dinah Redmond would be a re-imagined Black Canary (with early publicity material referring to her directly by that name), but outcry from fans led to the character being modified. In fact, the character was repeatedly modified with changes in name, history, and powers as writers struggled to define her during the short-lived series.
Animation
- Black Canary (or someone with a similar look) can also be seen briefly at the party Bruce Wayne is attending in the Catch Me short from the straight-to-video film Mystery of the Batwoman. As well, a likely prostitute interrogated by Batgirl in the unrated version of Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker is based on an early Black Canary design.
- On the Justice League episode Legends, the League teamed up with the Justice Guild of America in an alternate universe. The Guild member Black Siren was based on the Golden Age Black Canary, Dinah Drake. She was voiced by Jennifer Hale. The Siren's real name was given as Donna Vance on her tombstone.
- On the animated series Justice League Unlimited, Black Canary was voiced by Morena Baccarin. She was first seen in a small cameo at the end of "Initiation", where her looks are enough to convince Green Arrow to stay in the League. Later, in The Cat and the Canary, she stars as a fearsome physical fighter (as well as sporting her sonic cry). She was vexed because her old mentor, Wildcat, had been obsessively engaging in underground fighting tournaments, and she convinced the smitten Green Arrow to help her convince Wildcat to return to the League. She and Green Arrow start a relationship, as seen in "Double Date", thereby paying homage to their famed romance in the comics. In the fifth-season episode "Grudge Match", Black Canary found herself and several other female members of the League forced to do battle with each other in underground tournaments run by the same promoter (the villain Roulette) who had earlier exploited Wildcat. The final challenge pitted the team of Black Canary, Huntress, Vixen, and Hawkgirl against Wonder Woman. Black Canary's final animated appearance (to date) was at the conclusion of "Destroyer", the series finale of Justice League Unlimited. She helped defend the world from the invading parademons of Darkseid, and then made her swan song (along with almost every other member of the League) racing to her next adventure.