With possibly two versions of the character appearing in Arrow and the upcoming spin-off, I thought that I would ponder the Blonde Bombshell's Silver and Bronze Age interpretation. I will try not to bring up the 1983 retcon as I have issues with it but if any of you....

  • When the BLACK CANARY appeared in Justice League of America and Brave & Bold #61-62 with the Justice Society on Earth-Two (the real one!), she used gadgets from her choker. After she joined the JLA, she stopped using them. Yes she did gain a superpower, her canary cry, but it was unreliable and uncontrollable. And she continued to wear her choker. Strange that she was refusing to use the gimmicks that were so successful for her. Maybe it made her too "Batman"-ish?
  • Another thing about her canary cry was that she rarely used it. Did she use it in the O'Neil/Adams Green Lantern/Green Arrow?
  • Every time that I try to explain Black Canary to a non-comic book reader, I bring up her judo skills and, without fail, they say "So what? If I know judo, then I can be a super-hero?"
  • Which leads to the question, "Why did the JLA induct her?" And yes I know it was because SUPERMAN insisted! And because WONDER WOMAN lost her powers and needed a female member. And Denny O'Neil liked her.
  • If they had to replace WW, story-wise BATGIRL or HAWKGIRL would have been just as good if not better. Heck if they gave Diana a sonic weapon, the "New" Wonder Woman could have stayed.
  • Combine that with the fact that the Girl Gladiator didn't do much and would either be the object of someone's affection (even BATMAN's!!), left behind to tend to the wounded or be part of some soap opera situation.
  • Even her leaving Earth-Two after her husband, LARRY LANCE, died is suspect. She just left her world behind without much of a good-bye. Did she have no friends or family? She didn't even pack! Of course, they could have been sent to her later via DOCTOR FATE or the THUNDERBOLT.
  • But sent where? She had no credentials, no paperwork, no records, no nothing on Earth-One where she is effectively a non-entity! ("Hello Mrs. Non-Entity!"). Of course, the JLA would provide her those as well as a place to stay, new clothes, new wig, a motorcycle and a stipend making them having to support her and cover up her extra-dimensional origins! And one Bat-guess as to who was footing the bill?
  • One problem was that Back Canary's Golden Age stories were reprinted in the 70s and the Canary there was a lot different than the one in the current comics. She lost a lot of her brashness and confidence. And she never had to be rescued! She was more effective in the JSA than the JLA!
  • Wonder how she felt when Wonder Woman did return to the JLA?
  • I'm not going to bring up the age difference (again!) but did anyone really buy her romance with GREEN ARROW? Points to her for falling for him AFTER he lost his fortune but Ollie was never the nurturing type (just ask SPEEDY!) and Dinah was still in grief mode. After awhile, were they just used to each other? And was marriage ever a possibility?
  • And was she ever the warrior that she is now? Or was she the Girl? Or the Hostage? Sometimes it felt like Stan Lee was writing her!
  • And don't get me started on her B&B team-ups with Batman! Real sexist stuff there! Could her costume (corset, fishnets, heels) have caused the creators not to take her seriously?

We have to remember that the Black Canary has been around since 1947 and is part of the two greatest hero teams of all time. It's a shame that she wasn't treated well for a long time.

And, btw, only MALE canaries sing!

Sonic cry me your opinions, please!

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  •     When the BLACK CANARY appeared in Justice League of America and Brave & Bold #61-62 with the Justice Society on Earth-Two (the real one!), she used gadgets from her choker. After she joined the JLA, she stopped using them. Yes she did gain a superpower, her canary cry, but it was unreliable and uncontrollable. And she continued to wear her choker. Strange that she was refusing to use the gimmicks that were so successful for her. Maybe it made her too "Batman"-ish?

    I always wondered about the choker too, especially since it seemed to be a tesseract.  However, if you read a lot of those JLA stories, she was treated more like a cheerleader than an experienced heroine. I think that was also part of the transtition from Gardner Fox to Denny O'Neil to Crispus to Smalley to Addison street, so I just think the choker gimmicks--which I'm pretty sure were an invention of Fox's--were ignored.

        Every time that I try to explain Black Canary to a non-comic book reader, I bring up her judo skills and, without fail, they say "So what? If I know judo, then I can be a super-hero?"

    One word. Experience. Later, when it was shifted to her daughter, it was retconned that she was one of the pre-eminent martial artists in the DCU.

        Which leads to the question, "Why did the JLA induct her?" And yes I know it was because SUPERMAN insisted! And because WONDER WOMAN lost her powers and needed a female member. And Denny O'Neil liked her.

    Needed more females, O'Neil liked her because she fit better into the stories he wanted to write than Wonder Woman, take your pick.

        If they had to replace WW, story-wise BATGIRL or HAWKGIRL would have been just as good if not better. Heck if they gave Diana a sonic weapon, the "New" Wonder Woman could have stayed.

    Yes, but fishnets, you know?

        Combine that with the fact that the Girl Gladiator didn't do much and would either be the object of someone's affection (even BATMAN's!!), left behind to tend to the wounded or be part of some soap opera situation.

    Hmm...paging Mrs Richards....

        One problem was that Back Canary's Golden Age stories were reprinted in the 70s and the Canary there was a lot different than the one in the current comics. She lost a lot of her brashness and confidence. And she never had to be rescued! She was more effective in the JSA than the JLA!

    Yup. And wouldn't you say she gained some brashness?

        Wonder how she felt when Wonder Woman did return to the JLA?

    Maybe she should have asked the Atom, who was more useful to them at that time than she was.

        I'm not going to bring up the age difference (again!) but did anyone really buy her romance with GREEN ARROW? Points to her for falling for him AFTER he lost his fortune but Ollie was never the nurturing type (just ask SPEEDY!) and Dinah was still in grief mode. After awhile, were they just used to each other? And was marriage ever a possibility?

    I think Ollie was comfortable for her, and I don't think either of them really wanted to get married.

        And was she ever the warrior that she is now? Or was she the Girl? Or the Hostage? Sometimes it felt like Stan Lee was writing her!

    In the Golden Age, she was more useful than Larry Lance, but almost all of those stories had the exact same plot, so...

        And don't get me started on her B&B team-ups with Batman! Real sexist stuff there! Could her costume (corset, fishnets, heels) have caused the creators not to take her seriously?

    Haney.  That explaines it all.

  • From the old site, my review of Black Canary Archives:

    Or should I say, “Black Canary gets hit on the back of the head and then framed” Archives?

    The Golden Age stories (the majority of the book) is pretty formulaic.  There's a crime—usually a murder—and some crook tries to frame Black Canary and Larry Lance, who eventually manage to uncover the real crooks.  The famous Starman/Black Canary Silver Age team-ups are reprinted here as well, and there's a very nicely drawn Alex Toth story to finish off the volume.

    I'm not kidding about the “Black Canary” gets hit on the head thing.  It happens to her in almost every single story.  Philip Marlowe has nothing to complain about.

    A few other thoughts:

    * If you think Batman's utility belt holds a lot of gadgets, I think Black Canary's choker amulet has him beat.  I'm amazed she never pulled a sword out of that thing.
    * Yes, there is a story in which Black Canary and Larry Lance are saved from falling to their deaths by birds summoned by Black Canary.  Why not?  It was the Golden Age.
    * Strangely enough, Ollie was a step up in quality from Larry Lance—a major step up.
    * Speaking of Larry, it was nice to not see him try to figure out who Black Canary was.  It was also nice to see Dinah not act jealous of Black Canary.
    * There's also some young Carmine Infantino art here as well.  Sometimes it amazes me how long many of the greats in the field plied their trade.
    * Oh yeah, Black Canary isn't quite the martial artist in this volume as she has become.  She knew some judo, but she just as frequently relied on throwing heavy objects at criminals.

    All in all, it's an interesting historical read.  I wouldn't call it indispensable, but it is interesting.

  • 1936677937?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024Case in point: Her first solo adventure from Flash Comics #92.

    Maybe the wig doubles as a crash helmet!

  • Seriously, that was the plot of most of the stories. It was ridiculous.

    Philip Portelli said:

    1936677937?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024Case in point: Her first solo adventure from Flash Comics #92.

    Maybe the wig doubles as a crash helmet!

  • Wonder how she felt when Wonder Woman did return to the JLA?

    If she understood comics she may have thought she had to leave because two females are a crowd.

  • Andrew Horn suggested here that the Black Canary was modelled and named after Harvey's Black Cat, and I'm sure he was right.

  • "Which leads to the question, 'Why did the JLA induct her?' And yes I know it was because SUPERMAN insisted! And because WONDER WOMAN lost her powers and needed a female member. And Denny O'Neil liked her."

    First, Philip, thank you for not saying "which begs the question".  Second, the actual answer, as I'm sure you know, to all of your questions is because Denny O'Neil wanted characters in JLA that he was free to play with.  Most of the members had parent titles to which O'Neil was beholden.  But with Green Arrow's back-up series dropped three or four years earlier, O'Neil was free to push and prod the Emerald Crusader in any direction he wanted.  Ideally, he also needed a female who was equally unencumbered by her own series.  That meant that Wonder Woman was out, even though the non-powered-but-highly-trained Diana Prince would have been just as suitable as the Black Canary. O'Neil would have been constrained by whatever was taking place in the Wonder Woman title.

    So he arranged things so he could bring the Black Canary over to his Earth-One sandbox.

    Unfortunately, in order to do it, he had to warp the various characters completely out of their established personalities.  Much in the same way he gave Snapper Carr an attitude completely at odds with his established nature, in JLA # 77 (Dec., 1969).

    Let's start with Diana Prince's resignation from the JLA, in issue # 69 (Feb., 1969).  I'll admit there's a certain logic to it.  The loss of her super-powers would make Wonder Woman feel as impotent as a ordinary man would feel after losing an arm or leg.   But still, I'd like to think that W.W. had enough gumption to say, "If Batman and Green Arrow can be effective Justice League members without super-powers then, dammit, so can I, and I'd like to see them prove me wrong!"

    So, step one for O'Neil was to get Wonder Woman out the door.  Once that was accomplished, the next thing was to get the Black Canary in.  And as you pointed out, the rationale to do that is suspect. More than suspect; it nearly pushes logic out the door behind W.W.  

    I checked, and Denny O'Neil was only twenty-nine or thirty when he wrote JLA # 74 (Sep., 1969), the issue which saw the death of Larry Lance and B.C.'s move to Earth-One.  Clearly, at that young age, O'Neil had little experience with what people who suffer the death of a spouse undergo.  They don't run from their memories or try to forget their late spouses.  Just the opposite:  they cling to those memories. It's the loss of the loved one that's painful; the memories are comforting.  The idea that the Black Canary would say, "Take me away from everything I know and love because the memories hurt too much," is an example of the contrived psychology that comic-book writers in the 1970's were so fond of---like when they showed a regular character, under some sort of stress, suddenly start acting against type or in a wild fashion, and then lamely explaining it by insisting the character was "in shock".

    O.K., so now the Canary has transplanted herself to Earth-One, and what do we see in issue # 75? The Justice League debating whether or not she, lacking super-powers, deserves to be in the club. Oh, come on!  For one thing, she held her own in the Justice Society.  On top of that, all those cases with the JSA gave her as much experience as any member of the JLA had, and probably more.

    Besides the fact that raising the question of the Blonde Bombshell's suitability for the Justice League is internally illogical, it's also another instance of Denny O'Neil rewriting the personalities of characters just to fit his story.  The JLA has never had a problem with members who lacked super-powers.  The Batman was there from the start, and the group's first initiate was the non-powered Green Arrow.  And Adam Strange was twice nominated for membership.  O'Neil inserted some artificial drama for drama's sake.

    I never liked the Black Canary in the Justice League.  Oh, she was a perfectly fine character, and I enjoyed when she showed up with the Justice Society in the annual team-ups.  But her presence in the League was terribly contrived.

  • DC also had few active superheroines in the period outside the Legion of Super-Heroes. The Black Canary was one of the few from within the Schwartziverse. She had not had her own series recently, but she had in the Golden Age, and she'd appeared in those two Starman team-ups as well as with the revived JSA. 


    The complete list of DC superheroines I can think of from the period (other than LSHers) is as follows:

    Supergirl

    Batgirl

    Hawkgirl

    Element Girl (Metamorpho had been cancelled, but she might have fitted in)

    Zatanna

    Mera

    the Earth Two Wonder Woman (I wonder if they considered this)

    the Enchantress (her series had not lasted)

    Batwoman (dropped from the Bat-books when the New Look started)

    (Elasti-Girl and the rest of the Doom Patrol were already deceased)

    (Morgana the Witch debuted in Wonder Woman #186 two months after Black Canary joined the JLA and was initially an antagonist)

    Wonder Girl

    Aquagirl

    (Lilith debuted two months after Black Canary joined the JLA)

    DCs other heroines of the period weren't really superheroines: Wonder Woman (she still had her own title but no longer wore a costume), Lady Blackhawk (Blackhawk had been cancelled), Lois Lane, Corinna Stark etc.

    -I initially wrote that the Black Canary was the only superheroine from within the Schwartziverse other than Katma Tui, but I forgot Batgirl, Hawkgirl and Zatanna.

  • The main point of the Black Canary not being admitted into the JLA was Hawkman's belief that somehow her battles on Earth-Two with the Justice Society were not as "great" as the menaces the League fought, which is absurd given any thought. Personally I think the Feathered Fury was always a bit miffed that Hawkgirl was never asked to join and wanted her to replace Wonder Woman.

    Granted that Dinah suffered a severe trauma and thought that moving to Earth-One was a good idea but I was always puzzled that the JSA made no effort to convince her otherwise, not even the E-2 Wonder Woman offering her a stay on Paradise Island to heal. I think that they felt guilty over Larry Lance's death. Had they not allowed to fight against Aquarius, he would still be alive. Dinah suddenly leaving relieved of them of the regret and hurt that they would feel every time they saw her.

    Also going to Earth-One didn't help Dinah forget Larry. According to my notes, the memory of Larry Lance were major parts of:

    • Brave & Bold #91 (S'70) where she was romanced by the EARTH-ONE Larry with tragic results.
    • World's Finest #250 (My'78) where she decides that she never really mourned him and wanted to return to E-2.
    • DC Comics Presents #30 (F'81) where she believes that Larry is trapped between dimensions. He wasn't.


  • Commander Benson said:

    But with Green Arrow's back-up series dropped three or four years earlier, O'Neil was free to push and prod the Emerald Crusader in any direction he wanted. 

    Late-entry erratum:

    That, of course, should have been "Emerald Archer", not "Emerald Crusader".

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