Black Canary

Black Canary
The New 52 iteration of the Black Canary, Dinah Drake Lance, derived character art from the cover of Black Canary #4 (September 2015). Art by Evan Shaner.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Flash Comics #86 (August 1947)
Created by	Robert Kanigher Carmine Infantino
In-story information
Alter ego	Dinah Drake Dinah Drake-Lance Dinah Laurel Lance
Species	Metahuman
Team affiliations	Dinah Drake: Justice Society of America Dinah Laurel Lance: Justice League Justice League International Justice League Task Force Birds of Prey Dinah Drake-Lance: Justice League Justice League of America II Justice Foundation Team 7 T.R.U.S.T
Partnerships	Johnny Thunder Larry Lance Starman (Ted Knight) Green Arrow Barbara Gordon Huntress Deathstroke
Notable aliases	Siu Jerk Jai Operative Canary D.D.
Abilities	Master martial artist and unarmed combatant Sonic scream

The Black Canary is the name of two superheroines appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics: Dinah Drake and her daughter Dinah Laurel Lance. The original version was created by the writer-artist team of Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino, the character debuted in Flash Comics #86 (August 1947).

One of DC's earliest superheroines, the title Black Canary has appeared in many of the company's flagship team-up titles, including Justice Society of America and Justice League of America. Since the late 1960s, the character has been paired with archer superhero the Green Arrow, both professionally and romantically. As well as featuring in many Green Arrow stories, she is closely associated with the Batman family of characters, and specifically Barbara Gordon, her best friend, with whom she leads the superhero team Birds of Prey.

The Black Canary has been adapted into various media. In Birds of Prey television series she was played by Rachel Skarsten and Lori Loughlin, and in Smallville she was played by Alaina Huffman. In Arrow and other Arrowverse shows the characters Dinah Laurel Lance, Sara Lance and Dinah Drake are portrayed by Katie Cassidy, Caity Lotz and Juliana Harkavy respectively. Dinah Lance made her cinematic debut in the 2020 DC Extended Universe Birds of Prey film, portrayed by Jurnee Smollett.

Publication history

Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino created the character in 1947 to be featured in Flash Comics as a supporting character. Appearing first as a clandestine crime-fighter who infiltrates criminal organizations to break them from the inside, the Black Canary was drawn with fishnet stockings and a black leather jacket to connote images of a sexualized yet strong female character. She appeared as a character in a back-up story featuring "Johnny Thunder":

I was drawing Johnny Thunder, which was not much of a character. I suppose he could have been better because his 'Thunderbolt' was interesting, but the situations they were in were pretty juvenile. Bob Kanigher wrote those stories, and he had no respect for the characters. These stories were nowhere near as good as 'The Flash' stories. DC knew it—they knew 'Johnny Thunder' was a loser, so Kanigher and I brought the Black Canary into the series. Immediately she got a good response, and it was, 'Bye, bye, Johnny Thunder.' Nobody missed him.

— Carmine Infantino

According to Amash and Nolen-Weathington (2010), Black Canary is "really" Carmine Infantino's "first character". According to the artist:

When Kanigher gave me the script, I said, 'How do you want me to draw her?' He said, 'What's your fantasy of a good-looking girl? That's what I want.' Isn't that a great line? So that's what I did. I made her strong in character and sexy in form. The funny part is that years later, while in Korea on a National Cartoonists trip, I met a dancer who was the exact image of the Black Canary. And I went out with her for three years.

Bob didn't ask me for a character sketch [for the Black Canary]. He had a lot of respect for me, I must say that. He always trusted my work... Bob loved my Black Canary design.

Dinah Drake

At her Golden Age debut, the Black Canary was the alter ego of Dinah Drake and participated in crime-fighting adventures with her love interest (and eventual husband), Gotham City detective Larry Lance. Initially, the character was a hand-to-hand fighter without superpowers who often posed as a criminal to infiltrate criminal gangs. Later stories depicted her as a world-class martial artist with a superpower: the "canary cry", a high-powered sonic scream which could shatter objects and incapacitate and even kill powerful foes. When DC Comics adjusted its continuity, the Black Canary was established as two separate entities: mother and daughter, Dinah Drake-Lance and Dinah Laurel Lance. Stories since the Silver Age focused on the younger Black Canary, ascribing her superhuman abilities to a genetic mutation.

Dinah Laurel Lance

Following the universe-altering events of Crisis on Infinite Earths (concluding in March 1986), the Black Canary's history was revised again. The mind-transplant story of 1983 was discarded; in this version of the story, the present-day Black Canary is Dinah Laurel Lance, who inherits the identity from her mother, Dinah Drake-Lance. Although some references (for example, those in James Robinson's Starman series) tried to distinguish between the two Canaries by calling the first "Diana", recent accounts have confirmed Dinah as the mother's given name.

The two Canaries' origin stories were told in full in Secret Origins (vol. 2) #50 (August 1990). In this story, Dinah Drake is trained by her father, detective Richard Drake, intending to follow him on the Gotham City police force. When she is turned down, her disillusioned father dies shortly afterwards. Determined to honor his memory, Dinah fights crime and corruption by any possible means. She becomes a costumed vigilante, using her inheritance to open a flower shop as her day job. Dinah marries her lover, private eye Larry Lance, and several years later their daughter, Dinah Laurel Lance, is born (Birds of Prey #66 (June 2004) would establish that they took the name "Laurel" from a librarian Dinah befriended during a case).

The New 52 version and beyond

During DC's The New 52 era which began in 2011, Black Canary was portrayed as a single character with a metahuman Canary Cry resulting from government experiments on an alien child named Ditto. This version of Black Canary founded the Birds of Prey on her own, and led the super-team Team 7 alongside her husband Kurt Lance, before later becoming lead singer in a rock band called Black Canary. After five years, DC later began to row back on controversial New 52 continuity changes with its DC Rebirth initiative, with the narrator of Geoff Johns' DC Rebirth #1, Wally West, lamenting, from outside the universe, on how Black Canary and Green Arrow hardly know each other anymore, when they should be husband and wife, as a result of sinister alterations to the timeline. The comic shows the pair briefly meeting, by chance, and then separately staying up at night, contemplating what is missing from their lives. They meet again in Green Arrow Rebirth #1, and instantly hit it off. As part of Rebirth, Black Canary also re-establishes the traditional Birds of Prey line up with Batgirl and Huntress, and also joins the Justice League of America.

Following subsequent continuity-restoring events in Doomsday Clock and Dark Nights: Death Metal, the current Black Canary is re-established as being the daughter of her Golden Age predecessor, fully reversing the controversial New 52 changes and bringing an end to the distinctive New 52 version of the character. The largely erased New 52 versions of the DC heroes were established as residing on Earth-52 in the comic book miniseries Doomsday Clock.

Powers, abilities and equipment

Although depictions of the Black Canary have varied over the years, the character is often portrayed as a prodigious hand-to-hand combatant, having mastered styles such as Aikido,Boxing, Capoeira, Hapkido, Judo,Jujutsu, Kung Fu, Krav Maga, Muay Thai, Shuri-te, and Wing Chun. She has been trained by other top-tier fighters, such as Wildcat, Lady Shiva, Cassandra Cain, and Wonder Woman, as well as having bested Batman from time to time in hand-to-hand combat. In addition to her martial arts skills, the Black Canary has been depicted as an expert motorcyclist, gymnast, covert operative and investigator. She is also an excellent leader and tactician, having served as the field commander of the Birds of Prey and the leader of the Justice League and League of Assassins for a time.

Her superpower, the canary cry, allows her to create ultrasonic vibrations whenever she screams, allowing her to severely damage both organic and inorganic objects. Her canary cry has been depicted as having 10-fold the capabilities of most sonic weapons and has even been depicted as breaking metals and having the resonance to affect and shatter Earth. In The New 52, her canary cry now grants her the ability to glide and propel herself across long distances by screaming downwards. Due to this reliance on speech, she is often bound and gagged by villains as a means of incapacitation. Despite her power, the Black Canary often relies on her martial arts skills instead, preferring to use her canary cry only during urgent situations, such as against superpowered opponents.

The origin of the Black Canary's canary cry has been retconned throughout her character history, with it being originally depicted as magical in origin due to being cursed by the Wizard. Later, the cry is depicted as an inborn metahuman ability. Briefly, during The New 52 era, her ability was depicted as resulting from gene-splicing experiments using samples from an alien girl named Ditto.

Reception

The Black Canary is ranked the 71st-greatest comic book character of all time by Wizard, and IGN rated her its 81st-greatest all-time comic book hero. She was number 26 on Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list.

In other media

The Black Canary has appeared in several adaptations of DC properties based on the comic books.

Music

In 2016, DC Comics released a three-track musical album called EP 1 to promote the comic book, in which the Black Canary becomes the lead singer of a band that shares her name. Caveboy lead singer Michelle Bensimon provided Dinah's singing voice. A follow-up three-track album called EP 2 followed in August 2017.

See also

• Black Canary (comic book)
• Woman warrior