Black Canary and Batman

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Leaving out a lot here, including the part where she finally loses it.




Guess which man?

And then she steals everybody's money and feeds one of the most obnoxious guys his wedding ring.

(Above from issue #3)
So Black Canary and Batman parallel each other in a lot of ways their, as Batman says, "Ruthlessness." Also, he just fed a mugger his own teeth.










(Above from #6)



(# 7)
These issues are collected in All-Star Batman and Robin, Vol 1.

Comments

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

How was it great? Why would Dinah hook up with Ra's?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

She didn't know it was him. He was very suave. And then she wouldn't believe Babs when she tried to tell her, mostly because she was being pissed off and belligerent with Babs for spying on her personal life in the first place.

Of course when he tried to dump her in a Lazarus Pit she came around, but the shit had already sort of hit the fan at that point.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Well, huh. I'm glad he was suave, but isn't Dinah a doofus for falling for Ra's al Ghul?

[bluefall.insanejournal.com]

Very much so. But then, she was at a very low and vulnerable point in her life, and Ra's has had, as Babs put it, centuries to work on his pick-up techniques. Also, as jarodrussell mentioned, incredibly bad taste in men is something of a defining trait of hers.

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

Dinah needs to get herself a nice, loving super-villain. Someone eternally devoted to her, which can be seen by Black Canary shrine in his secret lair; someone who would never hurt her, which is obvious because she always gets out of his death traps; and mostly, someone she can be herself around without reprisals, which he is obviously okay with because of all the times she's punched him out, knocked him around, and foiled his plots...he's always come back. If Batman can have Catwoman, I don't see why Black Canary can't have a Doctor Developer villain of her own.

[xlineartx.insanejournal.com]

Dinah/Ollie can be really frickin' good when it's written properly. WHEN IT'S WRITTEN PROPERLY, which I'm not sure if anyone outside of Gail or Kevin Smith has managed to do. There's this element of she's better than him and he knows it--she's the founding JLA member, top-ranked martial artist metahuman and while he may be a genius with the bow and arrow, he knows he barely even comes close. I don't like how they've had him fuck around on her, but even still he considers himself lucky to have her love and respect. And she does love and respect him, because he's charming and cocksure and intelligent and interesting. They have a lot of fun together. Dinah has a soft spot for people who are genuinely trying, and Ollie is. At least, he's supposed to be. KREEEISBERG!

I do agree that Dinah needs rogues, though.

[jarodrussell.insanejournal.com]

Dinah has a soft spot for people who are genuinely trying, and Ollie is.

But he always seems to overshadow her, despite being far inferior to her. I've seen Grell, Winick, Bedard, and Kreisberg do it. For some reason, Dinah pulls her punches when it comes to Ollie, and I think it's for the reason you mention. It's because of her soft spot, because he's trying, that she enters some kind of passive stance, even when he's edging toward the deep end. If she had a super-villain as a boyfriend, whose trying to be good cave with the caveat that he could easily slip back to villainy, she wouldn't pull her punches (metaphorically and when slapping his arm).

I know there are a bunch of BC/GA shippers, but as a Black Canary stalker (not so much a fan these days as I am obsessed and working on my own closet shrine), I reject any potential for future BC/GA stories. She's out grown him in so many ways it's not funny. So, I want her to date a Prometheus-level, Riddler-like super-villain. Her own arch-nemesis who's so hopelessly smitten with her, that his crimes are thinly veiled excuses to chat her up before she escapes from dire peril. Someone who gets his butt handed top him when he tries to keep some other villain away from her, so she has to end up saving him.

I stand by my statement. If Black Canary is supposed to be on the same level as Batman, then she deserves her own Catwoman. (And that's NOT a Catman joke.)

[xlineartx.insanejournal.com]

Meh. A lot of writers really get the dynamic wrong. Don't even get me started on Kreisberg. They also really don't get Ollie, and focus on the wrong part of his personality or misinterpret his feelings for Dinah. I really think the solution here is separate titles, so she can get her own stories told.

I think Bat/Cat works because Selina isn't a supervillain so much as an antihero, and she's very much her own person whith her own agenda that happens to include a relationship (of sorts) with Bruce. I don't really like the idea of a stalker boyfriend--a stalker villain could be interesting, or at the vary least played for laughs in a twisted kind of way. I think she functions best with someone just as independent as she is, where she still gets a chance to be the responsible partner but not a stand-in mom. I totally think there need to be more non-hero love interests for female superheroes, and I definitely think the Dinah/Ollie relationship needs work, but I wouldn't break them up.