DC Sneak Peek: Black Canary

[informationgeek]

Comic Book Resources: How much does the music aspect play a role -- is it a major component, or more in the background?

Fletcher: It informs the situation, but the situation, of course, involves a woman who is ex-military, and potentially the best martial artist on the planet. Trouble kind of follows her around. While they're trying to go on this tour, while they're trying to make the most of this unique opportunity that they've been given to have a record deal, and play all these shows, really they just end up in fights all the time, and people end up hurt. That's maybe a problem. It fuels the story.

Wu: What I have in mind, stylistically, music plays a big part in that. I look at a lot of gig posters and music videos; the theatrical aspect of being on stage, all that fun stuff. Hopefully our final product will have that feeling of a rock tour. Halftones and bold colors. That, plus, al the kung fu action and all that kind of stuff. Hopefully it'll be a really fun, vibrant, energetic final product.

Writer: Brenden Fletcher
Artist: Annie Wu

Comments

[mrstatham]

I'm down for this. It's blatantly obvious that Batgirl's revamp has basically inspired DC to wipe the slate clean for some characters, and Dinah is one of them who desperately needed it. From day one she got saddled with such a mess of a backstory involving her husband, Waller, and Team 7 that it was just.. Ugh. This, I can get behind.

Now I'm just hoping they bring Starling back, after they completely fucked her over for a cheap twist.

[informationgeek]

Yeah, Black Canary is a character who definitely needed a change after editoral really did nothing but screw the character over.

Also, I agree. Starling needs to come back retcon that mess. She was a lot of fun and this would be a good place to bring her back.

[jlbarnett]

what happened to Starling? I dropped BOP very early in the new 52. Mostly because I pretty much hated Starling and felt confident she's be revealed to actually be evil at some point.

[mrstatham]

She was revealed to be a double agent who was working for Waller, I think - probably just to keep tabs on Canary... And then for whatever reason she turned out to be in league with Mr Freeze.

Each to their own. I thought the New52 totally needed more characters like her, especially given the old Huntress/Canary/Oracle setup had been cast-off.

[darkknightjrk]

I thought the backstory itself wasn't bad or that complicated--an elite soldier who got superpowers while in service and broke out due to the death of her husband. It was Christy Marx who complicated things and made it dull with her lackluster Birds of Prey run.

[mrstatham]

Given what we know of DC's editorial processes, though, how much of Marx's run was editorially mandated, just like the removal of a bunch of key members of the team? Ivy, Starling, Katana, all of them gone. DC were weirdly hands-on with that book.

[stubbleupdate]

Annie Wu. Aha

[jlbarnett]

I've got to say, this concept sounds terrible to me.

"She's ex-military!"

"She's the world's best martial artist!"

"She's in a band!"

These are not three great tastes that go great together.

[silverhammerman]

I do wonder how much Black Canary's New 52 backstory with Team 7 is actually gonna come up, or whether the new series is going to make a more or less clean break. I mean sure the creators mentioned it in an interview, but it's not like they can just say "DC fucked up and that stuff was awful, so we're gonna ignore it." so maybe that was just them toeing the company line for PR's sake.

[jlbarnett]

I don't think the new stuff will help either. I don't think of a love or music or a desire for celebrity when I think of Black Canary

[darkknightjrk]

Jimi Hendrix was in Vietnam, and you can't say that man didn't ROCK.

[lieut_kettch]

Actually, he was honorably discharged before he could see combat. He did finish Jump School though.

[darkknightjrk]

My bad. I seem to remember hearing a story of him being injured and using the guitar to help recuperate, but I'm probably massively misremembering it.

[reveen]

Did the writer make up lyrics for the comic? They better be as hardcore as the bands image tells me they are.

[ablackraptor]

Kinda disappointed they didn't retcon the whole 'this is Dinah Drake' thing from the older stuff; Dinah Lance as Black Canary, with her mom being a retired hero, was one of the more interesting aspects of the character.

Still, this looks fun, and I did laugh at the big scary dude's reason for being angry and the 'guitar strike up several stories' thing.

[lordultimus]

When I think of Black Canary as a musician, I think of that humor What If where Black Bolt is a rock star, gets on stage, opens with "I CAN'T GET NO-", and completely destroys the stadium.

[freezer]

I can't help but think "They turned her into Dazzler." Haven't decided if that's a good or bad thing.

[tigerkaya]

Reminds me of Scott Pilgrim.

[penguinzero]

Hm. I notice that they conspicuously avoided using pronouns for 'Alex' through this part. It's subtle for the most part, but there's one line ('What if II just call Alex and--") where 'call him' (or 'call her' for that matter) would've been more natural. Signs that they're using the relaunch to try to expand DC's stable of not-necessarily-straight characters?

[panelsarewindows]

Something I do really like about this is, even though it's kinda done as a joke, how Dinah actually tries to SOLVE the problems these people have, rather than just straight violence. I know she has to resort to violence, but she tries to get money and make it up with 'Alex', instead of acting disinterested or not listening.
I like it when Superheroes actually act like heroes, not people who only beat people up.

[ronwar]

When did Black Canary become the world's best martial artist?

[silverhammerman]

It's been one of her gimmicks for a while now, so my guess would be that it first showed up sometime in the Birds of Prey era, around the early 2000's.

[ronwar]

But Batma, Shiva, Deathstroke and a bunch of others have been better for years. I figured it was relatively new.

[kenn_el]

Technically, the DCU (or this part of it) is relatively new, so your standings are probably not in keeping with the new status quo. That said, even Silver-Age Dinah was referred to as "Mistress of the Martial Arts".

[silverhammerman]

10 years is fairly recent in terms of comics history, though really the martial artist angle is just getting back to the character's Golden Age roots. I don't know if Black Canary's gotten the same kind of push in the New 52 as Batman or Deathstroke (though I doubt that she has) so it could be that her prowess has been downplayed in the last couple years.

[capnduckman]

Hmm... a bunch of norse mythology dropped in... Ygradsallys or however it's spelled, Munin was one of Odins ravens... Also, totes reminds me of scott pilgrim.

Dinah, no

[philippos42]

This is hilarious, but I miss the wandering detective/paladin that Dinah was in my youth.

Still, points to DC for doing something so very different from their traditional stuff, and so blatantly Scott Pilgrim.