scans_daily | Because nobody asked for it! Dinah in the Grell Years!

So! Dinah. Anyone remember her? Short black hair, goes by "Black Canary", sometimes has fishnets? Pretty cool lady, if I do say so myself. Shame she's been in limbo for such a while.

Post-Crisis, Dinah was a standard Justice League member for a short while. After about 10 issues, Mike Grell decided to snag her for his revamp of Green Arrow, which was very, VERY street-level. No trick arrows, no mask, and absolutely no superpowers. When Hal Jordan showed up, he was without his ring. When Arsenal showed up, nothing Titans-related was mentioned. So Dinah went from hunting galaxy-eaters and other Justice League threats to fighting murderers and thieves. They set up home in Seattle, because there's a man there killing people and not getting caught.

The scans with the absolutely INCREDIBLE art :

a) Aren't mine, because I'm not bending my copy of The Longbow Hunters if I don't have to
b) Are from a Prestige Format Miniseries, so don't worry, I'm not going over the limit.

Dinah!Butt, for all of you watching carefully.

Oh my God. That second last panel. Grell and Lacquement are hitting home runs through all of the mini, artwise.

D'awww, Dinah ~~sideboob~~ explaining sensibility and logic to Ollie!

However, it doesn't all go well. While tracking down the murderer, Dinah leaves Ollie for a couple of days, but she gets caught (and apparently couldn't use her Cry to save herself), and is extensively tortured.

That mysterious lady is awesome, and her name is Shado. She's one of my favorite things from the Grell run.

(don't worry, she lives)

One thing I like about the Grell run is that this isn't a one-time thing. He really shows Dinah living with the trauma one would have from this, and over-coming it.

This is something I like about Dinah. Whereas Ollie is too much of an arrogant ass to admit when he needs help, Dinah isn't. So they go off and visit a therapist, who (or would that be whom?) Dinah hopes can help her.

Argh no! Not a fan of that coy talk at the end there, nor Dinah feeling guilty.

Anyway, it turns out their therapist has some issues herself. She was kidnapped and tortured when she was young, and her assailant has been released.

I think that's Grell speaking with frustration there. Anyway, after this, Ollie gets her kidnapper sent to jail after she tries to kill him and he tries to kill her, she starts to reach out to them, aaaaaaand we never see her again.

Now, here's Dinah being awesome.

Heh. Badass Dinah is badass.

This lad here is an employee of Dinah's at Sherwood.

(Ollie the big man rescues him, of course. After dressing up as a gay leatherman, coming out of a gay club)

So now Dinah decides to go investigate the people who've been stalking her for a while! These next few scans are by Sharon Wright, who I think wrote Dinah's section in Action Comics Weekly.

The writing's not terribly clear here, and the art certainly doesn't help, but she lost track of them and got her car stolen. Nice going.

Also, because I really like it, have some Dinah/Ollie attacking some people at a bar.

And let's end with some adorable Ollie/Dinah having a rare moment of pure fun and joy together.

(you'll note I cut the page in two. That's because Grell had the stereotypical hooker-as-victim on the other half)

What do y'all think?

I could probably make another post with Dinah if you guys are interested, showing her going back into action as the Black Canary and breaking up with Ollie and killing other people and dating other people and the origin of the title 'Birds of Prey'.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gratuitous female victimization or the triumph of a woman's will over trauma and tragedy?

As a fan of the whole "damsel in distress" thing, I like to think it's possible to have a very sexy cake and eat it too. The trick is to treat the heroine the same way you treat the hero. Personally, I dislike seeing Dinah beaten to a bloody pulp (strung up, yes; beaten, no), but if you're going to put her in that kind of scene, don't take her out of the game for any longer than you'd take Batman or Green Arrow out of the game. To me...and my male-priviledged-self...the victimization isn't getting caught or beaten up, it's how the hero deals with it afterward.

Is Dinah treated in the same way a male hero would be, though? She overcomes the trauma and is stronger for that afterwards, but the whole scene with her dangling from a pole in a heavily sexualised setting and subsequently having a male hero carry her out in his big, manly arms -- this still reads as pointless victimisation to me, especially since I can't really see any reason why Dinah ended up in the situation in the first place. Those flannel-clad, middle-aged evil wrongdoers don't look particularly threatening in the face of Dinah's fighting skills.

Is Dinah treated in the same way a male hero would be, though?

No, and that was my point. Neither this Grell scene nor the BOP scene mentioned below have Black Canary escaping her bonds and laying the smack down on her captors and being ready to do the same thing the next day like a Batman story would have him. In both cases we see one hero whose skill set puts her on par with another hero, but in both cases we see her in a far less independently capable state.

At the risk of spoiling the next issue of Power Girl, as many gripes as I have about the book, the fact that the previews I've seen seem to indicate that Peej will be using her smarts and powers to escape U-H's deathtrap have me doing something I haven't done in three or four years: excitedly looking forward to reading a DC book.

In BoP, during Simone's run, BC is kidnapped and has her larynx and bother her legs broken so she can't escape. But she does, in an awesomely badass fashion, helped in part by the Huntress. No need for a princess carry there. And then later, while she's recovering in a wheelchair, she takes out about a half-a-dozen gangsters with her escrima sticks, Babs-style. For me at least, that's much sexier than seeing her half-naked, cut up and child-like.

The best thing about that story? Dinah, sprawled on the floor because of her aforementioned broken legs and STILL saying that she'll take them down.

I had two problems with that scene:

1. She didn't take Savant and Creote down, the guy whose family was being held hostage knocked Creote out with a candelabra and Savant has a nervous breakdown. If she had managed to K.O. the two of them without the help of Huntress or the guy whose family Savant was holding hostage, it would have been much more enjoyable.

2. Part of her escape was facilitated by the guy whose family Savant was holding hostage. He was the one who slipped her the communicator so Oracle would know where to send Huntress, then he saved his family, and then he went back to do the candelabra thing.

To each their own, but I've never been satisfied with that escape because, without the intervention of Huntress or a bystander, Canary didn't escape or beat anyone. Atop that, I feel confident in saying, if it'd been Batman whose legs were broken, he wouldn't have spent the next two issues in a wheelchair.

I thought those things made her escape all the more realistic. The salient fact for me is not that the heroine manages to escape all on her own (it provides a nice commentary that sometimes even superheroes need outside help and a bit of dumb luck to get by) but that she is not a passive onlooker in her own rescue. Dinah gave as good as she got all the way.

Dude, she spent two issues in a wheelchair. Realistically, people need to recover from having their legs broken, not being superhuman or anything. And she still managed to kick ass. Personally, human failings and frailities are things I love to see in superheroes, because it's how they overcome them that make them heroic.

Atop that, I feel confident in saying, if it'd been Batman whose legs were broken, he wouldn't have spent the next two issues in a wheelchair.
Um, Knightfall?

I thought those things made her escape all the more realistic.

This is probably where we part ways in opinion. I'm not into comic books for the realistic aspects of human frailty. If you enjoyed the scene, bully for you. To each their own. :)

Because nobody asked for it! Dinah in the Grell Years!

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