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

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

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'.

Comments

[scottyquick.insanejournal.com]

Yargh. I like how natural their get-together, relationship and breakup were.

But then they had to bring them back for no frigging reason >_>

[chengar.insanejournal.com]

Organic character development is such a wonderful thing, but the Comics industry is way too fond of Status Quo is God and/or nostalgia for what comics were like "back in the day" to take proper advantage of it when it happens. It's terrible to see Dinah (or lots of other characters for that matter) get wonderful writing that allows them to grow and develop into substantially awesome characters, then see all that growth tossed out the window because the writer doesn't care enough to properly write the character or an editor wants to change everything around to be the he wants the comic to be.

[amazingman.insanejournal.com]

My personal favorite is always the Human Torch. Every single writer on Fantastic Four starts out with him as an immature jackass, slowly builds his character and ends their run with him as a responsible, caring human being. Only for him to be back to being an immature jackass the next issue when another writer takes over.

It's mind boggling just how many times it's happened to the character over the years. Like there's a constant edict in the Marvel offices carved into a large rock or something. "Thou Shalt Hate The Spider-Man Marriage. Thou Shalt Never Allow The Human Torch To Mature. Thou Shalt Not Give Cyclops a Personality." etc.

Don't get me wrong, DC's almost as bad. It's the sheer consistency that puts Marvel ahead. So to speak.