Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "black-canary"

The Black Canary Archives, Vol. 1 by Gardner F. Fox

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book traces the stories of the Black Canary, one of DC's longest standing superheroines from her first appearance in Flash Comics #86 in 1947 as a supporting character in the Johnny Thunder series through her through her getting her own ongoing feature in Flash Comics and her re-emergence in the Silver and Bronze Ages of comics.

Overall, I have to say the book was not all that impressive. It practically screams, "Lesser collection" from its all two brief 2/3 of a page intro to the end, it's clear that Black Canary is strictly a B-list superheroine.

This isn't to say the book isn't fun. It was interesting to see her rise from the serious character in a comedy strip to the star of her own crime strip. Along the way, her exact "powers" varied. After her appearance in the mystical Johnny Thunder series, she was able to summon a herd of Black Canaries-a power that was used again. Mostly, she was a tough two fisted Judo artist in shorts and fishnet stockings who fought crime. Most of her standalone stories are almost exactly the same: Mystery arises, she changes into the Black Canary to help out detective Larry Lance, the two are caught in an improbable death trap, they escape, catch the bad guys, and Black Canary makes a subtle sarcastic remark in her true identity as Diana Drake. The formula was necessitated by each story having to be 6-7 pages long. The best one in the book was 10 pages long.

70% through, The book also features her return in D.C.'s Team Up magazine Brave and the Bold with Starman, another B character from the golden age. They appeared in back to back issues. Why exactly these two were paired, I don't know. They worked okay together and their adventures were fun.

Finally, we get a two party story from 1971 written by Dennis O'Neil. The story was reminiscent of many of the Batgirl stories he did about the same time in Detective Comics and features the only well-known super villain to make an appearance.

Overall, Black Canary's stories weren't the best and as a character she was far from the best non-super powered crimefighter in the Golden Age of comics. Both Phantom Lady and Lady Luck were far better though their having originally appeared in Quality Comics, we don't hear much about them. However, Black Canary's adventures are good for what they are: fun and strictly formulaic stories with a female protagonist.



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Birds of Prey (1999-2009) Vol. 1 by Chuck Dixon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Surpisingly good. Many comic fans talk about Gail Simone as the first and last word for the Birds of Prey, but these stories: One-shots, a mini-series, oversized graphic novel length books, are actually quite good.

Most of the stories are focused on Barbara Gordon as Oracle teaming up and providing support for the Black Canary, who was dealing with teh death of teh Green Arrow and finding herself. The stories have good action, decent mysteries, and really more than a few surprises. There's an interesting dynamic and relationship between Black Canary and Oracle, even though Oracle knows who Black Canary is but not vice versa.

The weakest story in here is the mini-series in which Black Canary teams up with Huntress and Catwoman and even that's not bad, although the idea that this adventure primarily caused by a man standing them up and the villains are bit unengaging. Still, it's a decent mini-series.

Overall, there's a lot of really rubbish comics from this era. This isn't one of them. It's intriguing, it lays the groundwork for things to come and it's well-worth reading.



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