Superhero Origins: Black Canary
Script written by Craig Butler
Superhero Origins: Black Canary
When this bird sings she can bring down the house. Welcome to WatchMojo.com and today we will explore the comic book origin of BlackCanary.
As with most comic book characters, there are often re-imaginations and different versions to a character’s past. We have chosen primarily to follow the storyline which unfolded in 1983’s Justice League of America #219 and 220 which was expanded upon in 1990’s Secret Origins #50, 2012’s Birds of Prey #0 and in 2013’s Birds of Prey #25.
When the mysterious Black Canary debuted in 1947, she didn’t have an origin. In her first appearance, she seemed to be a criminal, tricking the bumbling hero Johnny Thunder into helping her steal from other criminals. Soon, however, she was revealed to be on the side of good, despite her… bad girl outfit. In her secret identity as Dinah Drake, she ran a flower shop. As Black Canary, she fought bad guys, often with the assistance of private eye Larry Lance, whom she eventually married.
Black Canary was originally from the alternate DC Comics world known as Earth-2. When her husband, Larry Lance, was killed fighting a villain named Aquarius, she moved to Earth 1 to start a new life. On Earth 1, she soon developed a romantic relationship with the hero Green Arrow. She also developed the power to produce a high-pitched sonic siren called the “CanaryCry.” Added to her already-formidable martial arts skills, this made her even more dangerous.
A 1983 Justice League adventure gave readers the chance to delve into theCanary’s origin. In this story, Starman took Black Canary to a strange world called the Thunderbolt dimension. While there she received quite a shock. She came upon a coffin that contained what appeared to be the corpses of both Larry Lance and herself.
More surprises awaited her. It was revealed that Dinah and Larry had given birth to a daughter who was cursed by an evil Magician. When she opened her mouth, an ear-piercing sonic wail was produced. The baby was brought to the Thunderbolt dimension and the magical Thunderbolt creature who lived there altered Dinah and Larry’s memories so that they believed their daughter had died.
But that wasn’t all. When Dinah decided to move to Earth 1, Superman discovered she was dying from radiation absorbed while battling Aquarius. Superman brought her to the Thunderbolt dimension, where the Thunderbolt transferred her memories into the body of her now-grown daughter.
This over-complicated origin became even more problematic after the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline did away with the whole concept of Earth 1 and Earth 2. That’s why, in 1990, the Canary’s origin was revised. In this re-telling, Dinah Drake was the daughter of a police detective. She was raised with the intention of joining the police force. Unfortunately, in the 1940s, women were not routinely admitted into the police and she was rejected. This inspired her to become the costumed Black Canary, eventually teaming up with and marrying her father’s partner, Larry Lance.
Their daughter, Dinah Laurel Lance, was visited frequently by Dinah’s super-powered pals in the Justice Society. She longed to become a crimefighter herself, but her mother forbade it. The younger Dinah persisted, eventually getting her way and becoming the new Black Canary. She also developed the now-familiar Canary Cry. It was apparently a side effect of radiation from her mother’s Justice Society colleagues.
When DC rebooted its entire line in 2011, Black Canary got a major overhaul. Now Dinah Drake was a street orphan who was taken under the wing of a martial arts master and taught everything he knew. As an adult, she found herself in the middle of a battle between government forces and a mysterious evil organization. Impressed by her ability, the government drafted her to become a special agent for them. In that capacity, she met her future husband, Kurt Lance. She also discovered that she possessed a special metagene, which eventually expressed itself in the form of – you guessed it – her CanaryCry.
Black Canary’s origin may have been hard to follow at times, but this hasn’t stopped the character from taking her place in the pantheon of DC’s finest characters. She’s got steely determination, fierce fighting ability, and tactical and strategic expertise. That’s a winning combination for the heroes and a losing one for the villains.
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