Preferred Origin For Black Canary?

[Tzigone]

I'm very much in the minority, but I hate the legacy and many things it introduced (her junior status to other golden age heroes that survived/progressed forward, her way younger than Ollie, etc.). Give me early bronze age widow of a detective.

Heck, I don't even like the JSA in the mainstream universe for reasons that aren't really directly relevant here - not liking that is part cause of me not liking legacy Dinah, but far from the only or strongest reason. I also don't like legacies in general.

[MajorHoy]

The mother-daughter origin any day. Though I think at this point it might make more sense for it to be a multi-generational legacy, with the current Dinah being the granddaughter or even great-granddaughter of the original.

Still thinking making Golden Age Dinah the "aunt" of modern-day Dinah may offer more flexibility. While an aunt is typically the sister or sister-in-law of one of somebody's biological parents, it can also be extended out a few generations in terms of general reference. (I always called my father's aunt my "aunt" as well, not my "great-aunt" or "grand-aunt".) And it's not like men don't ever marry women who are decades younger than they are.

[CaptCleghorn]

Still thinking making Golden Age Dinah the "aunt" of modern-day Dinah may offer more flexibility. While an aunt is typically the sister or sister-in-law of one of somebody's biological parents, it can also be extended out a few generations in terms of general reference. (I always called my father's aunt my "aunt" as well, not my "great-aunt" or "grand-aunt".) And it's not like men don't ever marry women who are decades younger than they are.

The growing gap between the Golden Age and the present day makes dealing with the JSA difficult. If there is no mother-daughter connection between the two Canaries, I think there is less and possibly no real tension between the two. If we still have a Canary as shown her Golden Age days, she could have a few years on the other JSAers, and have her birth be arguably as late as 1930, there will come a time when the two couldn't be alive at the same time.

I liked thinking Jack Knight and Dinah Lance as being the older offspring of the JSA, being somewhat more mature than those in Infinity, Inc. Making Dinah the first of a new generation could be a good selling point. But something needs to be done to account for that growing gap.

[astro@work]

While the pre-COIE version of the mother/daughter story was pretty cringy (her Mother's memories...), I still like the post COIE version.

The givens are: The JSA exist on Prime Earth. It's been 36 years, that's not going away anytime soon.
The other given is that Dinah Drake/BC existed in the Golden Age, which has been reaffirmed over and over.

Given those things, Dinah Laurel Lance as descendent of Dinah Drake-Lance makes a lot of sense.
Whether she is a daughter or that gets converted to granddaughter or grand niece is an open issue. The longer the ties to the Golden Age get extended, it makes less and less sense that she would be the daughter. I'd actually favor being a grand or great-grand relation than a daughter. This avoids awkward time travel or time-skip or time-lost explanations. GA Dinah was NOT part of the Ragnorak story, so no reason she couldn't have lived out her life in normal time and had normally aging descendents.

[Primal Slayer]

The thing with her being a legacy is that it's an incredible easy fix. It also is an easy way to incorporate other versions as easter eggs.

Dinah Drake - grandmother
Caroline Lance - mother (BoP tv)
Dinah Laurel Lance - current.

[Thor-Ul]

Post crisis Mother daughter legacy. Sans over complicated criss-crossed earths.

[Thor-Ul]

The thing with her being a legacy is that it's an incredible easy fix. It also is an easy way to incorporate other versions as easter eggs.

Dinah Drake - grandmother
Caroline Lance - mother (BoP tv)
Dinah Laurel Lance - current.

JSA: The secret years...

[Timber Wolf-By-Night]

Did nobody ever point out to Roy Thomas that having all of one parent's memories would include that parent's memories of falling in love with the other parent, including having sex with them? Even the villains would be offering to help remove that particular memory....

[caj]

Wasn't there another origin story in JLofA where Larry Lance and the original Earth 2 Black Canary had a daughter with an incontrollable cry? Something where Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt took her to another dimension where she grew into young womanhood. After Larry Lance died, Black Canary of Earth 2 wanted to leave and move to Earth 1. However Superman realized she was dying from the same thing that killed Larry.

Here's where I get confused. I believe the Thunderbolt did some kind of body switch so that the younger BC could control the cry. Superman took whoever it was to Earth 1 and the two kept it a secret for years.

Maybe it was better not to remind people of this origin. LOL

[John Venus]

I think you could do a combination of both pre and post crisis, with maybe Dinah going by Laurel to differentiate her from her mom.

That's unnecessary. She's Dinah, if there is any need to differentiate them, then it's Dinah Drake or Dinah Lance. Even on this forum most people use Dinah and nobody is confused. And honestly the less any creative team takes from Arroweverse Canary's, the better.

I like Black Canary as DC's Silk Spectre, a legacy hero pushed into it by her overbearing but well-meaning superhero stage mom.

Other way around. Silk Spectre was a pastiche of Nightshade but Moore decided to base her on the Canary's legacy. Also, Dinah Drake isn't an overbearing stage mom; she was overprotective of her daughter due to the life style she experienced as a hero. Dinah Lance becoming a hero was a rebellious act.

Post Crisis legacy heroine got my vote, but that doesn’t preclude blending the superhero mother/cop father origins making Justice built into Dinah II’s DNA.

Yeah, one thing I like about the Post Crisis retelling is that it keeps Dinah Drake' Bronze Age origin intact.

The mother-daughter origin any day. Though I think at this point it might make more sense for it to be a multi-generational legacy, with the current Dinah being the granddaughter or even great-granddaughter of the original.

I think that would just over complicate things and take away from the beautiful simplicity of the mother-daughter dynamic.

Either:

-The JSA time travelled or Ranganroked to the present day where they had kids.

Or

-Some of the JSA members were born in a period closer to our time and had their own career but were not as big as the JL.

[MajorHoy]

Wasn't there another origin story in JLofA where Larry Lance and the original Earth 2 Black Canary had a daughter with an incontrollable cry? Something where Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt took her to another dimension where she grew into young womanhood. After Larry Lance died, Black Canary of Earth 2 wanted to leave and move to Earth 1. However Superman realized she was dying from the same thing that killed Larry.

Here's where I get confused. I believe the Thunderbolt did some kind of body switch so that the younger BC could control the cry. Superman took whoever it was to Earth 1 and the two kept it a secret for years.

Maybe it was better not to remind people of this origin. LOL

Too late, go back to post #14 on the first page.

[Frontier]

Dinah Sr. and Dinah Jr.

[MajorHoy]

At the moment, with 39 people having expressed a view by voting, the two most popular choices are:

* Post-Crisis Dinah Laurel Lance (Mother-Daughter Superhero Legacy) = 31 votes
* Pre-Crisis Dinah Drake Lance (Daughter of Detective) = 6 votes

[king of hybrids]

The thing with her being a legacy is that it's an incredible easy fix. It also is an easy way to incorporate other versions as easter eggs.

Dinah Drake - grandmother
Caroline Lance - mother (BoP tv)
Dinah Laurel Lance - current.

You can probably also work in Laurel and Sara to that line as time adds more generations to the gap

Frankly they should just buy the bullet and move the JSA/Golden agers they want to use as superhero elders forward to the 60’s

[Robotman]

I guess the mother-daughter legacy is the best. Though it should probably be her great-grandmother if they want to keep the Golden Age JSA connection. Which I think would actually be way better as it’s Dinah finding out about her family legacy and wanting to take up the mantle and not having any pressure from her mother to do so.

The one I hate is the Team 7 origin. Dinah should not be a soldier or mercenary. She doesn’t need to be Black Widow.

I loved how Gail expanded on her martial arts mythology by giving her a connection to Lady Shiva. Giving them the same master and starting point really elevated Dinah’s badass credibility. If she’s on the same level as Lady Shiva she’s definitely one of the best fighters on the planet and not just reliant on the Canary Cry.