Could a "Golden Age" Black Canary be in DC's future?

[MajorHoy]

About the possible JSA return under Rebirth, . . . when would the team return from? Who would still be on it at that point?

In the DC Universe: Rebirth one-shot, we had Johnny Thunder tell Wally:

"McCarthy yelled 'Take off your masks!' You know I was only trying to protect them. I'm sorry for what I did!"

This would make it seem like it involves disappearing from the HUAC hearing in the 1950s, when the members testifying were

* The Atom
* Black Canary
* Green Lantern
* Hawkman
* Flash
* Doctor Mid-Nite

(NOTE: Above list is based on the scene from DC Universe Legacies #2 (August 2010) as taken from the DC Universe: Legacies tpb collection. In Adventure Comics #466 (November-December 1979), when the story was first told, Golden Age Wonder Woman was also present.)



If they try to bring back the JSA from that period in time, would they still include a Black Canary as a member (maybe as current Dinah's great-aunt or grandmother, perhaps?), or instead substitute a different Golden Age female character?

One other reason to speculate that there could have been a "Golden Age Black Canary" is an image used on the back cover of a special midnight version of DC Universe: Rebirth and on the DC Comics Previews for DC's June solicitations.



What do other people think could happen if / when we ever learn more about the JSA in the revised Rebirth DC Universe?

[Lee Stone]

I think it could work.
Too bad we never got a proper new Golden Age Black Canary run.
I'd have loved to have seen her done 'Sandman Mystery Theatre'-style, perhaps by Ed Brubaker and Tommy Lee Edwards or Michael Lark, with Veronica Lake used as reference.

[Jim Kelly]

I'd like all the original JSAers brought back--including Wonder Woman. If they're on another Earth, then this wouldn't be a problem. That would be my ideal--but even on the same Earth as the JLA, they could probably have the whole roster (just not Superman and Batman, who were never full-time members).

[MajorHoy]

I'd like all the original JSAers brought back--including Wonder Woman. If they're on another Earth, then this wouldn't be a problem. That would be my ideal--but even on the same Earth as the JLA, they could probably have the whole roster (just not Superman and Batman, who were never full-time members).

But don't forget, I don't think Wonder Woman was technically a full-fledged member back in the Golden Age. She was a girl ( ) and was their "recording secretary" who didn't even earn her own individual chapter for a long time.
Of course, we could always pull the John Byrne retcon where Hippolyta went back in time and became the "Golden Age Wonder Woman".

[K. Jones]

I'm so torn on certain legacy beats - like introducing legacy elements really mucked around with Black Canary's timeline and narrative, and I'm a person who believes that all the Golden Age heroes should be able to stand shoulder-to-shoulder and be updated down the ages and divorced from their WWII origins the same way Batman, Aquaman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, and the rest are constantly refreshed. But man I like the whole occasional "mother/daughter" superhero dynamic.

In the case of Black Canary, no character had a worse weird hijinx happen to them as bad as she did. (Well, maybe Power Girl?) And I like the notion of Black Canary being a prime holistic version of herself, in one character. I thought Fletcher's run did a really intelligent nod to the Golden Age origin by still having her mother be a legendary martial arts figure, hero, and woman of mystery in her own right - essentially the same bad-ass martial artist scrappy woman, just without the Black Canary costume motif trappings, which then Dinah gets to completely "Own" the way Bruce Wayne owns Batman.

Anyway that said, I won't be like balking if they bring back a pure post-Crisis version of an in-timeline JSA, Dinah Drake included. I really miss those guys, and as long as they're somehow aged down to resemble themselves in their prime I'll tolerate a WWII time-jump retcon or something - especially if the time hijinx can be used to explain DCU Rebirth timeline inconsistencies well enough.

[Jim Kelly]

But don't forget, I don't think Wonder Woman was technically a full-fledged member back in the Golden Age. She was a girl ( ) and was their "recording secretary" who didn't even earn her own individual chapter for a long time.
Of course, we could always pull the John Byrne retcon where Hippolyta went back in time and became the "Golden Age Wonder Woman".

Actually this is proof of how popular Wonder Woman was. She joined the JSA and had an adventure or two with them--but she got her own quarterly so quick that nearly no time passed before she had to give up her active role in the Society--because of the rules at that time which said any member who gets their own title can't be an active member. This is the rule that forced the Flash and then the Green Lantern to give up their active membership in the JSA. And presumably this is why Superman and Batman stayed honourary members (given they both had their own titles before the Justice Society was formed).

But because Sheldon Mayer wanted to find some way to keep the popular Amazon in ALL-STAR COMICS, they bent the rules to let her stay on as the secretry. Maybe also Mayer and Gardner Fox realized that the Society was a sausage factory in need of female input. Girls read comics, too! However, William Moulton Marston was so controlling that he didn't want other hands pawing his Princess Diana. And I guess Mayer and Fox found it hard to work with Marston--so the idea of giving Wonder Woman her own chapters in the ALL-STAR was soon dropped. Yet she would appear on the covers, in the framing sequences and attach her name to all the membership forms for the Junior Justice Society.

Those framing sequences got longer and longer relative to the individual chapters. And the rule excluding the Flash and GL was eventually dropped in 1945, as Wonder Woman also started to have a more active role in the Justice Society. And once Martson died in 1947, there was no one to keep Wonder Woman out of participating fully in the Society adventures.

[Cmbmool]

I have to say I would be curious to see them trying to connect the Golden Age BLack Canary with the modern one and NOT have it be a Mother-Daughter relationship thing.

Maybe a Grandmother-Granddaughter thing ?

[kcekada]

I think it could work.
Too bad we never got a proper new Golden Age Black Canary run.
I'd have loved to have seen her done 'Sandman Mystery Theatre'-style, perhaps by Ed Brubaker and Tommy Lee Edwards or Michael Lark, with Veronica Lake used as reference.

Same here! I suggested a similar series some time ago. I think Black Canary really works best in that setting/era. Her modern day stuff is fine -- but that Golden Age look and vibe really worked well.