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

[Ascended]

It shouldn't be an either/or. There can be a world with updated characters and another world that preserves the original history. Similar characters can exist on parallel worlds. Isn't that the whole idea behind the multiverse?

I agree with this in spirit, but market forces have proven that alternate reality titles are a hard sell. Not impossible, as books like Spider-Gwen, the Ultimate line (for a while) and Earth-2 (before Robinson left) prove. But it isnt easy, especially in a market where even books that are connected to the main line get cancelled because they're seen as "not important."

Now, if you just want to say there's a pre-Crisis earth out there somewhere and all those characters are still going strong....maybe have them show up once in a while in another book, like the old JLA/JSA annual crossovers....that'd be one thing. And I'd dearly like to see it. But as a stand-alone ongoing I dont think it'd fly.

Alternatively, DC could publish a title that explores the multiverse from the perspective of one of the main line guys. Vibe for instance, is perfectly suited for this. He's not a great example considering his last series fell flat but you get the idea. Have him travel the multiverse as part of his "interdimensional border cop" thing and let him run across those other worlds.

Something along those lines might manage to stay afloat for a while, if not Vibe in particular.

[MajorHoy]

. . . I think the convoluted history of Black Canary is one of the biggest hurdles that has kept her from achieving a greater level of popularity. I mean, she's one of the originals and she's endured for decades, yet she's never been able to get above C-list status (arguably B-list) and I think her screwed up history is a part of that. Fans love their origin tales after all, but Dinah's requires like, two decades of hardcore reading and evaluation to make sense of.....and even then it doesn't make much sense.

What's so hard to understand?
At the heart of it, there was a Black Canary who was active in the "Golden Age", though not until AFTER World War II. (Her first appearance was in Flash Comics #86, cover-dated August 1947.) She did not have any powers.
Eventually she had a daughter who also took on the identity of "Black Canary", but the daughter did develop a vocal power (which could somehow be blamed on her mother's battles with various costumed supervillains).
Yes, a lot of other things have been added / changed over the years . . . after all the mother / daughter thing first was revealed in a 1983 JLA/JSA team-up, but that was before CoIE when the mother had been in action on Earth-2 and the daughter first appeared (as an adult) on Earth-1. (But that part of the story was lost / changed with the merging of the various separate Earths and didn't matter any longer in the post-CoIE continuity going forward.)

[Jim Kelly]

I think Dinah made perfect sense up until they tried to fix her in the early '80s. That fix only lasted a couple years before we got Crisis (maybe all that fiddling with continuity in the early '80s is what hastened the Crisis). After Crisis, we got two Dinahs that made sense again.

But if I could send a letter back in time, I'd send one to Denny O'Neil in 1969, urging him to write the story in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA No. 73 to establish that Larry and Dinah have a grown daughter, who happens to have been born with a mutant sonic power. After she witnesses the death of both her parents in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA No. 74, she decides to take up her mother's costumed identity and follows the JLA to Earth-One.

That would avoid the weird retcon that we got in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA No. 219 & 220 (October & November '83).

[Ascended]

What's so hard to understand?
At the heart of it, there was a Black Canary who was active in the "Golden Age", though not until AFTER World War II. (Her first appearance was in Flash Comics #86, cover-dated August 1947.) She did not have any powers.
Eventually she had a daughter who also took on the identity of "Black Canary", but the daughter did develop a vocal power (which could somehow be blamed on her mother's battles with various costumed supervillains).
Yes, a lot of other things have been added / changed over the years . . . after all the mother / daughter thing first was revealed in a 1983 JLA/JSA team-up, but that was before CoIE when the mother had been in action on Earth-2 and the daughter first appeared (as an adult) on Earth-1. (But that part of the story was lost / changed with the merging of the various separate Earths and didn't matter any longer in the post-CoIE continuity going forward.)

Well, correct me if Im wrong but didnt the original Dinah eventually move from Earth-2 to Earth-1 after the death of her husband, start dating the much younger Green Arrow, eventually put her mind into the comatose body of her own daughter and then continue dating (a now older) Arrow?

Thats pretty convoluted.

[Jaylarue]

Well, correct me if Im wrong but didnt the original Dinah eventually move from Earth-2 to Earth-1 after the death of her husband, start dating the much younger Green Arrow, eventually put her mind into the comatose body of her own daughter and then continue dating (a now older) Arrow?

Thats pretty convoluted.

And let's be honest. Kinda creepy.

[MajorHoy]

Well, correct me if Im wrong but didnt the original Dinah eventually move from Earth-2 to Earth-1 after the death of her husband, start dating the much younger Green Arrow, eventually put her mind into the comatose body of her own daughter and then continue dating (a now older) Arrow?

Not really.

Originally, after the death of her husband, the Earth-2 Black Canary relocated to Earth-1 to start a new life. She then eventually began a relationship with Green Arrow. But that move to Earth-1 happened in a story that was published in 1969, a little over 20 years after her first appearance.

The retcon with her having a daughter occurred in a story published in 1983, which was getting nearer to 40 years after her first appearance. Black Canary had been tied to the 1940s, so it was obvious that she had to be getting OLDER, while Green Arrow could maybe have his age fudged slightly without a specific time period tied to when he began. So by making it that there were two Black Canaries, they could say the one he was hooked up with wasn't a senior citizen yet.

And in that story where they first revealed the two Black Canaries, the Golden Age / mother version was planning to leave Earth-2 to go to Earth-1, but something happened to her that caused her not to. (I believe it was revealed she was dying from the same attack that killed her husband.) But, since they had already had nearly fifteen years of stories where the Black Canary on Earth-1 was said to have been the same as the one who fought beside the JSA on Earth-2, they (the writers) came up with the solution to retcon things so that the daughter had been given the memories of the mother and only thought she had been the same Black Canary as her mother.
It may sound confusing, but it explained some of the inconsistencies you would have had otherwise.

[MajorHoy]

Still waiting to see if/how DC decides to deal with bringing back a Golden Age Black Canary (or not) if/when DC (ever?) does brings back a post-Rebirth Justice Society.

[MajorHoy]

Well, we should start seeing a return of the JSA in the 1940s in next month's Justice League, so I wonder if/when anything may be resolved with if there ever was a Golden Age "Black Canary" or not in current continuity (whenever they resolve the "current continuity").

[astro@work]

Well, we should start seeing a return of the JSA in the 1940s in next month's Justice League, so I wonder if/when anything may be resolved with if there ever was a Golden Age "Black Canary" or not in current continuity (whenever they resolve the "current continuity").

We know so far that a recognizable 1940's JSA would have existed, but was prevented from coming into existence by the manipulations of Dr. Manhattan.
If these manipulations are undone by the end of Doomsday Clock, which is pretty obviously coming somehow based on their appearance next month in JL, this leads to the following questions...
1. Are all the JSA golden age adventures back in play? (I'm guessing probably).

2. Does this mean the other yet-unseen GA members are back in play (I'm guessing mostly, minus Superman/Batman/WW).

3. If this DOES mean there was a golden age Black Canary, is there any relationship to the current one?
I'm going to stick my neck out and guess yes. The modern age Canary has been established as being raised in an orphanage.
This leaves her family tree wide open for easily inserting some relationship to the original Dinah. But at this point it can't be her mother unless there are some time travel shenanigans involved. Not unheard of in comics, actually, so not entirely out of the question. But they might go with an easier
explanation such as modern Dinah being her great-granddaughter.

[MajorHoy]

. . . 3. If this DOES mean there was a golden age Black Canary, is there any relationship to the current one?
I'm going to stick my neck out and guess yes. The modern age Canary has been established as being raised in an orphanage.
This leaves her family tree wide open for easily inserting some relationship to the original Dinah. But at this point it can't be her mother unless there are some time travel shenanigans involved. Not unheard of in comics, actually, so not entirely out of the question. But they might go with an easier explanation such as modern Dinah being her great-granddaughter.

As I said a while back,

. . . As for the relationship between a Golden Age Black Canary and the current one seen in the Rebirth books, DC really wouldn't be treading radically new ground by changing it from mother-daughter to a blood-relation with more generational differences. Anybody remember how present-day Sharon Carter was originally related to World War II era's Peggy Carter over at Marvel?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_...cation_history

Aunts and nieces can have a greater range in age differences, and some people refer to an "aunt" when that person is actually a great-aunt or what-not. So a looser (but still family) relationship like that can offer even more flexibility than a grandmother-and-granddaughter connection.

[Tzigone]

For me, I have no interesting in a Dinah/Dinah relationship. She was originally the same character, before being split into two after over a decade of existing in the then-present. I didn't like the retcon of her being the daughter at all. I prefer only one Canary. Or, at least that the "Earth 2-ish" Canary be as the Earth 2-ish Superman or Batman (essentially the same person from another world/reality), rather than her being related to the main Dinah. Her interacting with GA Canary as "another version" of herself could be interesting. Seeing the adventures of a Golden Age Canary could be fun (as they did with GA Supes in Superman Family, as I recall). But not with a familial relationship - that just doesn't interest me, undoubtedly because I never liked the retcon that made it exist in the fist place and was glad to see it seemingly gone (though with a Kurt Lance instead of Larry Lane husband for some reason)

[MajorHoy]

For me, I have no interesting in a Dinah/Dinah relationship. She was originally the same character, before being split into two after over a decade of existing in the then-present. I didn't like the retcon of her being the daughter at all. I prefer only one Canary. Or, at least that the "Earth 2-ish" Canary be as the Earth 2-ish Superman or Batman (essentially the same person from another world/reality), rather than her being related to the main Dinah. Her interacting with GA Canary as "another version" of herself could be interesting. Seeing the adventures of a Golden Age Canary could be fun (as they did with GA Supes in Superman Family, as I recall). But not with a familial relationship - that just doesn't interest me, undoubtedly because I never liked the retcon that made it exist in the fist place and was glad to see it seemingly gone (though with a Kurt Lance instead of Larry Lane husband for some reason)

For those of us who grew up with only one Black Canary (the Golden Age version who later moved from Earth-2 to Earth-1), there were quite a few things wrong with that retcon that resulted in two Black Canaries. But logically, something like that probably would have had to happen sooner or later, especially since at the time we didn't realize there was going to be an end to the Multiverse and Crisis on Infinite Earths a few years down the line.

[Jim Kelly]

The BC retcon happened in the summer of 1983 and COIE started at the beginning of 1985. So this retcon was really only valid for a year and a half. It's easy to just disregard it and say it's an effect of the coming Crisis that is literally destroying the multiverse.

If Dinah Drake's age is a problem then so is the age of all the original JSAers. At least Dinah only came along in 1947, but most of the others had to be even older than her. However, there were several explanations for why they didn't age or aged very slowly. Roy Thomas had it that this energy from their encounter with Ian Karkull prevented them from ageing. But that happened before Dinah joined the JSA, so you would need a different explanation for her. The comic books are full of strange things that happen to characters that slow down their age or even make them ageless--just having a daft conversation in a 14th century tavern can win you immortality.

It's funny that Roy Thomas co-wrote the retcon that made Dinah her own mother. I would expect him not to have bothered with that idea and just give her the same youth treatment he gave other characters.

What's creepy about it is that Dinah 2 has all the memories of Dinah 1. So she remembers all her mother's experiences as if they happened to her--falling in love with Larry Lance, making love to Larry Lance and conceiving a baby by Larry Lance--the man that is in fact her father, she remembers as her lover. It's not something that holds up under much scrutiny.

[Ilan Preskovsky]

You know, I've been reading DC Comics for over a quarter-century now and this is the first time that I've even come remotely close to understanding Black Canary's history. That's pretty impressive.

[jetengine]

Afaik the whole Black Canaries-mind dump thing was DCs equivalent of the aftermath of the Pym slap. An ever more convoluting series of events to explain an artistic error.

Earth 1 Dinah was supposed to be in her late 30s-mid forties. Green Arrow was roughly in his mid 30s. Instead of drawing her a bit older they continued to draw her as if she was young. So instead of just going 'Artist error' etc or even a "I age REALLY well" comment they came up with that stupid bs