Golden Age Black Canary (Dinah Drake-Lance) Appreciation 2018

[MajorHoy]

PLEASE NOTE: I'm well aware there's already the ""Sing, Baby, Sing...": Black Canary Appreciation" thread, but trying to scan through the over 40 pages of that particular thread, it seems to have much more devoted to the current-generation version of the character, and not necessarily as much about the original version of the character, who first appeared in the Johnny Thunder feature in Flash Comics #86 (cover-date August 1947).



She appeared again with Johnny in the following two issues (#87 and #88), and when she next appeared in issue #90, she was sharing the lead in that feature with Johnny.



That arrangement didn't last very long; by issue #92 (cover-date February 1948), Black Canary had taken over the spot and poor Johnny was quickly forgotten.

[MajorHoy]

And it wasn't just Johnny Thunder's feature in Flash Comics that Black Canary took over. She also took over his spot as a member of the Justice Society of America!

Black Canary first appeared with the JSA in All-Star Comics #38 (cover-dated December 1947-January 1948) along with Johnny.

and by the end of that story, she was considered an honorary member.


Black Canary also appeared in All-Star Comics #39 with Johnny still a regular member of the group, but by issue #40 (cover-dated April-May 1948), the Canary is a member of the JSA and Johnny is no longer around.


Black Canary's appearances with the JSA would continue until the end of their Golden Age run in issue #57 (cover-dated February-March 1951) before returning with the team for the first meeting of the JLA and JSA in Justice League of America #21-22 in 1963.

[Primal Slayer]

I want her history as DLL mother to be put back into canon. Have her join the JSA maybe as Lady Canary or something.

[MajorHoy]

I want her history as DLL mother to be put back into canon. Have her join the JSA maybe as Lady Canary or something.

That type of retcon may have been workable in the past, but as time goes on it becomes harder if the JSA are always tied to a set period of time like the 1940s.
We still have to wait and see if/when DC ever brings the team back and what they decided happened to the members between the early 1950s (HUAC hearing where they disappeared from?) and whatever the "present-day" is at that point, but we're talking a nearly 70-year gap of time. And if Golden Age Black Canary is present-day Black Canary's biological mother, when/how was present-day Black Canary born?
Making the two Black Canaries have a different relationship (like aunt/niece) would probably be more logical these days since that would allow more flexibility with the age difference.

[WonderScott]

Didn't her choker necklace emit a sound at one point that would call a bunch of black canaries to fly to her and scoop her up if she was shoved off a building or something? Or am I misremembering that...I vaguely think it was in a story in one of the archive books?

If it happened, that power should come back. It's an incredible gimmick!

[WonderScott]

Also, style-wise Dinah was IT. Love the Veronica Lake blonde hair bangs and the bolero jacket. A great, great look.

[MajorHoy]

[madmodpoetgod]

Her stylish leather design always impresses me. What an impressive design for 40's.
I would like to more about her transition from Golden Age to Earth 1. What happened?

[MajorHoy]

I would like to more about her transition from Golden Age to Earth 1. What happened?

Husband died (saving Dinah's life).
Dinah decided to change Earths and then got involved with Green Arrow.
Around 10 years after that, people thought the (implied) age difference between Dinah and Ollie was getting too great, so they retconned it so that the Black Canary who actually came to Earth-1 was really Golden Age Dinah's daughter with ALL ( !!!) her mother's memories implanted so that this Dinah actually had thought she was the Golden Age Dinah (but without the memory of having given birth to herself).
All that went away after CoIE.

[andersonh1]

I enjoy the fact that 1940s Black Canary is in her private life a small business owner, and that as a hero she saves the lives of the JSA on more than one occasion. She's no damsel in distress.... even the male heroes get hit on the head or captured every other story, just like she does. Like all good heroes, she has to figure her way out of several death traps!!

The Archive collects every story from her solo series, I believe, as well as some from the 60s. It's pretty good, though the plots are a bit repetitive.

[The Darknight Detective]

Husband died (saving Dinah's life).
Dinah decided to change Earths and then got involved with Green Arrow.
Around 10 years after that, people thought the (implied) age difference between Dinah and Ollie was getting too great, so they retconned it so that the Black Canary who actually came to Earth-1 was really Golden Age Dinah's daughter with ALL ( !!!) her mother's memories implanted so that this Dinah actually had thought she was the Golden Age Dinah (but without the memory of having given birth to herself).
All that went away after CoIE.

Yeah, the Golden Age Dinah that I grew up with during the Bronze Age turned out not to be the Golden Age one after all (thanks to the most convoluted retcon of that era, if not all time!). Regardless, she battled it out with Wonder Woman for rights to be my favorite superheroine of my youth.

[The Darknight Detective]

The thing you have to remember about Bronze Age Dinah was that she always looked twenty-something and never appeared to me as anything close to middle age. If artists of the '60s had drawn her looking a couple decades older, her history would have been quite different.

[MajorHoy]

. . . Regardless, she battled it out with Wonder Woman for rights to be my favorite superheroine of my youth.

It's also interesting to note that Black Canary essentially replaced Wonder Woman in the Justice League not once but twice.

Post-CoIE, Black Canary II wound up taking Wonder Woman's spot as a founding member.


And back in the late 1960s, after Wonder Woman (as just Diana Prince now) took a leave of absence from the JLA (issue #69, cover-dated February 1969), Dinah became the next female member (issue #75, cover-dated November 1969).

[MajorHoy]

from Secret Origins #50 (August 1990):





to be continued . . .

[MajorHoy]

more from Secret Origins #50 (August 1990):