Black Canary in Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1

The historic, line-altering magnum opus, Crisis on Infinite Earths written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez, featured almost every DC hero yet established by that point, and even created a couple of new ones.  Naturally, Black Canary appeared in the pages of Crisis, but she wasn't an important part.  She was little more than a cameo in a few issues, although she had a bit of action in issue #6.  Since an in-depth review and analysis of the whole twelve-part event could take up entire book, I won't cover all of Crisis on this post.  Instead I'm going to spotlight Black Canary's few appearances in the series.

Black Canary does not appear in Crisis until issue #6, when she's among several other heroes trapped on the Monitor's satellite as it begins to crumble around them.

She witnesses Harbinger fly into the satellite's core before it explodes...

The next we see of Dinah, she has been transported to the Captain Marvel Earth along with Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and Changeling.

Unfortunately, Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family are more-or-less brainwashed.

Captain Marvel mistakenly believes that his world is coming to an end because of the sudden appearances of Supergirl and the other heroes and he lashes out at them...

Black Canary realizes that Psycho-Pirate is alive and manipulating the Marvel Family.  When Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. team up against Wonder Woman, Canary finally does something useful and directs her sonic scream against the Marvels.

After that, Black Canary appears two more times, essentially as a background character with no dialogue.  In issue #7, she's still with Supergirl's team and the now right-thinking Marvel Family.

And she appears in one panel of issue #9, where she and Green Arrow take on some sixth-rate super villains.

That's it.  Black Canary didn't play a significant part in Crisis on Infinite Earths, although perhaps I should be grateful she didn't die.  Tomorrow, though, I'll be reviewing Justice League of America Annual #3, a Crisis tie-in where Black Canary actually does stuff.

Super-Team Family: Black Canary and Spider-Girl

It's time again for me to steal repost one of Ross' custom DC/Marvel crossover covers from the Super-Team Family blog.  This one is a little more timely, though, as Ross just put this mash-up of Black Canary and Spider-Girl on his site earlier this week.

The Black Canary in this piece was originally penciled by George Perez, while Spider-Girl was drawn by Mark Bagley. 

Check out Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues for many, many more DC/Marvel crossover covers!

DCAU Homage to George Perez's Justice League

I found this image a long time ago.  I don't remember the name of the artist, but it is a custom depiction of the satellite-era Justice League in the Bruce Timm style of the Animated Universe.

Then, not too long ago I realized that the above image is an homage to the last page from Justice League of America #200 by George Perez.

Click to enlarge.  Seriously, do it!

Note that the DCAU-style version up top corrects the one major flaw of Perez's drawing by including Hawkgirl among the other heroes.

Black Canary by Greg Moutafis

Last weekend, at Boston Comic Con, I commissioned my first sketch from an artist.

Now, the Con had some legendary artists in attendance, including Neal Adams, George Perez, Howard Chaykin, Lee Weeks, Mark Bagley, Michael Golden, James O'Barr, and dozens of others, including Tim Sale, who might be my favorite living artist in the industry right now.

Sadly, the greats like Adams, Perez, and Chaykin were so swamped by fans seeking autographs that they wouldn't have had time to draw a custom sketch for me, and I didn't have the hundreds of dollars it would have cost to commission them.  Also, Howard Chaykin scared the $#@% out of me, but that's a story for another day.

However, tucked away in the periphery of Artists Alley with the smaller venders, I met a man named Greg Moutafis.  Greg had a lot of prints and sketches on display, and I liked his work.  I asked him if I could commission an original sketch of Black Canary and he said sure.

He was very gracious and accommodating.  I paid in advance--I won't say how much I paid, but it didn't my bank--and returned an hour later to find this wonderful piece of art that was all for me!

Greg was incredibly nice.  He said this was the first commissioned piece he was ever asked to draw at a convention.  I even had to remind him to sign it before he handed it over.  Thanks, Greg!

Who's Who Podcast featuring Black Canary

My two best friends in the whole world, Rob Kelly and Shag Johansson, run a couple of DC hero fan blogs, The Aquaman Shrine and Firestorm Fan, respectively.  They also collaborate on a joint Aquaman/Firestorm podcast called The Fire and Water Podcast, where they discuss Firestorm and  the various super heroines that Shag finds attractive.

I support the Fire and Water Podcast through encouraging letters, iTunes reviews, custom action figure Playdates, and donations of money that Rob promises he's splitting evenly with his co-host.  In return, the fellas promise to encourage their listeners to check out Flowers & Fishnets, but so far I've seen no evidence of that.

One of the regular features of their podcast is a page-by-page breakdown of the classic series Who's Who in the DC Universe.

Cover by George Perez.

Rob and Shag call this edition Who's Who: The Definitive Podcast of the DC Universe.  I have no idea why.  The second installment of WW:TDPotDCU includes the the entry on both the pre- and post-Crisis Black Canary.

Hot mother/daughter action… or maybe mother/self action... by Terry Austin.

You can listen to the Who's Who Podcast Volume II right here.  If you want to spare yourselves the discussions of Bat-Mite and Big Barda, skip forward to the 1:13:30 mark to hear the fellas talk about Black Canary.  But I recommend listening to the whole episode, and every other episode before and after, forever.

Rob and Shag don't even try to make sense of the convoluted history of the two Black Canaries at this point and time; that continuity was seriously screwed up.

Give it a listen! It's worth a laugh!