Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #566

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #566 starred Batman and Robin in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan, who also drew the cover.  Interestingly, this story served more or less as a Who's Who entry for Batman's rogues gallery with Jason Todd studying his mentor's foes in the Bat-computer.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "Old Enemies Die Hard" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome Moore.

We open with Dinah Laurel Lance taking her lover, Oliver Queen, home on her motorcycle.  There is no mention of Mayor Bolt or his costumed alter-ego Steelclaw, or his son who Green Arrow and Black Canary saved last issue.  I guess we just assume that Steelclaw died.

Examining the wreckage of his apartment, Ollie tells Dinah that nothing is missing.  This wasn't a robbery; someone came looking for him and trashed the place when they realized Ollie wasn't home.  He plays the tape on the answering machine (or "phone machine" as he calls it) and hears the message from Onyx, who is holed up in a music shop with her friend Tommie.

Meanwhile, at the music store, Onyx is trying to convince Tommie to let her go because she's in danger.  Tommie believes she came back to Star City to see him, though, and they kiss.  Then their tender embrace is interrupted by a large armored figure smashing through the wall.  The stranger calls himself Barricade and fights Onyx.

Green Arrow appears and fires an arrow that snatches the tiara away from Barricade.  Then he fires off another arrow that wraps chains around Barricade... chains the villain easily snaps out of.

I miss the story of Steelclaw--that was sort of anticlimactically wrapped up.  But I'm glad we see Onyx again and this story will put a cap on events last seen in issues #556 and 557.

Come back next Friday for the final part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #564

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #564 starred Batman and Robin in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan, who also drew the cover.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "This Masquerade" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome K. Moore.

After Green Arrow and Black Canary beat the information they need out of some Star City hoods, we jump to Mayor Bolt holding a press conference where he talks about the need to fight the city's rampant crime wave.  Marty Costa watches the press conference on television until he gets disgusted and orders his men to kidnap the mayor's son.

Across town, Ollie and Dinah are also watching the mayor's speech.  Dinah, too, feels disgust, knowing that the mayor is really the costumed criminal mastermind known as Steelclaw.  However corrupt Mayor Bolt may be, though, Dinah knows that his son is innocent and must be protected.

The heroes ride Black Canary's motorcycle to the mayor's mansion.  They split up and sneak onto the premises from different sides.  As Dinah creeps across the lawn, she thinks of how annoying Ollie's overprotectiveness is, and how she might be better off as a solo adventurer.  (This was sort of around the post-Crisis time when John Byrne was considered for a Black Canary solo book, but that fizzled out.  Instead of going solo, Dinah would soon join the new, international Justice League.)

Black Canary skulks around the outside of the mansion, observing its worn, almost decrepit state, while failing to notice the cloaked figure stalking up behind her.

Green Arrow gets inside the house and searches room to room for the mayor's son.  He witnesses Marty Costa's men arrive in a van outside and has to double-time his search.  Thinking he hears voices down the hall upstairs, he rushes to check one of the nearest closed doors.

Outside, Black Canary is unconscious from an anesthetic administered by Steelclaw when he snuck up on her.  Steelclaw ties her up, wondering why the former Justice League heroine would turn to a life of crime.  He wonders, but doesn't care all that much; he's just proud to be able to take her down and leave her bound for the police.  Then Steelclaw, too, is caught unawares as Marty Costa's hoods draw their guns on him.

Meanwhile, in another part of Star City, the kid named Tommie is cleaning up the back of the shop where he works when he discovers Onyx hiding in the back room.

The more I read of this storyline, the more I wish something had come of Black Canary's newfound superpower--that is her ability to persuade men into giving up information because of something in her voice.  I honestly like that a whole lot more for the character than her sonic scream.  Unfortunately, Cavalieri introduced it in this story arc, and I don't think anyone else ever picked it up later.  And within a couple of years, Mike Grell would take Dinah's sonic powers away completely in The Longbow Hunters.

Come back next Friday for the next part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's continuing adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #563

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #563 starred Batman and Robin in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan, who also drew the cover.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "Winner and Still Champion" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome K. Moore.

The story begins with Oliver Queen narrating a story to someone.  We see the Daily Star newspaper's front page article on Champion with a scathing critique by Ollie himself.  There's also a feature on Mayor Bolt's response to the crime wave.

The costumed Champion sneaks into an art gallery at night.  He thinks the art is tacky, but he knows it's valuable.  He incinerates one piece, creating a blaze that threatens to engulf the whole gallery.  He then grabs the most heavily insured piece and begins to "rescue" it by carrying it out the window.

That's when Green Arrow makes his presence known, having watched Champion from the shadows.  Ollie put out the blaze with a couple fire extinguisher arrows, but when Champion makes his aerial exit, Green Arrow shoots a line around his foot that pulls them both out into the sky.

Champion drags Green Arrow high over the Star City skyline, mocking the archer's inability to control his own flight.  That mockery soon turns to terror, though, when Green Arrow knocks back another arrow and lets it fly into Champion's jet propulsion system.  They both drop toward the street below.

Later, we learn that Oliver Queen has been recounting these events to his lover, Dinah Lance.  She asks how he knew that Champion would target the art gallery.  Ollie reveals that he found evidence at the last couple "accident scenes" where Champion saved an insured piece of equipment--evidence suggesting the accidents were caused by sabotage.  So Ollie learned that all the equipment and items were insured by the same company.  He had that company pretend to insure some worthless piece of art and then waited for Champion to come around and make his move.  Ollie even had a photographer from the Daily Star capture his takedown of Champion for the paper.

Ollie leans back, proud of himself, and remarks that his plan was a lot more productive than going to Mayor Bolt.  He tells Dinah about how Bolt cancelled the press conference when he received a phone call about his son Brucie.  The name catches Dinah's attention.

Now Green Arrow and Black Canary know--or at least have good reason to suspect--that Mayor Bolt is the costumed criminal mastermind known as Steelclaw.  What are they going to do about it?

Come back next Friday for the next part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's continuing adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #562

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #562 starred Batman and Robin in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan and a cover by Ed Hannigan.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "The Criminal Element" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome K. Moore.

The story opens with Black Canary unconscious, being carried to the edge of the pier by the pair of drug dealers we saw talking to Steelclaw last issue.  After knocking them all out with sleeping gas, the villainous Steelclaw revived his lackies and ordered them to dump the Canary in the harbor to drown.  One of them wonders why they don't shoot her dead before dumping her, but the other says the shot will ring out too loudly over the water and bring unwanted attention to them as they also happen to be waiting for a shipment of drugs coming into that same port.

The hoods dump Black Canary in the water.  Shortly thereafter, the boat settles up to the dock with the drug shipment, but only two crew.  This causes the hoods on the pier some distress as now they'll have to unload the product all by themselves.  It comes as a relief, however, to Black Canary who regained consciousness when she hit the water and climbed up the other side of the boat, because now she only has four crooks to deal with.

She tosses one of boat crew into the other, knocking them overboard.  Then she leaps down to the pier to take out the other two.

Earlier that night, Mayor Bolt holds a press conference in his residence.  Reporters ask about his plans to combat the current crime wave in Star City.  Bolt gives a nice little soundbite about understanding the criminal element and being vigilant.  Neither Mayor Bolt nor the press corps was vigilant enough to notice the grappling hook arrow fired onto the terrace signaling the entrance of the Emerald Archer.

Mayor Bolt fires right back at Green Arrow that he sounds like the proverbial pot complaining that the kettle is reckless and only dressing up in a costume to make money.  Their debate is interrupted, though, when Mayor Bolt gets a phone call about his son, Brucie.  Yes, he refers to him as Brucie.  Again with that same familiarity that Steelclaw used when referring to the mayor's son.

The mayor ends the press conference and his people shoo the reporters out of his office.  Before leaving through the window, Green Arrow warns Mayor Bolt that if he doesn't do something about Champion, Green Arrow will have to take him down.  In the meantime, if anyone gets hurt because of Champion, Green Arrow will hold the mayor responsible.

Bolt watches Green Arrow swing away, questioning the archer's real dedication to cleaning up Star City.  Green Arrow can always run away to the Justice League Satellite, Bolt thinks, whereas the people have elected him to clean up the town.  While he's considering this, Bolt walks through a hidden door in the back of his office and down a spiraling stone staircase behind the wall.  He knows that the presence of vigilantes undercuts his credibility, but the Star City Police Department is corrupt and ineffectual.  That leaves it all up to him, Mayor Bolt, to root out crime, and to do that he has taken on the guise of a criminal mastermind in order to gain information.

Steelclaw leaves through a secret exit, gets in a car, and drives away.

Meanwhile, in a music shop across town, some kid we met back in issue #551 hears evidence that Onyx is back in town.  Onyx was last seen helping Green Arrow rescue their monastery in issue #557.

Come back next Friday for the next part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's continuing adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #561

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #561 starred Batman and Robin in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan and a cover by Ed Hannigan.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "In the Grip of Steelclaw" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome K. Moore.

The story opens with Black Canary putting a hurt on two minor drug pushers at the Star City Harbor. She's on her own and well aware that Green Arrow would disapprove of her aggressive approach to climbing up the criminal ladder.  She doesn't care, though; she wants to bring down Star City's underworld from within and this is how she's going to get inside.

Black Canary beats one of the pushers and dangles him over the edge of the wharf.  She grills him on the influx of heroin coming into the city, and he dishes on a mysterious man named Steelclaw who has been taking over the drug trade.  Black Canary drops the pusher into the water and warns the remaining hood not to get in her way and not to even think about making a play in Star City without cutting Black Canary in on the action.

From there she heads to Ye Olde Sail Shop where she wonders why the criminals have been so quick to confess to her.  She considers the possibility that her Canary Cry has some sort of hypnotic effect on the men.

Steelclaw wants more than a mere fifty percent of the action and demands that his lackeys tell him who is bringing the heroin into Star City.  They tell him it's Marty Costa, a real-estate developer who resents the fact that zoning laws prevent him from building more than housing on his land.  Costa plans to turn his own buildings into low-income housing and then flood the area with drugs so the city will grant him permission to redevelop his own way.

Steelclaw asks the lackeys why they think the Mayor of Star City will let Costa get away with this.  The men laugh at the mention of the mayor and inform Steelclaw that Costa has a plan to kidnap the mayor's son if he makes any attempt to stop Costa's plan.  Steelclaw is noticeably taken aback by this news, and even blurts out "Brucie" the name of the mayor's son.  Why would Steelclaw know the mayor's son's name?  And why refer to him so familiarly as Brucie?

We don't know because at that moment, Black Canary gives away her position by coming down creaky stairs.  She announces to Steelclaw and the others that she wants in on the drug action and any move they make against Costa.  Steelclaw isn't happy about welcoming her into the game.  He opens his cloak and sprays the room with knockout gas.  Black Canary is rendered unconscious because that's what happens always.

Elsewhere in Star City, Green Arrow is out on patrol hoping to find Black Canary when he comes across a trio of kids dangling from a faulty elevator at a construction site.  Green Arrow fires three zip-line arrows into the elevator and the kids swing down to safety.  Moments later, the elevator car crashes to the ground as Champion comes flying out with a sophisticated looking antenna dish in his possession.

Champion tells Green Arrow that he had enough time to "rescue" the dish for the company that will pay him handsomely for salvaging their property.  Green Arrow is disgusted that Champion saved the dish while the kids would have died were it not for him.

Else-elsewhere, a street man plays a game of chess in front of a group of spectators.  Actually, he's playing three chess games and wins all of them at the same time, confounding his opponents and the crowd of onlookers.  A white-haired woman steps out of the crowd and hands the chess master a business card, telling him to give her a call if he wants to make some money.

Aside from the last page with the chess player that comes out of nowhere--I don't know what that's about--aside from that, the issue is a lot of fun.  Black Canary got to kick ass and pretend she's a dangerous criminal upstart.  Then she gets captured, because tradition!

I can't wait for Champion to get his comeuppance from Green Arrow; finally, Ollie's self-righteousness has an worthy opposite with an interesting gimmick.  I still get a kick out of Steelclaw.  His look is simple but that's what makes it work.  Will the next issue reveal his connection to the mayor?  We'll have to wait and see.

Come back next Friday for the next part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's continuing adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #560

Previously in Detective Comics...

Feeling the need for a change in attitude and appearance, Black Canary scrapped her old fishnets costume in favor of a new more tactical and '80s-looking tracksuit.

Detective Comics #560 starred Batman in a story by Doug Moench with art by Gene Colan, who also drew the cover.  Green Arrow and Black Canary teamed up in a backup strip titled "...Me A Bad Guy...?" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome K. Moore.  The story opens with Oliver Queen reading the newspaper over breakfast and Dinah Lance complaining that he's hogging all the croissants.

Other than the bizarre fact that Dinah thinks she can get "morning sickness" from chili and eggs, it's a nice, funny-ish scene.  In Dinah's defense, Black Canary used to get knocked unconscious every single issue, so a little memory loss or mild brain damage is forgivable.  She does dance around the subject of marriage and/or children, which is quite different than the attitude she'll have one year later in The Longbow Hunters.

Ollie recounts a story from the newspaper about a costumed vigilante known as Champion who appeared in the sky over Star City when a building fire endangered the lives of a crew of construction workers.  As firefighters risked life and limb to save the workers Champion flies right by them... and continues to fly past them.  He flies down to the street where he tackles a man carrying a briefcase.  Champion says the briefcase is very valuable; he was hired to retrieve it.

The reporter asks Champion if he thinks it's crass to be so close to people in desperate need of help and to ignore them.  He asks the reporter why she doesn't risk her life to help the people rather than leave the task to trained professionals like police and firefighters.  Apparently, Champion is only the defender of people willing to pay his fee.  As he walks off, he expresses the story's title by asking the reporter if that makes him a bad guy.

Finishing the article, Ollie talks about knocking Champion off his high horse.  Dinah redirects the conversation to herself and her superhero metamorphosis.  She changed costume because she was dissatisfied with her old look, but now she's leaning toward changing her whole modus operandi.  Despite dropping the look of the classic Black Canary, she entertains the idea of returning to the criminal underworld in which the Blonde Bombshell once operated.

By infiltrating criminals and earning a reputation as one of them, Black Canary could wage a war on crime from within.  She says it would give her more direction and make her more aggressive.  Ollie thinks it's a terrible idea because the severity of crime and criminals is much more severe than when the old Black Canary used to act this way.  He says her reputation as a crime fighter and Justice League member is too public, and she would tarnish her good name with the authorities and in her community.

Dinah continues to argue that she'd feel more productive if she infiltrated the underworld and asks if that makes her a bad guy.  Then there's a knock at the door and Dinah opens it to find her landlord, Mr. Panofsky.  He tells her that the cost of heating, utilities, basically everything has gone up and he's forced to raise the rent on her flower shop.  Dinah complains, but Panofsky explains that he's only doing what he must to pay his own expenses.  He asks if that makes him a bad guy, because apparently everyone has to ask that question in this story.

That night at the Star City dockyards, a gang anxiously awaits the arrival of shipment of illegal drugs while arguing over the cut they each deserve.  The conversation is interrupted by a metal gauntlet crashing through the wall.  A man in a hooded cloak enters the warehouse, calling himself Steelclaw and demanding his share of the money.  The hoods respond by drawing their weapons.

One of the crooks asks what will happen if they don't cut Steelclaw in on the action.  He lashes out with his metal hand and its claws, raking the man across the chest.  The man crumples to the floor but lives.  Steelclaw walks away, demanding not only part of the drug trade but the dealers' unwavering loyalty.  He asks, naturally, if that makes him a bad guy.

Four different people in this story ask if their actions make them a bad guy and yes, I think they all do except maybe for the landlord.  That Black Canary used to have a reputation as a criminal in her earliest appearances in Flash Comics is a great story thread that never saw much development after 1948.  It's great that Joey Cavalieri is delving into this area, exploring more of Dinah's character and using Ollie as a sounding board against her.

This issue also sees not one but two potential costumed enemies.  I always complain about Black Canary's lack of a rogues gallery, but Steelclaw and Champion can both be added to the list, even if Green Arrow is the titular lead of this backup strip.  Steelclaw has  a great look with the whole grim reaper visage and the claw hand.

Come back next Friday for the next part of Green Arrow and Black Canary's continuing adventures in Detective Comics...

Pretty Bird: GREEN LANTERN #194 and DETECTIVE COMICS #555-558

Last week I covered the debut of Black Canary's then-new costume in Detective Comics #554.  For two straight issues, Dinah had taken point on the Green Arrow backup strip.  Now with a brand new look and a more focused identity, Black Canary seemed poised to launch into the upper strata of DC's heroes and heroines.

But then she disappeared from the backup stories in 'Tec for four months.  At the same time, DC was overhauling their entire continuity with the universe reshaping event Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I know Black Canary appeared in a handful of issues of Crisis, but for the life of me I can't remember what she did there.  I've only read Crisis one time and I didn't like it, and I don't feel inclined to wade into it again for the purposes of finding Black Canary in one panel of issue #6 or something.

However, I can painlessly recap her appearance in one of the Crisis tie-in issue of Green Lantern, wherein Dinah and Green Arrow witness the Harbinger take the new Green Lantern John Stewart off to his fateful rendezvous with the Monitor.

Green Lantern #194: "5" is written by Steve Englehart with art by Joe Staton.  The issue begins in Star City where Green Arrow and Black Canary are attempting to evacuate civilians as a building begins to crumble around them.

At the last second, John Stewart, the new Green Lantern of Space Sector 2814, flies by and creates an energy projection of a load bearing support to keep the debris off of Green Arrow and the civilian.  John and his fellow Green Lantern Corps member Katma Tui have just returned from space to find the Earth in the throws of violent environmental disaster.

Ollie tells the Green Lanterns that he doesn't know what's causing the freaky weather phenomena, and Dinah mentions the report that Firestorm mysteriously vanished earlier.  At that moment, the stunning and enigmatic Harbinger arrives.  Harbinger reveals that she is responsible for Firestorm's disappearance, and now she has come to claim Green Lantern as well.

John tells Harbinger he has no intention of going with her, and she warns him that if he doesn't his world is in jeopardy.  John throws an energy vice around Harbinger and tells her he doesn't like being threatened.  Him or his world.  Harbinger, though, effortlessly breaks free of his green construct.  Katma Tui uses her power to reinforce John's will, but neither of them appear strong enough to contain the strange woman.

With Black Canary and Green Arrow down, Katma takes a shot at Harbinger with her ring, but John stops her and ends the scuffle.  John says he scanned Harbinger and he believes she has only come to collect him for a purpose other than attack.  He trusts her and begs Katma Tui to trust him by letting him go alone despite his inexperience.

Just before Harbinger takes him away, she asks him to don the mask he wore originally because that's how the Monitor observed him (and that's how George Perez drew him, I think).

Elsewhere in the story, Hal Jordan is doing stuff that doesn't matter for our purposes.  John Stewart joins Firestorm, Superman of Earth-2, Blue Beetle, Cyborg, and the others aboard the Monitor's ship.  Katma Tui returns to Oa to report the events to the Guardians of the Universe.  After hearing her story, the distressed-sounding Guardians send her bath to Earth to await further orders.

Back on Earth, Katma is visibly shaken by the Guardians' apparent fear.  She tries to warn the Green Lantern of neighboring Sector 2813, but finds nothing there: no Green Lantern, no sector.

While John does Crisis-related stuff, Katma Tui goes to meet with former ring-slinger Hal Jordan.  Hal then finds Guy Gardner just as Guy is granted a Green Lantern ring by one of the Guardians.  Dinah and Ollie, meanwhile, stand together in the cold rain where their story will be picked up in issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths which I already said I'm not going to cover at this time.

For the few pages that Black Canary is in this issue, I like what Englehart and Staton give us.  The obvious point is her tactical judo move that takes Harbinger to the ground.  That the move ultimately proves ineffective is because of how immensely powerful Harbinger is, not because Dinah isn't a badass fighter.

We also get a beat where John Stewart refers to Katma as his girl, and Dinah mentally corrects him with the word "woman".  This seems like a very pro-feminist concern that Dinah wouldn't necessarily believe but that liberal Ollie would have pushed on her.  The Black Canary that we've seen up to this point in continuity hasn't been as vocal in politics or in Ollie's ideals, and she seems too grounded for this thought to even occur to her in the middle of a dire situation like the one they find themselves in. I'm glad she only thought it, because if she said it out loud at that moment when the world is going to hell, everyone would have turned to her and said, "Shut up."

But the other bit of characterization that I really like is when John Stewart calls Green Arrow and Black Canary his best friends in the superhero world.  I've recently read John's early years as a Green Lantern for the first time and I mostly enjoy the stories, but I really like John Stewart as a character.  Most of my exposure to him comes from Justice League and other DC Animated Universe projects, and to me he always seemed incredibly flat and boring in those cartoons.  These comics proved otherwise.

Ollie, Dinah, and Hal Jordan were the famous Hard Travelin' Heroes, but sans Hal I like that Black Canary maintains a connection to the Green Lantern mythos through John Stewart.  And within a few years, she'll have a team connection to the new Lantern Guy Gardner.

4th of July Bonus!!!

Before I return to Black Canary and Green Arrow's adventures in Detective Comics, what has the Archer been up to while his Pretty Bird was away?

Detective Comics #555 includes a solo Green Arrow strip called "The Case of the Runaway Shoebox" written by Elliot Maggin with art by Dicks Dillin and Giordano.  Oliver Queen gets pick pocketed and the ensuing adventure leads to the foiling of a much grander criminal operation.  Black Canary is never seen, but Ollie does refer to Dinah in the very last panel.

This story is pure filler, unconnected to anything from Green Arrow's story in the past couple of issues.  I don't know if "The Case of the Runaway Shoebox" was a reprint, but I'm quite sure it wasn't conceived for this issue as Dick Dillin sadly died five years before this comic hit the shelves.

Detective Comics #556 and #557, however, do pick up where writer Joey Cavalieri and artist Jerome Moore left off.  Not with Black Canary, but with the other woman who was trying to get Green Arrow's attention: Onyx.  The two-part story called "Zen and the Art of Dying" begins with Oliver Queen returning home after he and Dinah wrapped up the Bonfire case in #554.  Onyx, a young whip-weilding woman last seen in #552, waits for Ollie in his home.

When he confronts her, she tells him she was sent to bring him back to the monastery where he trained in martial arts.  Onyx tells the story of Lars, a cruel thuggish student of the Exalted Master who trained her and Oliver.  Lars has been trying to take control of the monastery and its library of powerful teachings.  Only the Master has kept Lars in check, but now the Master is poisoned and Lars is on the brink of taking that power for himself.  Ollie remembers Lars from his days in the monastery; he and Lars did not get along and the bully swore there would be a reckoning some day.

Green Arrow and Onyx arrive at the monastery only to find Lars has taken over and ambushes the two of them with dozens of his men.  Green Arrow draws his bow and manages to disarm most of Lars' followers and capture some with a net-arrow.  Onyx doesn't do so well as she is quickly captured by Lars and taken to the bell tower.

Lars tells Onyx that he wants to open the Exalted Master's ancient and powerful Book of Ages, but he needs something called the Wisdom Key.  The Master, it turns out, hid the key on Onyx's headband, but Lars finds it and sneaks away to the library.

Green Arrow rescues Onyx from the bell tower and they follow Lars to the library.  They're too late to stop him from opening the box with the sacred tome, but they needn't fear.  The book was cursed and when Lars tries to read it, it crumples to dusty vapor that kills him.  Eeek!

Detective Comics #558 features another disconnected Green Arrow backup tale called "Believe Everything I Hear" written by Dean Traven and drawn by Black Canary's series artist Trevor Von Eeden.  Green Arrow saves one of his criminal informants from murder, but misinterprets the wounded man's tip about an illegal shipment coming in that day.

This is another filler issue, though I have less idea of when or why it was originally produced.  It's still a fun story.  All of them are good stories; I really, really enjoyed the two-parter by Cavalieri and Moore.  Revisiting Green Arrow's formative years that don't involve being stranded on an island is a nice glimpse behind the scenes.  And Onyx was a great character that got a little bit of attention in Batman and Detective Comics, but could have been a much more mainstream hero or foil.

Black Canary eventually returned to the pages of Detective Comics with issue #559, where she and Green Arrow teamed-up with Batman and Catwoman in a story I've already reviewed--check it out!  After that, she co-starred with Ollie in the backup strips for the next eight issues.  Dinah brought her all-new costume to the criminal underworld and a direction of the character that was, ironically, closer in line with her very first appearance in Flash Comics #86.

Come back next Friday for the next chapter of Green Arrow and Black Canary in Detective Comics #560...

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #554

Previously...

Last week I made the argument that the Green Arrow backup strip in Detective Comics #553 was--somewhat covertly--DC's first attempt to really differentiate between the current Black Canary and her Golden Age mother since Roy Thomas' retcon in Justice League of America #220.  Certain aspects of Dinah's inner monologue in today's chapter may support or refute that position.  I'm not entirely sure.  What is certain, though, is that 'Tec #554 debuts the first change to Black Canary's costume since she abandoned the domino mask way back in 1948.

Detective Comics #554 starred Batman in a story by Doug Moench with art by Klaus Janson, who also drew the cover.  Said cover features the newly adorned Black Canary bursting through a paper hoop held by Batman and Green Arrow as a direct homage to her first cover appearance in Flash Comics #92.  The bold text caption on the cover reads, "For the first time anywhere...The All-New Black Canary."

...but that's not exactly accurate.  This issue of 'Tec is cover dated September 1985, but thanks to Mike's Amazing World of Comics we know the issue hit the stands on June 27 of '85.  Six months earlier, though, the second issue of Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe came out, clearly depicting Black Canary II in her "all-new" costume drawn by Terry Austin.  So Janson's cover here can hardly claim to be the first ever appearance of the all-new Black Canary.

What further complicates things is neither Austin nor Janson deserve credit for the all-new design.  My best friend, Rob Kelly, founder of The Aquaman Shrine, informs me that 'Mazing Man artist extraordinaire Stephen DeStafano created Black Canary's new look for the post-Crisis era, and the interior artist for this very issue corroborates this claim.

"Crazy from the Heat II: The Past is Prologue" is written by Joey Cavalieri with art by Jerome Moore and Bruce Patterson.  Black Canary gets top billing over Green Arrow at the top of their first page, and she's advertised as "the NEW" Black Canary.

Picking up where the last issue left off, Dinah Lance is in bed recovering from a nearly disastrous encounter with a female arsonist named Bonfire.  She combs through her mother's old scrapbook, wondering if the original Black Canary ever had a bad day like this one.  She's awestruck to find an article Dinah Drake had saved recounting the case of another female arsonist named Pyra.

The original Black Canary confesses, in her journal, to choking when it came to collaring Pyra.  She describes being pinned down and nearly burned alive... and all she could do was scream.   Hmm, sounds exactly like what Bonfire did to the younger Dinah earlier that day.

Dinah II thinks the reason she froze when fighting Bonfire was because her mother's spirit lives on in her, and she psychically relived the same calamitous bout with Pyra when trapped in the blazing building last issue.  Now she understands why she failed and she's more determined than ever to redeem herself.  That means severing the residual psychic connection to her mother.  That means not following directly in her mother's footsteps.  That means a brand new look for Black Canary.

That night, Dinah suits up in her all-new Black Canary costume and returns to the Star City slums that Bonfire has been torching lately.  She feels guilty over not bringing Green Arrow along with her, but she recognizes that this is a conflict she must face on her own.  If she is to truly break away from her mother's past demons, she must overcome her fear and take down Bonfire.

She slips into a condemned building that ought to be abandoned, but she notices an old derelict sleeping in one of the rooms.  The man has a hat pulled down low and a fake-looking beard covering half his face; of course, Dinah realizes, it's a disguised Green Arrow doing some undercover surveillance of the area.  Dinah doesn't wake him, but she is relieved to know she'll have backup later if she needs it.

And as it happens, Bonfire shows up just as Black Canary's walking down the stairs.  Bonfire torches the landing and the stairs around Black Canary, though she doesn't recognize the superhero for her new costume.  Black Canary lets her know "the plumage has changed, but the name is the same."

Thanks to her new fireproof costume, Black Canary stalks Bonfire back to the room with the sleeping "derelict".  Using the man for a hostage, Bonfire sets fire to an empty mattress and throws it at Black Canary.  The doorway goes up right around Dinah, who might not have to fear burning alive with her new duds, but she's still in danger of asphyxiation from the smoke.

Bonfire is dazed but staggers to her feet.  Then, out of nowhere, an arrow launches a rope around the arsonist, capturing her.  Green Arrow stands in the doorway in all his emerald archer glory and tells Dinah that he took care of the fire downstairs.

Dinah is shocked.  She thought Ollie was dressed up as Bonfire's homeless hostage; she thought she was rescuing him.  Well, it turns out the derelict was someone else undercover: the Star City Fire Chief that Ollie accused of corruption the day before.  The chief calls the police to take Bonfire away as Black Canary and Green Arrow walk away.

Okay, first I have to say that I never used to like this Black Canary costume.  I thought it looked too dated, too much like a tracksuit or something from the movie Flashdance.  The thing about that is, my exposure to this costume was mostly from the pages of Justice League International drawn by Kevin Maguire.  For all the strengths of that series and for Maguire's art, I never liked how he drew Dinah (or any other women, honestly).  I thought the costume looked too soft, it took away her edge.

Seeing how Moore depicts Dinah in the costume, though, is a whole 'nother matter.  She looks fluid, graceful, birdlike.  And plenty tough.  This Black Canary looks like an avenging warrior of the night. She could partner with Nightwing and clean up the streets of Gotham and Bludhaven.  It's definitely more of a superhero costume and it's not bad.  (I don't even mind the absurd white boots--I love 'em.  They remind me of Green Lantern's white gloves!)  However, I still prefer the classic black leather and fishnets Black Canary.

I love that Dinah II is reliving moments of her mother's tragedy and triumph, and struggling to exorcize that ghost.  She wants to live her own life, out of her mother's shadow, so she forces a separation by changing her identity.  It's a very natural occurrence for a daughter rebelling against her mother.  This two-part story delivers some great art and characterization for Dinah(s), but maybe my favorite part is that it gave her and her mother some villains.  Black Canary has a pretty pathetic rogues gallery, and I don't think Bonfire or Pyra are ever seen again after this, but they're nice benchwarmers.

Unfortunately, after this stunning debut of the All-New Black Canary, she dropped out of the Green Arrow backup strips in Detective Comics for a couple of months.  She turned up next in Green Lantern during the Crisis on Infinite Earths.  I might cover that story next week, in addition to recapping Ollie's solo efforts in Detective Comics #555 through #558.

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #553

For the last week I've been thoroughly scrutinizing every Black Canary appearance I could find from early 1985.  If you're familiar with this era in DC Comics history, you know this was around the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths, a maxi-series that left a few subtle changes to some of DC's characters.

Why would that pique my interest?  Well, among the retcons to come out of the Crisis was a change to Black Canary.  The last time her origin was experimented with, Roy Thomas made the Black Canary of Earth-1 (the JLA Dinah) a daughter/clone of the Black Canary of Earth-2 (the JSA Dinah)  from suspended animation but with the memories and experiences of her mother overwriting her own so that the younger, hotter Dinah could continue her adventuring in place of her mother/self.

Crisis allowed new writers to say, "Screw you, Roy Thomas!" and make the Justice League Black Canary a normal, non magic-cursed/non-memory-affected daughter to the original who fought crime with the Justice Society.  But when would that change be crystalized?  It's a little vague, but I think this issue of Detective Comics is the first story to treat Dinah Laurel Lance as a really, truly different person.

Detective Comics #553 starred Batman in the lead story by Doug Moench and Klaus Janson.  The Green Arrow backup strip "Crazy From the Heat" is written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome Moore with Bruce Patterson.

When Black Canary rushes into the burning building, she discovers a mother and child trapped in the blaze.  The mother's foot slipped through rotted floorboards.  Black Canary quickly and awesomely punches through the rotted wood to free the woman.  She ushers the lady and her infant daughter out to the street, telling them Green Arrow will help them relocate.

Then Black Canary meets the cause of the building fire...

The woman named Bonfire makes a snarky remark and walks away, leaving Black Canary to either burn to death or suffocate.  Dinah rolls over, losing her wig, but she cannot move from under the burning wreckage.  She feels death approaching... but it's actually Green Arrow with a trick arrow that puts out the fire around her.

Green Arrow carries Black Canary out of the inferno just as the fire department arrives.  The fire chief thanks Green Arrow, but Ollie isn't interested in his gratitude.  He has some choice words for the fire chief, including his ranting theory about greedy real estate companies setting fire to the buildings so they can redevelop the neighborhood without dealing with squatters in the buildings.  Ollie as much as accuses the fire department of corruption and collusion with the real estate firms and allowing the buildings to burn.

Later, back at Dinah's home, Ollie checks to see how she's recovering from the incident.  He tries to dance around the issue, but neither of them can avoid the fact that she "choked" in the room when Bonfire showed up.

Black Canary can't explain why she reacted that way any more than I can explain why artist Jerome Moore decided to give her the curliest damn hair this side of a Soul Glo commercial.  Seriously, her hair didn't look like that a few pages ago when the wig fell off!  Maybe in the post-Crisis continuity, Larry Lance ain't the real daddy.

Ollie accuses her of melodrama and making too big a deal over nothing.  He suggests she get over her momentary lapse in action by staking out the neighborhood and waiting for the arsonist to return.

Dinah doesn't get much sleep that night as she tosses and turns.  Among the thoughts keeping her up is the question of whether or not her mother ever found herself in the same position: sleepless and obsessive about a criminal she couldn't catch.

Okay, clearly Dinah makes a shocking discovery about her mom that will be revealed next issue, but I'm not going to focus on the cliffhanger.  That will be addressed next week when I review 'Tec #554.

What concerns me is everything else Dinah says about her mother.  First, that she clearly states her mother was the first Black Canary.  That gels with the new history Thomas established two years earlier, but when Dinah says she has tried to live up to her mother's legacy... That doesn't sound like a Black Canary who had all the memories and experiences of her mother imprinted on her own consciousness.

Second, the way she refers to her mother's history doesn't sound like it's from first hand experience, but that she knows of her mother's exploits from oral histories and a scrapbook of Black Canary's early adventures.

It's not definitive, but to me Joey Cavalieri is treating this Dinah as a separate woman who grew up hearing about the original Black Canary's adventures and has tried to follow in her footsteps.  That's a distinctly different status quo than a time-lost daughter awoken after decades of sleep with the past glory of her mother info-dumped on her brain when she comes to a new world.

The name "Laurel" never comes up, but I believe Cavalieri is the first writer to establish a Black Canary I and Black Canary II as mother and daughter without shared brainwaves or whatever Roy Thomas thought would explain de-aging the character.

Come back next Friday for the answer to Dinah's questions and the first appearance of Black Canary's "new" costume in Detective Comics #554!

Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #552

Previously in Detective Comics...

Oliver Queen learned there's such a thing as illegal immigrants when the INS interrupted his lunch with Dinah to haul away most of the staff of his favorite Spanish restaurant.  Ollie followed the advice of one of the employees and tracked down a refugee from El Salvador living in a church basement with his family.  But then the INS came again and arrested the Salvadorans and Ollie.  Meanwhile, the woman known as Onyx is looking for Ollie, but crashing in the back of a store.

Detective Comics #552 starred Batman in the lead story by Doug Moench, Pat Broderick, and Bob Smith.  The Green Arrow backup strip, "Sanctuary II: Poor, Huddled Masses" is written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by Jerome Moore.

The second part of "Sanctuary" opens with Oliver Queen in a detention center operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service reflecting on the lack of compassion and humanity in how the detained men and women and children are treated.  A guard takes Ollie in to see the... I guess the warden, or the Agent-in-Charge, maybe.  Whatever.

The AC calls Ollie a bleeding heart and makes the point that the illegal immigrants are costing tax dollars and they'll never assimilate and be productive members of society.  Ollie calls the man a racist and that's about the limit of their intelligent debate.  The AC sends Ollie back to his cell.

A little later, Ollie's "lawyer" shows up--from the firm of "Byrd and Pierce".  Nice.

When Dinah leaves, Ollie murmurs, "Pretty clever, Pretty Bird."  He uses the lock pick hidden in her collar-stay to open the door to the cell and leads Francisco and his family out of the cell block.  They cross the grounds to the fence where a pair of armed guards call them to a halt.  Ollie uses Dinah's second collar stay as a smoke bomb to thwart the guards, then he and the Salvadorans make it to the gate where Dinah is waiting in her car (except it's not the same sporty car she had last issue).

Ollie ignores Dinah's protests about his duffel bag and drives right into the side of the detention center, breaking the wall.  As he pulls away, the rest of the detainees pour out of their cells.  They overwhelm the guards and disappear into the night.  Amidst the chaos, Ollie and Dinah drive off with Francisco and his family, promising to take them to the next church on their underground railroad.

Back at the detention center, the guards complain that they could have contained the jailbreak if the Agent-in-Charge let them open fire.  The AC shuts them down, saying dead prisoners would be a public relations nightmare and he would become the scapegoat.  He says rounding up the escapees is the state police's job now.  This... is remarkably level-headed for a comic book "villain".  I'm genuinely surprised he leaves the matter like this and doesn't go off with a shotgun to murder Ollie in revenge.  Joey Cavalieri writes against the expected-though-illogical choice, which creates a fair amount of humor and enjoyment.

Some time later, Ollie has finally donned his Green Arrow costume and goes swinging and climbing to stretch his legs.

Onyx has tracked Ollie down and surmises that he and Green Arrow are one and the same.

Sanctuary wasn't a bad story.  Despite Ollie and Dinah spending all of their time as, well, as Ollie and Dinah not Green Arrow and Black Canary.  There is a lot of philosophical and emotional depth to a story about immigration, racism, and refugees from a war-torn land, but Cavalieri only skims the surface of these issues.  Maybe he didn't--or couldn't--be too controversial, but it comes across today as softball pitching the issue instead of really examining it with any consequences.  Jerome Moore's art is pretty fluid, though he doesn't get much to do in these issues.  Hopefully he can cut loose next time around.

At the issue's end, the tag promises a new Green Arrow and Black Canary adventure next month "with a startling new development!"  What that vague teaser promises is the set-up that will lead to Black Canary's new costume.

Come back next Friday for "Crazy From the Heat" in Detective Comics #553.