It's Thanksgiving here in the United States, a day for--among other things--giving thanks for all the pleasing and fortuitous things in our lives.
Today I'm thankful for yesterday's issue of Batman: The Dark Knight, because it featured a cameo appearance of Black Canary drawn by one of my favorite artists in the business, Alex Maleev. This is the last comic of the New 52 era I will buy until things at DC make a serious change in direction, so it was nice to see Dinah make show up in a book that is consistently better written and drawn than her own.
I'm not going to review the entire issue because it's the conclusion to a story of which I didn't read every chapter. Also, Black Canary (and Condor, too) makes little more than a cameo appearance.
Black Canary appears in a grand total of five panels and gets only a handful of lines. Batman asks her and Condor to help him track down Clayface. They run around Gotham looking for the villain, but Batman finds him and stops him before they arrive to help.
Okay, no kidding, there is absolutely zero reason for Black Canary and Condor to appear in this issue. They do nothing of consequence and if their roles were omitted from this story, nothing about the plot or characterization would change very much.
Call it cynicism, but this feels like another example of an editor telling Batman: The Dark Knight's writer, Gregg Hurwitz, to find a way to use Black Canary to capitalize on her popularity in other media, such as TV's Arrow. Of course, if DC really cared about elevating her profile, I can't understand why she hasn't been a focus in Forever Evil, being one of the last heroes left on Earth.
Anyway, I don't care about any of that. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Ive got this but haven't read it yet.
ReplyDeleteCurrently Im re-reading my Wonder Woman comics pre-Crisis version, and Black Canary appears for three issues in 308, 309 and 310. Very good interpretation of her, too, with a plot involving body-swaps, Nazi scientists and gypsies. Complimented with the divine art of Don Heck.
I just recently read Wonder Woman #291 through #293 and Dinah appears in those, as well, along with every other female DC hero just about.
ReplyDeleteYes Ive just re-read that too, the Adjudicator was the villain, great art also. What interested me was the range of the various heroines featured, esp Madame Xanadu, who Id never read before, but instantly got into because of this storyline. They should've released it as a TPB.
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