Black Canary's ongoing adventures continue with seven thrilling pages of mystery and suspense in Flash Comics #103.
"Mystery On Ice" is written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Carmine Infantino.
Nevermind why Larry Lance's client would ask to meet him on a frozen lake, he tells Dinah to sit back and watch him with his fancy skating moves. And then promptly falls on his butt to much amusement. Dinah changes into her Black Canary costume and displays her own fancy footwork.
At that point, Larry Lance's client arrives, having fled for his life from crooks trying to steal a valuable element. Fled for his life... to an iceskating park... with is own skates...
Black Canary kicks one of goons, but the other (you guessed it!) pistol-whips her unconscious. When she wakes up, she and Larry are tied to an ice sailboat and set adrift down the frozen river. As the boat nears the falls and their certain death, Black Canary and Larry shift their weight causing the boat to list one way then the other. They manage to steer the boat off the river into the snow bank and down the other side.
The boat skids down the snow slope and crashes right into the criminals' car preventing their escape. The goons make one more desperate escape attempt, kicking out the door, but Black Canary takes the leader's ice-skate. She throws it back at his face, but lucky for him, the boot hits him instead of the blade.
After this issue, there would only be one more issue of Flash Comics in its original print run. The end of this era would net Black Canary an extra two pages in her adventure, but see the last of her solo adventures for more than a decade.
Come back next Sunday for another Golden Age adventure of Black Canary in Flash Comics #104.
I'm not too familiar with Golden Age Black Canary, so this was nice to see. Infantino's art is lovely. Dinah looks a bit like Marlene Dietrich with a little bit of Veronica Lake thrown in for good measure--love it!
ReplyDeleteI can see both comparisons. She definitely has the wavy blonde hair of Lake, and sometimes Infantino really accentuated her cheekbones, so I can see Dietrich in there, too.
ReplyDeleteI haven't gotten to Dinah's ALL-STAR appearances with the Justice Society, but I have reviewed nearly every other one of her Golden Age appearances. However, they are extremely formulaic, so if you read this one you've pretty much read them all.