Action Plus: ACTION COMICS #436

In the early 1970s, Green Arrow joined the "Action Plus" feature of Action Comics.  Black Canary made numerous guest appearances in her boyfriend's strip, sometimes in her costumed identity, and sometimes as civilian florist, Dinah Lance.

Action Comics #436 is cover dated June 1974 and hit the shelves on March 28, according to Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics.  The lead Superman story is written by Elliot S. Maggin with art by Curt Swan and Vince Colletta and a cover by Nick Cardy.

The Green Arrow strip called "Young Man with a Drum" is written by Maggin with pencils by Dick Dillin and inks by Tex Blaisdell.  The story opens with Black Canary handing an unsolved mystery off to her boyfriend, Green Arrow.  Two panels on the first page are the only appearance Dinah makes in this story, but oh well...

Green Arrow changes into civilian clothes and, as Oliver Queen, checks out a band called Great Frog that's playing in the park.  Great Frog just arrived in Star City after touring the country, so maybe they're involved in the case.

Unexpectedly, Ollie recognizes his former kid sidekick Roy Harper playing drums for the band.  He hasn't seen Roy since the boy headed out on his own after the historic events of Green Lantern #85 and #86 where Ollie discovered Roy was addicted to heroin.  Now he figures Roy has infiltrated the band as part of an unknown undercover operation, y'know, rather than a teenager just living every kid's fantasy of touring with a rock and roll band.

Ollie then changes back into his Green Arrow duds and snoops around the band's dressing room.  He finds false-bottoms built into the band's instrument cases and stolen cameras and merchandise inside. He theorizes that someone is concealing the stolen goods inside the band's equipment so that Roy and the others are unwittingly transporting the contraband throughout the tour.

I'm not sure why he doesn't suspect the band themselves; I guess he just really trusts Roy, who, as we mentioned earlier, has a drug problem.  Green Arrow assumes Roy knows about the stolen goods and is about ready to close the case.  After the gig, Roy comes back into his dressing room and finds his old mentor there.

Damn, Roy, we all want to smack Green Arrow now and then, but dude!

Archie, the manager who walked in the room, is suitably impressed that Roy seemed able to take out a costumed vigilante with one punch.  He pulls Roy aside and confides in him the secret that the music tour is really a nationwide smuggling and fencing operation.  As they walk out of the room, Roy tosses a small object that lands next to Ollie, who opens his eyes, alert but not ready to give that intelligence away to Archie.

Later, a pair of goons come into the room to dispose of Green Arrow's body, but he springs up and effortlessly takes them out.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Archie takes Roy to see Mr. Aubrey, the man who books the band's cross-country tour and the man who runs the criminal operation.  He tells Roy he could have a bright future in fencing and drug trafficking, which is just want Roy wanted to hear.  At that moment, Green Arrow swings through the window and kicks Aubrey across his desk.  Ollie fires off two arrows that pin Archie to the wall and plug the barrel of his gun.

Aubrey confesses to the whole criminal enterprise and the police take him and his goons away.  Green Arrow chides Roy for the impractical use of the radio transceiver he threw down in the dressing room after pretending to know Arrow unconscious.  Roy tells him he would have had the case solved and the bad guys taken out whether Ollie showed up or not.  Ollie tells him not to be so headstrong and to ask for help once in a while.

Sorry to say, Roy, but I don't think Great Frog has a very bright future.  Also, you must not have been a very good drummer, because Darwyn Cooke pegged you for a bass player on his variant cover for Teen Titans #5 this December.  I mean, you do seem more like a strings guy, right?

We don't get much of Black Canary in this story, but it's still a pretty enjoyable tale, and Maggin makes nice use of continuity by extending the tension between Ollie and his ex-partner.  Green Arrow acts like he wants to it out, like he expects Roy to come back and everything will be the same, which was always Ollie's problem when it came to Roy.  When it came to any of his friends and family, actually.  For all his pretense about social activism and progress, Oliver Queen doesn't handle change to his personal life well at all.

Come back next Monday for another tale of Green Arrow and Black Canary in Action Comics...

Justice League #37 Variant by Darwyn Cooke

In December, a whole lot o' DC comics will ship with covers illustrated by Darwyn Cooke.  By then, Birds of Prey will be long dead and I have no idea if Black Canary is slated to end up in another book because I haven't paid attention to the solicits since, um, April...?

However, Cooke included Black Canary in the background of his cover for Justice League #37.

That's her way back behind Superman and Batman.

I wondered if there was any reason for this specific assemblage of of heroes.  Cooke expertly depicts a nostalgic sense of whimsy in his covers, so it makes sense that he uses the seven original members of the Justice League of America--Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and J'Onn J'Onzz.  But he also includes Cyborg, a founding member of the New 52 Justice League.  But what about Green Arrow and Black Canary?  I can't imagine this is the lineup of the team in issue #37 since J'Onn and Ollie are in Justice League United and for some reason I think Hal Jordan is still off the team playing space cop.

I would be happy if Black Canary joined the main Justice League team.  I think she deserve a shot at it, but it might take a creative team shift to get me interested in reading the comic again.  I like most of what Geoff Johns does, but I don't think he ever had a firm grasp on the League like he did with Green Lantern, the Flash or Justice Society.

Girl Power: NEW FRONTIER SPECIAL

Darwyn Cooke is one of my favorite artists and his love letter to the Silver Age, The New Frontier, is one of my favorite stories ever published by Marvel or DC.  There's nothing I don't like about the story, but as the manager of a Black Canary fan blog, Cooke gives me slim-to-nothing to work with.  Black Canary appears in only three panels in the entire story.  She has no dialogue or action; she's merely a background extra.

However, in 2008, DC published Justice League: The New Frontier Special to celebrate the direct-to-DVD release of the animated adaptation of Cooke's story.  (I got a copy of this story packaged with the New Frontier action figure box set, an unexpected birthday present two years ago.)

This special contains some wonderful new material, including a "lost chapter" from New Frontier written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke, showing an amazing battle between Batman and Superman.  There's a one-page prologue starring Rip Hunter.  There's a great six-page Robin and Kid-Flash team-up by Cooke and Dave Bullock.

And then there's a story of Wonder Woman and Black Canary.  Written by Cooke with art by his longtime inker and collaborator, J. Bone, the story puts the Amazon Warrior and the Blonde Bombshell at the forefront of the Women's Liberation Movement.

I love this story!  The portrayal of Wonder Woman is a little more abrasive than I'd prefer, but it's played mostly for laughs so I'm fine with her being so staunchly anti-men here.  Black Canary is little more than a sounding board for Diana's rants, but her occasional commentary is nice and comedic as well.  Dinah's best moment is that her superhero costume with black and fishnets is actually perfect camouflage inside the Playboy Club.

I love the references to historical figures and events, such as buxom Hollywood starlet Jayne Mansfield and feminist journalist Gloria Steinem, the music of Charlie Mingus, the "bra burning" that came to symbolize the movement, even if the historical accuracy is rather dubious.  Then of course, there is the brief and brilliantly awkward appearance of Bruce Wayne, who needs to be shamed out of the club by his female colleagues in crime fighting.

All told, this is a fun and funny story, and it makes me want to re-read The New Frontier for the umpteenth time!

Welcome to Flowers & Fishnets

I’ve had this idea for a year to create a fan blog for one of my favorite comic book heroes.  Until I get my overripe fingers on a shooting star and secure a writing position at one of the major comic book publishers, this blog, if nothing else, can put my great love of the medium, the history, and the rich crop of characters to some use, be it constructive or not.  The hardest part was settling on a character to blog about.  There’s never going to be a shortage of Batman websites out there, and most of my other favorite super heroes of the DC universe were duly represented in quality if not quantity.  The hero that ranked highest on my list and who wasn’t being covered readily in the blogosphere I regularly followed was the dark haired florist who by night donned a wig, fishnets and leather and judo-chopped criminals as the blonde bombshell, Black Canary.

I do not profess to be an expert in the character, but I am a fan.  I have read many comics featuring Black Canary, but nowhere near all of them.  I’d like to, though, which is the reason why for my birthday this year, I treated myself to a discounted copy of The Black Canary Archives Vol. 1.  If I was going to blog about the Canary, at the very least I had to be familiar with her first appearance.

Cover art (mostly) by Carmine Infantino

The goal of blog is to read and review Black Canary stories as I find them in my collection of Birds of Prey trade paperbacks, or her original adventures in Flash Comics reprinted in the Archives edition, or her guest spots in The Brave and the Bold, to her role on the New 52’s Team 7.  Yep, even that.  And hopefully a lot more in between.  I’ll also add pics of Black Canary as rendered by some of my favorite artists in the medium over the years, and try to score some fun creator interviews with writers and artists who have contributed to the character over the years.  I’ll review my one piece of Black Canary merchandize: her action figure from the DC Universe Classics line.  Hell, maybe I can even convince my motorcycle-riding wife to dress up like Dinah--  No. I’m going to stop myself right there.

Flowers & Fishnets will pay tribute to any and all versions of the Black Canary I can come across.  That especially includes both the Golden Age Dinah Drake version, and the more contemporary Dinah Lance version.  Except in specific instances, I tend not to distinguish between the two and often think of them both as part of the Black Canary icon, just as I think of Carter Hall and Kator Hol as both being Hawkman, and Barry Allen and Wally West as both being The Flash.  When necessary, I’ll try to identify which version of Black Canary is being featured in write-ups and reviews of certain issues.

Sketch by Darwyn Cooke.

If you’re a fan of Black Canary, or you’d like to be, I hope you can get something useful out of this blog.  If not new information, at least something halfway interesting.  If you’ve never heard of the character and happened upon this blog because you googled “flowers and fishnets” expecting some kind of fetish website, I apologize for wasting your time.  Maybe some of the forthcoming fan art, however, will be to your liking.  Regardless of how you found this place, I hope you come back often.

As befits the Black Canary, I will sign off each post with...

Tweet-tweet!

...

Hmm.  That might not work.