Black Canary in BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT #25

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!

Canary Comics for September '13

None.

September will be Villains Month for DC Comics.  Along with the launch of the "Forever Evil" event, every one of DC's occasionally-fifty-two regular series will be usurped by spotlight issues on Batman's the company's many villains.

Forever Evil promotional art (and possibly first cover) by David Finch.

There won't be an issue of Birds of Prey in September, nor will there be an issue of Animal Man, or Supergirl, or Nightwing, or any of the other middle to low-range selling books.  Instead there will be four Batman books (note that's the self-titled Batman series; there will also be four issues of Detective Comics, four of Batman & Robin, and four of Batman: The Dark Knight for a total of sixteen Caped Crusader foils to focus on).  There will be plenty of Justice League villain books, Superman villain books, Green Lantern villain books, etc.  Even Green Arrow gets subverted for Count Vertigo that month, and all two of Aquaman's rogues gallery get the star treatment in September.

Somewhere in all those villain spotlights, there may be an appearance of or reference to Black Canary and the Birds of Prey, but I doubt it.  I hope, by then, writer Christy Marx has dropped Mister Freeze and the Court of Owls and taken the Birds in her own creative direction not handed down by editorial decree.  But I doubt that, too.