Pretty Bird: DETECTIVE COMICS #565

Previously in Detective Comics...

Detective Comics #565 starred Batman and Catwoman 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 "Death by Misadventure" written by Joey Cavalieri and drawn by new penciler Stan Woch.

Green Arrow and Black Canary were sneaking around an old mansion looking to rescue the mayor's son from kidnappers.  Black Canary was knocked out by the mayor in his sinister guise as Steelclaw, while Green Arrow opened a door upstairs that set off an explosion.

When Green Arrow picks himself up, he is greeted by two boys.  One is Bruce Bolt, the mayor's son; the other is Rick O'Connor, who the editor's note refers to as "Hi-Tek" from a zillion Green Arrow stories, remember?  I actually don't remember this character, but whatever.  Hi-Tek helps Ollie to his feet and explains that he was assisting Bruce's tutor when they discovered that strange men were following Bruce home from school and lurking around the house.  They got permission from the tutor, a woman named Myrna Cuthbertson, to build some home-defense booby-traps, including the door bomb.

Outside, the two kidnappers happen upon Steelclaw over Black Canary's unconscious form.  One of the hoods intends to shoot her in the head, but Steelclaw objects.  Mayor Bolt has infiltrated the world of crime hoping to take it down from inside, but he can't allow Black Canary to be murdered.  Unfortunately, the goons are no longer interested in letting Steelclaw boss them around.

The gunshots get Green Arrow's attention up in the house.  He looks out the window to see one of the gunmen about to execute Dinah.

Green Arrow comes down and unties Black Canary.  Then Bruce Bolt and the others follow and little Brucie asks about the hooded figure bleeding out on the lawn.  Won't that be awkward when he finds out it's his dad.

Onyx tries to leave the shop but Tommie has her locked inside and demands to know what she's afraid of and why she came back.

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