Episode 22: CANCELED

FINAL EPISODE.

Ryan Daly reviews Black Canary #12, the last issue from the Blonde Bombshell’s 1993 series. But he can’t cover this story alone—it’s so ‘90s, it’s going to take special guest star Nathaniel Wayne from Council of Geeks to put this insanity into words.

All of this sets the stage for next year’s POWER OF FISHNETS Podcast devoted to Black Canary and the Mistress of Magic, Zatanna!

Flowers & Fishnets is available for download on iTunes by clicking here, or you can check out the show's RSS feed right here.

Sample pages from Black Canary #12, written by Sarah Byam with interior art by Leo Duranona and cover by Federico Cueva.

Council of Geeks on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/councilofgeeks

90s Comics Retrial: https://90scomicsretrial.wordpress.com

Additional music this episode:
"Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me"
Betty LaVette
ANTI- Records, 2010.

Thanks for listening!

CLICK HERE TO PLAY EPISODE IN ANOTHER WINDOW.

Action Plus: ACTION COMICS #434

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 #434 is cover dated April 1974 and hit the shelves on January 31, according to Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics.  The lead Superman story is written by Cary Bates with art by Curt Swan and Vince Colletta and a cover by Nick Cardy.

The Green Arrow strip entitled "Zatanna's Double-Identity" is written by Elliot S. Maggin with art by Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughlin.  The story opens with Green Arrow recounting the most recent frustration in his terribly burdensome life.

Dinah Lance is hella pissed that her Justice League teammate, Zatanna, is locking lips with Oliver Queen, Dinah's boyfriend.  But what pisses her off even more is how Zatanna acts like she is Ollie's lover and Dinah is a total stranger.  Dinah storms off letting Ollie sort out the situation.  Maggin makes a point of referencing Dinah's judo mastery; she leaves to maintain discipline over her mind and body.

Ollie assumes that Zatanna has been the victim of some kind of magic spell that screwed wit her memory and perceptions, but instead of concocting a practical way of solving that problem, he takes Zatanna with him to the public demonstration of a bank's new super security system.

There's some not-too-sublte jab at the anti-Communist witch hunts in Washington, D.C. before a pair of armed robbers bust in and try to rob the place.  Ollie changes into his Green Arrow costume and he and Zatanna spring into action.

Except, as Green Arrow notices, Zatanna isn't fighting the way she normally would.  She's fighting the way Black Canary does!

Zatanna slowly comes to her senses and remembers her own identity and powers.  She changes the robber from a wolf back into his human form.  That's lucky for him, because remaining in animal form for too long could be disastrous and permanent, as Zatanna explained to Black Canary in the Bloodspell graphic novel.

Back at Ollie's office, Zatanna reveals what happened to make her behave so strangely.

Ollie is relieved that Zatanna's attraction to him was all part of an accidental spell, or so he would think.  Zatanna doesn't want Ollie thinking it was entirely an accident and she pulls him in for another kiss before she leaves.

Green Arrow slumps into his chair to dwell on this latest revelation.  That's when Dinah--who had left to calm down, if you remember--comes back dressed as Black Canary and kicks Ollie's door down!

First, how awesome is Nick Cardy's cover to this issue!  Forget Kryptonite, Superman's real weakness is the threat of tooth decay!!!  As for this story, like oh-so many Silver and Bronze Age adventures, it was silly and somewhat nonsensical but so much damn fun.

Zatanna looks great in her classic stage magician costume, so much better than either of the costumes she would wear as a member of the Justice League of America in the late '70s and early '80s.  Dinah, too, looks sexy as always regardless of what outfit and hair she's sporting.  I'm not always a fan of Dick Dillin's work, but I have no real complaints about it in this story.

Even though Dinah is shunted off to the side for this story and only appears as Black Canary after the action is over, she does have an unexpectedly large role in this story.  It's flattering, as a fan of the character and her physical prowess, to see how highly Black Canary's martial arts skills are thought of by Zatanna and Green Arrow.  It's a nice validation of the character who hasn't had much to do in the Action Comics backups so far that Dinah is a master hand-to-hand combatant and that a real super-powered magic user would try to emulate that in battle.

The one lingering question I have, though: Why the hell did Zatanna turn one of the robbers into a wolf?  Wolves can still be freaking dangerous if scared or threatened; why not turn him into a rabbit or a guinea pig?

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

Black Canary in Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 2: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA ANNUAL #3

Black Canary left the Justice League of America roughly one year before the Crisis on Infinite Earths universe-altering series when Aquaman took over the team and ushered in the era known as Justice League Detroit.  She and Green Arrow teamed up with Green Lanterns John Stewart and Katma Tui at the beginning of the Crisis event before coming back to the JLA for the series' annual in 1985.

Justice League of America Annual #3: "Force of Nature" was written by Dan Mishkin with pencils by Rick Hoburg, inks by Mike Gustovich, and a cover by Paris Cullins and Mike Machlan.

The story begins with the android Red Tornado alone on the Justice League Satellite.  The satellite is badly damaged and plummeting toward the Earth while inside Red Tornado tries to hold the structure together.  Reddy also questions his humanity, but his existential crisis is interrupted by the satellite exploding.  Pieces of the satellite shower Earth in flames as the debris catches fire on reentry.

Below, Green Arrow and Black Canary have been rescued by Firestorm and ride a--a balloon in the shape of a puppy?  Really, Ronnie?!

In Detroit, Martian Manhunter watches the bulk of the satellite wreckage crashing toward the city's Renaissance Center.  J'Onn grabs Steel and Vibe just as Firestorm arrives with Dinah and Ollie.  Firestorm uses his atomic restructuring power to divert some of the debris, while Black Canary, Green Arrow, Steel and Vibe deal with the bits of fiery detritus that Firestorm misses.

But the largest chunk of the satellite, the command center, is still barreling down on the heart of Detroit.  J'Onn J'Onzz risks his life by throwing himself against the fireball.  Despite fire being his greatest weakness, his superior Martian strength is able to knock the satellite debris some ways from downtown.  Firestorm uses his powers to push the wreckage clear of the city and into the water of one of the Great Lakes.

In the aftermath, the Justice League members past and present begin to bicker amongst themselves with Green Arrow and Vibe about to throw down.  Firestorm separates them and calls their attention to the missing Red Tornado who was still on the satellite.  J'Onn, too, tries to settle the heated tempers and scans for Reddy.

The scene changes to New York City where Kathy Sutton, Red Tornado's boo, comes home from  the grocery store to find Reddy's face haunting her television screen beckoning her to join him.

Across the country, Ralph Dibny, the World Famous Elongated Man, and Zatanna Zatara, Mistress of Magic arrive at S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate a series of freak storms and unnatural weather problems across the globe.  Ralph surmises the influx of anti-matter energy is responsible for the storms, but a scientist confesses that S.T.A.R. Labs has been deploying experimental weather control satellites--weather control satellites that they're no longer able to control.

Elongated Man and Zatanna help the scientists try to override the weather satellites operations but fail to stop the satellites before the lab's control center is destroyed by malfunctioning equipment and another storm caused by a space warp opening up directly above the two heroes.

Back in Detroit, J'Onn brings Black Canary, Green Arrow and the rest of the League members to their current headquarters.  Ollie and Vibe continue to snap at each other.  Then some doctor comes out and describes the fate of Red Tornado.

Firestorm reveals to the others that Red Tornado's body was inhabited by the spirit of the Tornado Champion, but their discussion in cut off by Elongated Man's distress call.  The League watch on the monitor as Elongated Man and Zatanna are caught up in the storm and sucked into the space warp.

Meanwhile, Kathy Sutton follows Red Tornado's trail through hijacked electronic messages.

Then the Detroit heroes save some people trapped at a hydroelectric plant.  Black Canary, meanwhile, goes to Gotham City with Green Arrow and Firestorm.  They're flying into the city when Ollie spots Kathy Sutton standing on top of a bridge in the middle of the storm.  Kathy is rescued by Geo-Force and brought to Batman and Black Lightning.

Kathy is telling Batman and the Outsiders about following Red Tornado's summons when Dinah and the others land and tell them Reddy is dead.  Then Superman arrives and is unable to travel through the space-warp.  They reason that the rogue weather-control satellites are preventing the heroes from going through the warp, and J'Onn has been unable to destroy the satellites in space.  Superman flies up to help the Martian.

Geo-Force uses his positive gravity power to try and collapse the warp, but it doesn't work.  Instead, it pulls the jet nearly crushing the heroes.

Geo's powers create a crazy kind of backlash effect that sends Black Canary, Green Arrow, Firestorm and Kathy Sutton into the space warp.  Batman and the Outsiders cannot follow, because screw the Outsiders!

In space, Superman and J'Onn destroy one of the weather satellites, while the malevolent spirit controlling voices his rededication to his plan, whatever that might be.

At the hydroelectric dam, one space warp opens dumping Ralph and Zatanna on the Detroit Leaguers.  Another warp opens up dropping Dinah and the others.  Vibe acts like a dick, which is Ollie's thing, so Green Arrow smacks Vibe, calling him a punk.

Zatanna notices that the weather has changed, that something is affecting the wind and air pressure specifically.  In space, Superman and Martian Manhunter destroy the last of the satellites which plays right into the hands of the Tornado Champion that has been causing all of the storms.

The gathered heroes watch as the giant tornado takes a familiar form: Red Tornado.  The tornado spirit explains how Red Tornado's android self was able to interface with the electronic satellites in orbit, and the Champion's spirit overrode their programming making them go bad.

Superman and Firestorm recognize that Reddy had been taken over by the persona of the Tornado Tyrant, who now wants to remake the world in his skewed version of perfection.  While the heroes engage the Tyrant in battle, we cut back to Detroit where Sue Dibny witnesses a whirling wind steal away the broken android body of Red Tornado.

The Justice Leaguers fight Tornado Tyrant but they're not accomplishing much.  Kathy Sutton thinks there is still a semblance of her lover's soul inside the storm and runs away from Green Arrow.  The whirlwind picks her up, and in the eye of the storm Kathy confronts Red Tornado, but his soul isn't the gentle man she loved.  He's crazy and wants her to join him in his quest to conquer the world.

She's able to calm him enough that he lets his guard down.

Superman, Martian Manhunter, Vibe and Firestorm try to contain the Tornado Tyrant but he busts free and rants against them.  Then, like a bratty little kid, he flies off threatening to get them back someday.

I think I would have enjoyed this story if I cared at all about Red Tornado and his history but I really, really don't.  I don't care much about the new Justice Leaguers from Detroit, either.  J'Onn and Firestorm got some cool moments to shine in this story, but Black Canary, Green Arrow, Elongated Man and Zatanna were little more than bystanders for most of the action.

Despite the end-of-the-world style natural disasters and potential for mass destruction that would make Michael Bay squee with delight, the story feels a little too small for a 41-page annual.  Part of that is Hoburg's artwork which never really elevates the dynamic scenes, but part of it, too, is Mishkin's story which is really too straight-and-narrow for a comic of this length.

Black Canary & Zatanna: Bloodspell Part 3

Click here to review Part 1.  Click here to review Part 2.

Earlier in Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell, Black Canary foiled a Vegas casino heist by a thief named Tina Spettro, but not before Tina tricked Black Canary into a bloodspell that binds her fate to the now-dead Tina's ghost.  Needing a magician's touch to get her out of this magic predicament, Dinah recruited her old friend and Justice League teammate, Zatanna Zatara.

Five years ago on the planet Apokolips, the sadistic Granny Goodness and her Female Furies had captured Zatanna, Black Canary, Wonder Woman, and Plastic Man.  The heroes were bound in Granny's gladiatorial arena and subjected to one of her elaborate deathtraps that Mr. Miracle cut his teeth escaping from.

Granny mocks Zatanna's notoriety as the Mistress of Magic's mouth is covered (by part of Plas, no less) preventing her from uttering any of her spells.  But at the last second before the trap is sprung, the captive heroes swap places with Granny and her Furies.

This little three-page vignette has no story connection to the rest of the tale.  Writer Paul Dini just drops it in as a means of showing Zatanna's resourcefulness and quick-thinking.  And it gives artist Joe Quinones a chance to draw our lovely heroines in older costumes, as well as a few more heroes and villains from DC's vault.

Back to the main story, Black Canary and Zatanna are riding to Las Vegas in Zatanna's enchanted trailer, which is being towed by an enchanted car that drives on its own.  Inside the trailer, Dinah takes a nice, refreshing bubble bath while trying not to arouse the displeasure of Zatanna's pet tiger, Sasha.

Zatanna's plan calls for them to travel to Vegas undercover so as to not warn Tina Spettro's ghost that Z is helping Dinah save the other victims of the bloodspell.  But the "undercover" part of Zatanna's scheme involves Black Canary posing as her magician's assistant.  And that involves Dinah wearing an outfit even skimpier and more revealing than most female superheroes wear.  Zatanna casts a magic costume-and-make-over spell and...

The ladies arrive at Xanadu in Las Vegas and meet with the hotel's owner, Dale Hollister, the same man that Tina Spettro planned to rob before she died.

Zatanna fills Hollister in on the situation with Tina's ghost, and in gratitude for Black Canary's earlier service, he offers to book Zatanna and "her assistant" in one of his showrooms to help them set the trap for Tina Spettro.

But as Hollister and Zatanna shake on the agreement, her tiger freaks out and lunges at both of them, slashing at them with his massive paws and drawing blood from each of their forearms.  Z reprimands the animal, which immediately seems confused and unaware of is prior attack.  Zatanna casts a healing spell on herself and Hollister.

That night, Zatanna performs her magic act for a packed house of spectators.  Her tricks include making Sasha the tiger vanish and reappear in a shrunken state.  Dinah watches the show from the wings; while backstage, she's passed a note from Dottie, the second-to-last surviving member of Tina's gang, asking for a meeting at her place that night.

If Dinah and Z were expecting a desperate woman when they meet Dottie, they're a little shocked to find a woman who has, for all intents and purposes, given up.  Dottie explains how crummy her life has been in the past year and, well, she doesn't exactly welcome death from a vengeful ghost, but she doesn't feel her life is all that worth living.  Dottie even goes so far as to ask Zatanna to change her into something else like an animal so she could just move on with a completely different life.

Zatanna refuses to cast that type of magic spell and explains that that sort of transformation spell is nearly irreversible because within hours the human brain begins to cede its faculties to animal instinct.  After a few days, Z explains, what remains of the human mind and soul would be totally supplanted by the animal and Dottie would be, essentially, dead and gone.

Instead, Zatanna plans to cast a protection spell around Dottie, but as she speaks the words, she inexplicably casts a different spell that transforms Dottie into glass.  Dinah reacts to Zatanna's sudden betrayal, an in the moment succumbs to her anger and becomes possessed by Tina's ghost.  Tina/Dinah then tries to shatter the glass Dottie, but Zatanna recovers and casts a protection spell that kicks Tina's ghost out of Dinah.

Tina's ghost curses at the ladies and announces her intention to kill Joy, the last name on her hit list before destroying Black Canary completely.

I guess putting the glass Dottie in Superman's impenetrable Fortress of Solitude is as good a place for safe keeping as any.  I didn't know it was ghost-proof but sure, whatever.

Zatanna reasons that Tina can now possess both her and Black Canary, but only one at a time, which means they still have a chance of stopping her.  They rush back to the Xanadu showroom, where Dale Hollister has been possessed by Tina's ghost.  She's using Hollister to murder joy with one of Zatanna's stage traps because since Joy switched out for Black Canary during the heist last year, she never actually took part in the bloodspell.

At that moment, however, Black Canary and Zatanna arrive to save the damsel in distress.  Tina was thrilled to possess the body of her billionaire ex-boyfriend, but she gets a much better rush when she takes over Zatanna again.

Tina/Zatanna turns on the machine set to kill Joy, then casts a spell turning Dale Hollister into a toad. Before she can squash him under heel, though, Black Canary jumps her, gagging her so she can't say any spells.  Tina/Zatanna fights her off, but then Dinah releases Sasha the tiger on her mistress.

When the tiger leaps at Tina/Zatanna, the ghost bolts from the magician and takes over Black Canary.  Tina then jumps back and forth between the women, using each one to attack the other, but not being able to say in one form for too long because the tiger can sense which woman is possessed and attacks that woman.

Tina/Canary uses her sonic scream to blow Zatanna off the stage and into the orchestral pit below.  When she follows her down, she finds Zatanna curled up, nearly catatonic.  Tina's ghost then leaps into the prone form of Zatanna... only to discover too late that she's been duped; that wasn't Zatanna's body.

The real Zatanna pops up and casts a containment spell trapping Tina's spirit in the body that was magically charmed to look like Zatanna, but was, in fact, a dove from her performance.  Tina Spettro's spirit is now trapped in the body of a bird.  Before the ladies can rest on their laurels, though, they realize that Joy is still in danger of being butchered by a giant drill.

Zatanna casts another spell reverting Dale Hollister back to his human form.  Luckily, he wasn't trapped in the form of an animal long enough to lose his mind and soul--unlike Tina Spettro.  As the sun comes up over the Nevada desert, Tina is totally supplanted by the bird.  Her spirit, at last, is dead.  They release her to the wind, nothing but a dove now.

Before the ladies can head to a margarita bar, Black Canary gets a call from Green Arrow telling her that Metropolis is under attack from alien robots.  The Justice League needs their help, and the ladies head out to the next adventure.

That's where the story ends, but there's nearly 40 pages of added content in both the hardcover and digital version of the graphic novel.  This includes character sketches and sample pages in various stages of the art process by Joe Quinones, and a copy of Paul Dini's full 94-page script for the book.  It's awesome material that I recommend fans check out.

So.  What did I think of Black Canary's first original graphic novel?

I loved it.  As I said earlier in my review, Paul Dini knows the characters so well that everything they do feels in-character.  Like their characters in the DCAU, these are iconic and timeless versions of Black Canary and Zatanna.  That's what a Dini story feels like, whether it's a cartoon or a book painted by Alex Ross, the characters feel timeless, infused with all the greatest attributes of the Silver and Bronze Age.  But his script moves with a modern, easily readable pace and tone.

My only complaint with Dini's story, though, is that the villain isn't all that memorable.  When I heard about this graphic novel about a year ago, I was hoping it would contribute a real heavy-hitter to Black Canary's paltry rogues gallery.  Tina Spettro is decent, but she'll never be used again after this story.  Her costume was simple, a drab grey jumpsuit--not exactly a visual feast, and for most of the story, she exists solely as a spirit inhabiting other characters.  She'll forevermore be counted as one of Black Canary's enemies, but she won't add a whole lot to that list.

As for the art, Quinones mostly knocks it out of the park ("mostly").  He caught my eye back in Wednesday's Comics a couple years ago, and I was really excited to see what he would bring to this story.  Given Dini's storytelling sensibilities, it seemed obvious that Quinones would bring a lighter, almost animated style like Bruce Timm or Darwyn Cooke to the art.  It fits the story, and Quinones brings an incredible amount of expressiveness to each of the characters.  There's never a question of what the women and men are thinking and feeling in every single panel.

And yet... part of me wanted something a little more from the art.  Black Canary and Zatanna are beautiful women known for wearing fishnets.  They are sexual and sexualized characters, and I kind of expected more cheesecake from the story.  I'm not saying I would have preferred Ed Benes on this book, but I thought there would be more "Good Girl Art"-style imagery.  The only time Dinah's sexuality is really played up in this story is when Zatanna makes her over to look like a buxom assistant that deliberately doesn't look like Black Canary.

Instead of sexiness, Quinones emphasizes the toughness of Black Canary.  Nothing wrong with that; it makes her a more credible hero and probably a more compelling and likable protagonist.  But sometimes, just a few times, she looks a little too square-jawed and so spunky that she's not really all that attractive.  It's not often, but it is noticeable in a handful of panels.  Black Canary should be powerful and beautiful, but Quinones--unlike most people in comics over the years--sacrifices the latter for the former a couple times in this book.

One other interesting note I found while reading the book.  A lot of Justice League members pop up in small roles throughout the story.  Superman.  Wonder Woman.  Green Arrow.  Green Lantern.  Martian Manhunter.  Elongated Man.  Plastic Man.

Know who isn't on that list?  Batman.  Other than a toy in the background of one panel, Batman does not appear in this story, and that's pretty surprising given Paul Dini's history with the character.

I have given up on DC's mainstream comics from the New 52, and the Injustice: Gods Among Us tie-in comic became equally depressing, despite how well Black Canary was treated in the book.  The fact is, DC isn't offering a lot that appeals to me right now, but the books that do interest me are out-of-continuity stories like the digital first Batman '66, Adventures of Superman, the upcoming Sensation Comics starring Wonder Woman, and this original graphic novel.  DC needs to publish more books like Bloodspell.

Black Canary & Zatanna: Bloodspell Part 2

Click here to review Part 1.

The Black Canary and Zatanna original graphic novel, Bloodspell, opened with a prologue showing the ladies' first meeting as precocious and strong-willed young women.  We then jumped forward a few years to a second prologue showing Black Canary disrupting a casino heist by a thief named Tina Spettro.  Prior to the heist, Tina forced Dinah and the other women in her gang to pledge a loyalty oath that included drawing blood from their fingers and reciting an ominous-sounding Latin spell.  Black Canary chased Tina across Las Vegas; the pursuit ended with the thief dying in a fiery head-on collision.

Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell is written by Paul Dini, who earned a lifetime supply of geek-adoration from his days on Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League Unlimited.  Art for the book is provided by Joe Quinones, who did a masterful job on the Green Lantern feature of Wednesday's Comics.

The story picks up in present day with Dinah and Oliver Queen in bed after making loud, passionate love.  Whatever kind of move Ollie uses results in a climactic (heh-heh) "canary cry" of ecstasy that shatters a flower vase in another room.

Dinah and Ollie's relationship has always been highly sexualized, but I don't recall ever getting a masturbation joke as overt as this one.  Dini may have cut his teeth writing cartoons, and Quinones' art feels like a cousin of Bruce Timm's DCAU house style, but the tone of this book doesn't feel like it's for young kids.

Anyway, Dinah recognizes the name of a suicide victim.  Meghan Taylor was one of the girls in Tina Spettro's gang who called Black Canary for help.  Immediately after the story breaks on TV, Dinah gets a phone call from Betty Jo, yet another one of Spettro's accomplices.  Dinah gets dressed while Betty Jo explains that Meghan left a suicide note apologizing for her betrayal in Las Vegas a year ago.  Then, abruptly, Betty Jo's tone of voice changes and she tells Dinah she intends to throw herself off the harbor ferry.

Black Canary jumps on her motorcycle and roars down the highway.  She ramps the bike up and over the side of the bridge, coming down on the ferry and skidding to a halt against the fender of a parked car.

Black Canary finds Betty Jo leaning out over the railing.  She warns the girl what will happen if she goes over the side, a prospect that seems to excite Betty Jo for a moment.  Then, all of a sudden, Betty Jo seems to snap out of it and wonder where she even is.  She's so distracted that she loses her grip on the railing and falls, and Black Canary watches the girl get dragged beneath the boat.

Dinah noticed the change in Betty Jo's character on the phone and in the moment before she died.  And she's afraid that the late Tina Spettro is responsible somehow.

Later that night, Black Canary picks up Ollie, who has now donned his Green Arrow costume and rides on the back of her motorcycle.  She makes fun of him for getting rid of his old Arrowmobile because Batman gave him a hard time about it.

They ride out to a mobile home community to find Lauren, another member of the Spettro gang.  Lauren isn't answering her phone or knocks at the door.  Green Arrow notices a power strip leading from the house to the swimming pool, and when they investigate, they find the pool filled with electrical appliances... and Lauren's lifeless body.

One other thing Ollie notices: a bizarre tattoo on Lauren's arm.  Black Canary doesn't recognize the tattoo, but she knows someone who might.

We catch up with Zatanna in the present day summoning... monkeys?  Yep, monkeys.  For kids!

Dinah recalls Zatanna's first day aboard the Justice League Satellite ten years ago and how green Zatanna acted at the time.  From describing the League's teleportation effect as "tingly" to making a nerd-fool of herself in front of Martian Manhunter, the auspices of Zatanna's debut with the Justice League aren't terribly impressive.

And that's when bells and sirens go off.  The dastardly villain known as The Key is lose in the satellite and looking to spring other super villains from the satellite's prison.  Black Canary and Zatanna are the prison's last line of defense, something Z doesn't feel quite ready to handle.

When Elongated Man gets knocked out, the Key confronts the ladies, mocking Zatanna's attire and their attempts to stop him.

Having magically stolen The Key's keys, Zatanna doffs her cap and takes a bow.  At which point, all of the keys fall out of her top hat and clatter on the floor.  But while The Key scrambles to pick them up, Green Lantern catches up and knocks him out with a power-ring punch.

I haven't talked a whole lot about Quinones' art and I will definitely delve into it in greater detail tomorrow, but I do want to touch upon one of the things I really enjoy about his work.  Bloodspell takes place over five different eras, and Quinones delineates each time period expertly by changing up the ladies' costumes and hairstyles.

Zatanna's hair gets longer as she ages while Black Canary's hair seems longest during this satellite era.  It seems just shoulder-length during the main, contemporary part of the tale.  I think she looks a little like Elizabeth Shue in some of these scenes; not sure why.

Anyway... Dinah comes out of her reminiscence as Zatanna concludes her performance for the kids.  She can tell that something is bothering Dinah, so they do what women do to feel better.  They go shopping.

Paul Dini treats us to a rather obviously expected joke as the ladies restock on fishnet stockings, but Joe Quinones really sells it with the storefront design that feels like a Victoria's Secret sister store called Seams & Dreams.  It gives an extra umph to the fishnet gag that works wonders... but then the women are harassed by some mallrats who holler at them.

This is the obvious fishnet scene and it's pretty uncreative, even as Zatanna magically--and temporarily--transforms the men into goldfish for the pool.  I wasn't as enthusiastic about this scene, nor why Zatanna bothered with the guys at all instead of ignoring them.  But Dini and Quinones follow it up with another scene of fan-service as Dinah and Z visit a toy store with a window display of Justice League merchandize.

Yeah, that's toys for Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the satellite, Doctor Fate, Plastic Man, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and... Miss Martian?  Okay.  But the real treat are the vehicles and playsets that Quinones adds to the display.  Along with the classic Batmobile are straight-up cameos by the Super Powers line such as the Supermobile, the Lex-Soar 7, Hall of Justice and Tower of Darkness.  Awesome!

After teasing each other about their merchandizing choices, Dinah and Z head to a T.G.I. Friday's-style restaurant where the wait staff are covered in flair.  Dinah shows off some of the worthless trinkets and charms that Lauren had when she died, and a photo of the tattoo on her arm.

While Black Canary looks amused by the result of Zatanna's time freeze spell, the Mistress of Magic is dead serious.  She tells Dinah that she didn't pledge a loyalty oath; Tina Spettro tricked her and the other girls into a bloodspell.  The fact that Dinah was undercover using a different name may give her some leeway in the spell's hold, but Zatanna doesn't know enough about the basic mechanics of this type of magic.

She calls on her greatest resource, summoning the ghost of her father, Giovanni Zatara, for guidance.

Zatara tells Dinah that the more lives Tina's spirit claims, the more powerful she'll grow until she's capable of possessing Black Canary.

Zatara and Zatanna agree that to break the bloodspell, Tina Spettro's spirit needs to be contained or destroyed and that means capturing her, which means catching her in the act of possessing or trying to kill another one of the girls in her gang.

After Zatara bids them luck and vanishes, Dinah and Zatanna agree to head out to Las Vegas to put an end to Tina's bloody trail of vengeance.

Continued in Part 3.

Black Canary & Zatanna: Bloodspell Part 1

Know what sucks?  Knee surgery.  Know what else?  Back spasms.

The best remedy (other than Percocet and muscle relaxers) is good comics, and last month I got a very good comic.

If you search for Black Canary on Amazon or InStockTrades, you used to only find the Archive collection of her Golden Age stories from Flash Comics and a handful of trades collecting some less than awesome Green Arrow books from the time when she co-headlined the title.  Her original miniseries and the year-long ongoing that followed it in the 1990s have yet to be collected.  The Tony Bedard-written mini from 2007 that led to her eventual marriage to Oliver Queen was collected, but Green Arrow's name got top billing on the trade (and honestly, I can't fault that since that miniseries was as much about him as it was her).  Black Canary wouldn't take up much space at the local comic store's trades and hardcovers shelves.  But now, at least, she gets an original graphic novel to pad the shelf.  True, she shares the title yet again, but this time she gets top billing.

That book?  That balm for a post-operative leg and a bad back?

Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell written by Paul Dini with art by Joe Quinones.

The book impressed me before I even got to the story.  DC didn't go cheap on this book.  The fact that they published it as a hardcover is one thing, but beneath the dust jacket, the front cover is embossed with a raised fishnet pattern around the title.

Rounding out Quinones' art are Dave McCaig and Sal Cipriano on colors and letters respectively.  The title page credits Zatanna's creators, Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson, but not Black Canary's.  I'm not sure why, exactly, as she originally debuted in a Hawkman comic in 1964 so there oughtn't be any copyright or publication dispute.

Anyway, onto the story...

We open up fifteen years ago in the Himalayas with a young, short-haired Zatanna Zatara comparing her coming of age ritual to that of so-called normal kids.  Zatanna is ferried up Mount Everest in a carriage borne by figures in orange cloaks.  These are members of the Homo Magi, the innate magic-users of the DC Universe, and they count Zatanna's parents among them.

Zatanna utters the backwards spell, "Esir," and begins to rise up toward the summit of the mountain while musing about how different her childhood would be if she were, say, at a ballet recital.  Zatara and his wife bask in what I assume is pride--that's something parents feel, right?  Meanwhile, despite some hiccups, Young Zatanna levitates all the way up to the summit of Mount Everest.

If the magic and the heights hadn't unnerved her enough, she discovers she's not the first teenage girl to reach the mountain top that day.

Zatanna asks how this other girl got up there, to which Dinah replies simply that she climbed.  Dinah then mocks Zatanna's explanation of her magic.  When Zatanna defends the legitimate mental and physical exertion her spells require, Dinah hits her in the head with a snowball.

In retaliation, Z casts a spell that flips Dinah upside down and drops her on her butt.  And then they're friends, 'cuz that's how teenage girls do.

Dinah rolls over the subject of her parents and starts climbing back down the mountain, offering Zatanna use of her camp and teasingly warning her about yetis and snow leopards.

Alone, Zatanna begins to use her magic to descend back toward her parents.  But her brief encounter with the precocious Dinah has changed her.  Or perhaps challenged her is the more appropriate term.  Zatanna shucks her magic spells and decides to climb down the mountain using Dinah's ropes and rigging.  Doing it the hard way.

This prologue is as much as we get of Black Canary's backstory before the main story kicks off.  Paul Dini establishes that Dinah has been feisty and combative from the get-go.  There's obviously baggage between Dinah and her parents, but no mention of a previous Blonde Bombshell, so it's unclear whether this Dinah is the classic Dinah Drake or her daughter, Dinah Laurel Lance.  I'm inclined to believe the latter, but Dini never introduces the legacy hero concept, and I think that's a good idea.  This graphic novel could be some young (or old) reader's first exposure to Black Canary; why overwhelm him or her with the senseless and complex backstory that is Dinah's history?  All we need to know is that she's scrappy and she's willful.

Jump forward in time to last year in Las Vegas:

A thief named Tina Spettro leads a gang of five other women into the sewers beneath a new casino called Xanadu.  Before the job she pricks all of their fingers and makes them recite a loyalty oath in blood.  One of the girls in her gang isn't wild about this part of the plan, but goes along with it at Tina's insistence/threat.

While Xanadu's owner, a rich gangster named Dale Hollister addresses the crowd during the casino's grand opening, Tina Spettro moves herself into position...

Which includes tipping off casino security about the five ladies about to blow their way into the casino's vault from the sewer.  Tina doesn't care about the women in her gang; they were always sacrificial misdirection for the guards while she planned to steal some valuable Asian treasures on the main floor.  Tina's narration reveals her past connection to Hollister; this heist is less about the profit and more about hurting her ex-lover.

What Tina didn't count on, though, was being "triple-crossed" by a member of her own gang.  "Joy" shows up in the treasure room and removes a ginger-haired wig, revealing she was Black Canary in disguise (Note: Dinah, in this tale, is a natural blonde).  The real Joy, and the other members of the gang, predicted Tina's ambush and called in some help.

Tina recognizes Black Canary from the Justice League, but figures she's no Wonder Woman and takes her chance fighting her way out.

It's almost impossible to look at this page of fight choreography and not think Quinones was paying homage to this page from Adventure Comics #418 by Alex Toth.

Tina throws a knife that Black Canary dodges.  Knowing she can't win the fight, Tina makes use of her getaway plan: a jetpack stored in the ventilation system.

Tina detonates a set of explosive on Xanadu's roof, giving her an exit to the Las Vegas night.  She flies past hotels and casinos, trying to shake Black Canary off her back.  Canary, meanwhile, is trying to get them to the ground without so much velocity that it kills them both.

There's a fun little Easter Egg in this scene as Tina's jetpack carries them past Prosciutto's Casino, and there's a big neon clown lit up outside.  In the Batman: The Animated Series episode "Be A Clown" the Joker tells a hostage that he learned a trick from his mentor, the Great Prosciutto ("Now there was a ham! Hah!").

As Black Canary struggles to gain control of the jetpack, Tina Spettro makes it more and more obvious how perfectly fine she is with the prospect of dying.

At last Tina knocks Black Canary off her back.  As Dinah plummets to the street, Tina swears that she'll have revenge on Canary and the other treacherous women from her gang.  She recites the loyalty oath in Latin... and then crashes into the wall of a hotel, dying in a fiery explosion.

Black Canary, on the other hand, drops into the hotel's swimming pool and manages to survive the fall.  A little banged up but otherwise okay, she climbs out of the pool, towels herself off and takes somebody's margarita.  All in a day's work.

The next part of the story brings us to today, but I'll save that for tomorrow's installment.  This is a 90-something page story, so I'm breaking my review into three parts.  As such, I can't review much of the story since it's not complete at this point and it wasn't divided into chapters like a serialized story.

I will say that Paul Dini knows these character front ways and back.  He wrote Zatanna for a year in her own series, and before that he wrote both of these women marvelously in various incarnations of the DC Animated Universe.  The tone he sets is playful but too cartoonish.  There is a seriousness to the subject manner, but a loftiness, too, that feels not part of any particular era.  This isn't the modern New 52 but it's not the Bronze Age either.  This is the nostalgic era that never really existed but that comics fans look back on as the halcyon days of comics.

It's interesting that the best stories published by DC in the last year or so have been out-of-continuity tales like the digital first Batman '66, Legends of the Dark Knight, and Adventures of Superman, and now Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell.  It certainly says something about how DC is managing its universe, but the fact is they are still putting out material that would appeal to fans who can no longer distinguish between the mainstream books and their dystopian video game tie-ins.

Continued in Part 2

The Origin of Black Canary: 1983 Part 2 - JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #220

I've waited months to review Justice League of America #220, a story that radically reimagines not only Black Canary's history but her whole identity and status as a member of both the Justice League of Earth 1 and the Justice Society of Earth 2.  At last, the time is right to cover this story, because according to the 1976 Super DC Calendar, today, April 10th, is Black Canary's birthday.

Justice League of America #220: "The Doppelgänger Gambit" is written by Roy Thomas with pencil art by Chuck Patton and inks by Romeo Tanghal and Pablo Marcos.  George Perez delivers a cover with not one but two Black Canaries--one corpse-like in a casket beside the late Larry Lance, and the other looking on in horror with members of the Justice Society of America, Red Tornado and Sargon the Sorcerer, all while the Earth 1 Johnny Thunder and the Thunderbolt loom menacingly.  The cover boasts that this issue includes the "true origin of the Black Canary".

Gerry Conway already wrote an amazing origin story for Black Canary with only one noticeable problem that I can see: it dated her.  Conway's story specifically locked Dinah into an era that was becoming evermore recognizable as the past.  The Justice League members were supposed to be young and in their prime, but the math would make Black Canary out to be something like sixty-two years old.

DC needed a retcon to explain this age discrepancy so that Black Canary could have functioned in both eras, on both teams, without qualifying for an AARP card.  And in the late 1980s they would write that retcon and it would work wonders.  But before they got there, Roy Thomas would craft a Black Canary origin story (supposedly inspired by a Marv Wolfman idea) that would make even Hawkman's history look straightforward.

Last time, for reasons unknown and inexplicable to characters who know him, Johnny Thunder's genie-like Thunderbolt attacked the Justice League of America during its annual meeting with the Justice Society.  Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Firestorm, Elongated Man, and Zatanna were struck down by the mad Thunderbolt and now lie comatose in the JLA Satellite.  Only Black Canary and Red Tornado, both of whom originated from Earth 2, as well as Justice Society members Jay Garrick, Power Girl, Huntress, Hourman, and Starman came through the battle relatively unscathed.

Almost immediately after the attack, pairs of super villains from both worlds launched attacks against ancient temples of worship.  While Starman took Black Canary to the Thunderbolt Dimension to investigate the Johnny Thunder connection, the JSA members went planet side to take on the villains.

Power Girl shows her eagerness to tackle the villains, while Red Tornado advises caution and a strategy session to plan their counterstrike.  (Red Tornado is the worst.)  The unexpected arrival of Sargon the Sorcerer prompts half of the JSA to lash out at the mage.  Sargon mildly flirts with Huntress while magically besting her, Power Girl and Red Tornado, who, seriously, is the worst.

Sargon tells the Flash and Hourman that he was working with the Spectre when the Thunderbolt struck him down in his Earth 1 human host, Jim Corrigan.  The Flash welcomes Sargon's help and sends him out with Power Girl, who sounds less than thrilled.

In the Thunderbolt Dimension, Black Canary and Starman were captured, not by the Johnny Thunder they suspected--the Johnny Black Canary befriended in her very first published adventures--but the Johnny Thunder of Earth 1.  This Johnny Thunder is crazy and vengeful and he's taken control of the Thunderolt.

But far more shocking than their enemy's identity is what he shows them: a glass casket with the bodies of Black Canary's late husband, Larry Lance, and another body that looks exactly like her.  Johnny also holds captive the original and noble Johnny Thunder of Earth 2.

At Evil Johnny's command, Thunderbolt tells the story of how he and Good Johnny fought crime in the '40s on Earth 2, how Black Canary joined them in their crusade for justice, and how Thunderbolt was injured during one of their adventures, explaining why Johnny Thunder's monthly adventures went away in favor of Dinah's solo stories.

Good Johnny took off, devastated that the woman he fell in love with favored Larry Lance over him.  In subsequent years, he stayed out of her life while she grew closer to both Larry and the Justice Society.  Until, of course, the day the Justice Society of America quit fighting crime by refusing to divulge their real identities before Congress.

The Wizard... "the greatest super criminal in the history of the planet"?!!  That's a helluva stretch, but I will concede after this story he might be Black Canary's greatest villain.  Maybe.

A desperate Dinah and Larry Lance bring their infant baby to Johnny Thunder, who summons Thunderbolt.  The genie offers to take the baby to the Thunderbolt Dimension where her destructive sonic powers won't harm anyone.  The caveat being, of course, that once there the child can never leave.  If Dinah and Larry send their child with Thunderbolt, she'll be safe, but they'll never see her again.

Approximately ten years after this story is published, the X-Men's Cyclops and Jean Grey would face a similar dilemma when their infant was infected with a virus and needed to be sent into the future to save his life, resulting in their child becoming the militaristic leader of X-Force, Cable.  And that scenario makes only a little bit more sense than what Roy Thomas will offer up later in this issue.

Dinah and Larry agonize over the decision--I would think--but finally surrender their baby to the protection of Thunderbolt.  He brings the baby to the Thunderbolt Dimension and keeps her in suspended animation, but then he goes a little off-script and wipes the memory from Dinah, Larry, and Johnny Thunder.  He convinces them that the baby died... because it will be easier for them to deal with...  Yep.

Black Canary, much like any attentive reader, is full of questions.  But Evil Johnny interrupts the story to draw attention to the ensuing battles on Earth 1 between the heroic and villainous pairings.

In Mexico, Chronos and the Fiddler have seized an ancient pyramid.  Jay Garrick and Hourman rush to intervene but they're thwarted by a time-holograph created by Chronos, and then the Fiddler plays a little ditty causing the heroes to keep dancing until they die.

Meanwhile, Dr. Alchemy and the Icicle have taken over one of the Great Pyramids of Egypt when Huntress and Red Tornado come liberate the place.  Reddy drops Huntress off on the sloping face of the pyramid, but Icicle freezes the side, causing Huntress to slide down.  But being the daughter of Batman and Catwoman affords Huntress a healthy amount of agility and preparedness.  She manages to throw a batarang that knocks out Icicle even as she's sliding down.

At the same time, Red Tornado is battling Dr. Alchemy, who maneuvers the android into position so that Huntress slides off the pyramid and crashes right into him.  The result is that Huntress and Red Tornado are both knocked out, spoiling all of the good will Huntress gained by swatting Icicle.  God, Red Tornado sucks.

And at Stonehenge, we find the last duo, Power Girl and Sargon squaring off against the wicked mages, Felix Faust and the Wizard.  The bad guys use their magic to fool Power Girl and Sargon into striking each other, knocking each other unconscious.  Then, naturally, Wizard and Faust bicker amongst each other, because that's what villains do.

Back in the Thunderbolt Dimension, Evil Johnny taunts his hostages and brags of the devious goings-on that he's fostered down on Earth 1.  Unbeknownst to Evil Johnny, some of the electric sprites of the dimension have come to started rescuing Good Johnny from his bonds.  Just when Evil Johnny is ordering the genie to murder Black Canary and Starman, Good Johnny breaks free and shouts out the magic words that put Thunderbolt back in control.

Freed of Evil Johnny's influence, Thunderbolt races to the JLA Satellite to revive the Leaguers he hurt last issue.  And before long, the heroes of Earth 1 snap back into action.

Elongated Man and Barry Allen help Jay and Hourman take out Chronos and the Fiddler.  Firestorm and Hal Jordan help Huntress and Red Tornado take out Dr. Alchemy and the Icicle.   And Zatanna helps Power Girl and Sargon take out Felix Faust and the Wizard.

In the Thunderbolt Dimension, Evil Johnny is captured though still trying to regain control over the genie.  Black Canary is overwhelmed by the image of what looks like herself and her dead husband.  Is it a daughter she never knew or something even stranger, she wonders.

Oh, it's stranger.  And it's the kind of story that only Bob Haney Superman and the Spectre could tell.

So... Superman thought it best that Black Canary swap bodies and memories with her own daughter who lived a decades in suspended animation.  Dinah Drake effectively dies with her husband, while her consciousness takes over the dormant body of her daughter.

Aside from Red Tornado totally being the worst, what can we gather from this issue?

This ending is so, sooooo $@#%ed up!  I guess at this point Black Canary is considered to be the daughter of the original Black Canary, but she's full of her mother's memories and experiences.  What happens to her now will shape her life as though she's a different person, but couldn't that be said of any character.

The whole motive for this retcon was to de-age Black Canary.  And Roy Thomas did so by putting the character in the identical body of a child she never remembered having.  But the tale ends with her crying and being carried off--happily--in Superman's arms, so I guess it's a wash.  After all, that's how issue #74 ended when her husband died right in front of her.  Maybe that's one of Superman's untapped powers; he can make Black Canary get over any traumatic event.

The action scenes with the Justice Society versus the dastardly duos is mostly underwhelming.  The way the heroes fail to stop their adversaries is forced and lame, but the timely arrival of the Justice League heroes is pretty exciting.

Black Canary has never had much of a Rogues' Gallery; her list of personal foes makes Aquaman's look like the Society of Evil.  This story, however, puts two common foes of the JSA and JLA firmly in Dinah's stack of super villains.  Johnny Thunder of Earth 1 never achieved much on the page or off, but his schemes and his connection to her personal history make him an interesting enemy for later stories.  Likewise, Black Canary now has a personal, maybe the most personal beef with the Wizard.  He cursed her own freaking child and condemned it to suspended animation for life until she took over the body.

Well, Happy Birthday, Black Canary!  You get a new body and a new history, one that will last about five years before cooler heads think of a better idea for post-Crisis on Infinite Earths.