Back in Action: ACTION COMICS #628

Previously...

Every Wednesday, I review an issue of Action Comics Weekly featuring a backup story starring Black Canary among others.  Each installment of Back in Action will look at Dinah's story and touch on my favorite or least favorite moments from the rest of the strips in these issues.

Blackhawk's return is heralded by his cover appearance on ACW #628 drawn by George Pratt.  I love the idea of this cover: the hero grasping for a hold while outside his plane as another fighter spits hot metal at his wings.  But the image conjured in my mind as I type those words looks a lot better than Pratt's cover.  The lack of any background even empty sky makes this job feel rushed and halfhearted.  There is nothing threatening about the bullet lines unloaded by the enemy craft.  And I'm getting zero sense of concern from Blackhawk himself.  He's looking right at us like he could be wondering what's on television or how to refinance his home after three mortgages.  Again, I really like the idea behind this cover, but the execution itself...?  Ehhhhh...

Black Canary

"Knock 'Em Dead" Part 5: written by Sharon Wright, pencilled by Randy Duburke, inked by Pablo Marcos, lettered by Steve Haynie, colored by Gene D'Angelo, and edited by Robert Greenberger.  Black Canary's is suddenly moving forward in the issue's order.  Last issue, her chapter was the third of five features in ACW.  This time, she's second of six.  I'm not sure why she received this bump in order, but as her story is picking up the pace, it's nice to see it more prominently featured.

Chapter 5 picks up with the Black Canary getting booked by the Seattle Police Department on suspicion of either prostitution or involvement in the Barfly Killing that took the life of Dinah Lance's friend, Walt Sarno.

The Canary leaves a message for Lieutenant Cameron, who comes to spring her.  She wants her fingerprints and mugshots destroyed, and then Canary and Cameron share what they've learned from the Sarno investigation.  Cameron reveals that Sarno died from a heart attack resulting from his poisoned drink (so maybe it was accident?) and that the killer is a natural blonde who smokes unfiltered Luckies.  Black Canary gives Cameron a suspect: a prostitute named Deborah who scores heroin from a guy named Rich.  Rich runs a music store; Canary gives the lieutenant a list of music shops in the city.

Elsewhere in the city, Ken Glazier receives another anonymous death threat.  Else-elsewhere, the mysterious woman who was following Deborah and Walt Sarno and laughed about the news of his death is fixing her hair in the mirror.  In her room is a leaflet for the stage production of Peter Pan.  Dinah Lance's flower shop, Sherwood Florist, is supplying the set dressing for that show, and Ken Glazier was a lighting specialist who used to do theatrical productions.  Connection?

Deborah goes to see her dealer at his store, It's Instrumental.  Rich has her wait while he's in an interview.  The woman he's interviewing happens to be the mystery woman, who tells him she knows his sound/music work from local theater productions more than band gigs.

After she leaves, Rich talks to Deborah in his office.  He warns her that the police are looking for her, and gives her the address where she can pick up her drugs.  After Deborah leaves, Rich drinks his coffee.  Too late, he realizes it's poisoned--by Deborah, or the mystery woman?!

Later, Dinah goes to the local theater to deliver the floral dressing for the show.  But as she enters backstage, a wild figure lunges out of the shadows to attack her.

[Click the images below to enlarge.]

I wish I had a name to give the mystery woman, but at this point in the story she hasn't been named.  Her part, however, is becoming more clear.  She was left alone in the office with Rich's coffee, so she could have poisoned him while Deborah really couldn't have.  She was at the bar watching Deborah with Walt Sarno before Sarno's death.  Could she have followed them upstairs and killed him after Deborah left?  Is she targeting these men specifically, or is she trying to frame Deborah, or both?  Who is her real target and what does Ken Glazier have to do with it?  The one connection between them seems to be a past or present association with the theater.

And speaking of the theater, how 'bout that cliffhanger?  Is Dinah Lance being targeted because her shop is doing flowers for Peter Pan?  That seems thin, but what else could bring her in the killer's crosshairs?  Unless there's something else going on.  It is the theater after all, a place and theme for disguises and illusions.

This chapter went by really fast, but it's the best so far.  Black Canary and Lieutenant Cameron share notes and suspects.  One of those suspects is killed by a mysterious player with as-yet-unknown motivations.  And then there seems to be an attack on our leading lady.  Great action and intrigue!  And Randy Duburke's art really pops in a few places.  Canary's mugshots don't look too flattering, but then what mugshots ever do?  The panels where Rich realizes he's been poisoned are awesome and crazy with lines and energy!  And the final panel in the chapter--man!  Lots more Sienkiewicz homages, but they look good.

The Rest

The lead-off feature starring Green Lantern by James Owsley and M.D. Bright takes a step back this week as the pace of Hal Jordan's adventure comes to an engine flooding stall.  Bright's artwork is solid all-around, but I'm fairly sure Owsley was just filling out the script with so much fluff for some scheduling reason.  Hal and Captain Atom spend eight pages bickering about the alien's peaceful or violent intentions and whether it should be killed or not.  Even when they're seeking help from the military or the media or rescuing people from collapsing buildings, they just keep dishing out the same basic talking points.  They aren't even compelling ideas; they just sound like a couple of kids.

Chapter 3 of the Nightwing and Speedy story is absent of Nightwing but full of action and intrigue.  Plotted by Marv Wolfman and scripted by Cherie Wilkerson with art by Tom Mandrake, Roy Harper is taking his infant daughter, Lian, on a train to Northern Ireland when someone from the Friends of the Empire tries to kill him.  Roy manages catch him, but the assassin chooses death before he'll offer any more information.  Once safely at the train station, Lian is snatched and Roy must change into his Speedy costume and take out the kidnappers.  One of the kidnappers is run over by a car and the child is rescued by a mysterious cigar-chomping man who has the feel of a cop.  Lots of levels to this conspiracy.

Superman's two-page strip by Roger Stern and Curt Swan continues Clark Kent's dangerous predicament with Bob Galt, leader of a cult that worships Superman like a god.  Clark and Galt race through the desert as a pair of killers on sky-bikes chase them, trying to blast their jeep.  Clark can't turn into Superman to save them without revealing himself.  Meanwhile, Bob Galt is praying to Superman for help.  Clark realizes that Galt can use his psychic powers to confuse the pursuers.  Galt creates an image of Metropolis, which freaks out the bad guys, forcing them to jump off their sky bikes.  Clark stops the jeep so he can go back and question the two.

I've had a lot of difficulty following the Secret Six chapters in ACW since I never seem to read the first issues that establish what the hell is going on.  In this chapter, at least, by Martin Pasko and Frank Springer, I at least learn that the current members are all reunited and complete their mission to destroy a building and a VTOL project.  They discover that August Durant, who they thought was Mockingbird, is actually dead.  The masked Mockingbird they've been taking orders from is an old white man who is Rafael's father...  I don't know who Rafael is, though.

The thrilling adventures of Blackhawk and his compatriots picks up again, written by Martin Pasko with art by Rick Burchett.  Natalie Reed and her pal, Mairzey, at the airfield discuss how the Red Scare has taken over every part of America, not just Washington, D.C., but businesses across the land.  As Blackhawk and his pals return from their last mission, Weng discovers that Marcia was wounded.  They get her to the hospital, but it's too late for her.  Meanwhile, some German scientists are doing something nefarious, but they're surprised by the army and possibly blown up.  Not sure about this...

The coolest part of the issue, though, is probably the house ad for Sandman on the very last page.

Next week, I'll look at Action Comics Weekly #629, which draws the Secret Six closer to conclusion and furthers the adventures of Black Canary, Superman, Green Lantern, Nightwing and Blackhawk.

Birds of Prey: Revolution (June 1997)

The girls are back in town!

Forget the New 52; I'm talking about the original, the classic Birds of Prey!  Black Canary and Oracle, kicking ass with style, sexiness, and intelligence, three things sorely lacking in the current volume.

Black Canary partnered with the mysterious information broker, Oracle, in the Birds of Prey one-shot special in the summer of 1996.  Later that year, they worked with Huntress and Catwoman in the four-part miniseries, Birds of Prey: Manhunt.  Either DC needed more evidence that the series could sustain itself as an ongoing or Chuck Dixon's work schedule didn't allow for another ongoing at that particular time, but DC went and green lit four more Birds of Prey specials to be published over the next two years to grow the fan base.

Birds of Prey: Revolution came out circa June, 1997, one year after the original one-shot launched the title.  Like the previous entries, Revolution is written by Chuck Dixon and sports a stunning cover by Gary Frank, who drew the first special and provided covers for Manhunt.  The interior art, however is by by Stefano Raffaele with inks by Bob McLeod.  The comic clocked in at 38 story pages for a cover price of $2.95, a whole four cents cheaper than the cheapest 20-page DC comic on shelves today.

The story opens with a trio of dangerous-looking men ganging up on a brunette woman backstage in an otherwise empty theater.  The woman shouts she thought this was an audition and the men taunt her while one reaches for a spray can of some sort of knockout drug.

This wannabe singer is no ingenue, though.  She delivers a crushing punch to one of her attackers and throws her brunette wig at the other.  That's right, it's a wig, for this would-be kidnapping victim is none other than the Black Canary!

Canary shows the men the newspaper ad they took out looking for attractive men and women for a musical revue, knowing full well that the "audition" was just a front for their kidnapping and slavery racket.

Dinah finds the gang's other victims bound in the trailer of a semi truck parked behind the theater.  "Those creeps have their 'talent' stacked like cordwood and ready to ship," she tells Oracle over the radio-tranceiver built into her costume.  The head of the kidnapping gang gave up the name of the cargo ship they were delivering their slaves to; the ship was bound for the island of Santa Prisca.

Oracle advises Black Canary to slip onboard the cargo ship and track this slave ring to its source.  But Dinah has another idea that doesn't include spending a week skulking around a dirty cargo ship at sea.  Given that they know the ship's destination, Dinah utilizes her expense account from Oracle to charter a first class ticket on a commercial flight to Santa Prisca.  In the relative luxury of the plane, Dinah drinks some champagne and watches an informational video about the island.

The dictator of Santa Prisca declared himself Master of the World?  I thought only the North Koreans did that.

Anyway, Oracle tells Dinah that El Jefe, whose real name is Juan Paolo Sebastian, was an army general who took control of the island with the help of a secret benefactor.  Since then, Santa Prisca has been a closed, heavily militarized state.

On the island, a Mr. Galiant meets with the corrupt Minister of Agriculture about a planned takeover of the island.  Galiant represents an unnamed organization that wants a particular crop grown on Santa Prisca.  (Narcotics? Venom?)  But the Minister wants nothing to do with Galiant or his people, a dismissal that proves costly.

At the airport, Dinah Lance is stopped by a customs agent looking to check her luggage.  On a tip from Oracle, Dinah tells the agent he needs only check one of her bags, which includes cartons of cigarettes and bottles of whiskey.  Satisfied with the bribe, customs lets Dinah pass through without more trouble.

Dinah notes that she's the only passenger stopped by customs; all the other visitors who Dinah identifies as terrorists and mercenaries are treated like royalty.  She's approached by a young boy named Tico who offers her a taxi ride to her hotel.  Although Oracle protests and this Tico is far, far too young to have a drivers license, Dinah accepts his offer.

At the hotel, Dinah makes fun of Tico but accepts his business card with his pager number.  A pair of thuggish-looking gentlemen in Hawaiian shirts have followed her from the airport.

Inside the hotel, the concierge gives her some grief about her lack of reservation until Mr. Galiant intervenes on her behalf.

Later that night, when Dinah has left to investigate the human trafficking connection that is the reason for her visit, the two men who followed her break into her hotel room.  Their surprise in not finding Dinah in her room is dwarfed by the shock that Galiant is there.  He guns them down quietly.

Dinah, now equipped in her Black Canary costume, sneaks across the island through the jungle until she's overlooking the docks at Puerto Buitre where the cargo ship has docked.  Oracle warns her to stay on guard as she makes her way closer to the ship.  Black Canary chides her overcautiousness, thinking the slavers won't be on high alert in their own territory.

That's when she's surrounded by a paramilitary unit wearing masks and carrying machine guns.  She engages the nearest soldier until she's tackled by Galiant.

Black Canary uses Galiant's gun to drive off his forces, then she throws it away and slips under the cover of the dense jungle foliage.

Oracle tells Black Canary that the island is too volatile with conflicting armies and agendas.  She orders Canary to abort the mission and get out of there immediately.  She warns her that Galiant is a shadowy operator with a global reputation for trouble.

Black Canary hears all of it and ignores it.  She won't quit on her mission when the ship might be full of slaves.  Oracle continues to protest until Dinah takes off her radio earpiece and puts it away.  She sneaks aboard the ship, takes out the small security force, and discovers the slave pens in the lower decks.

Luckily for Black Canary and the prisoners, she held onto Tico's card and phone number.  The boy arrives at the docked ship with a truck, but in order to drive them all to safety, Black Canary needs to buy them some time by fighting off El Jefe's forces.

Oracle can't get to Santa Prisca to save Black Canary, but there's one person already there who might be able to save her.  She reaches out and calls Galiant, threatening to ruin his operations unless he rescues Dinah.

At that moment, Dinah is strapped to an operating table about to be tortured by El Jefe and a creepy,  sadistic doctor lady.  El Jefe doesn't want or care about any information Black Canary she might have.  This isn't an interrogation; he just wants her to suffer for rescuing the slaves and blowing the lid off his human trafficking operation.

Just before the doctor shoves bone shears up Dinah's nostrils, Galiant and his troops kick in the door and kill the doctor.  El Jefe slips out under the gunfire and runs from the invading force.

Galiant explains that the valuable crop on Santa Prisca is cola nuts.  He works for the Zesti Cola Corporation, which lost billions of dollars when El Jefe nationalized the island's agribusiness.  When the World Court failed, Zesti brought in Galiant to dethrone El Jefe.  He rescued Black Canary in exchange for Oracle's help in finding El Jefe.

As armies clash in the Royal Palace, Black Canary chases El Jefe, who is trying to escape in a helicopter.  Dinah gets back on the radio with Oracle, who demands a serious conversation about priorities and protocol after Dinah defied her earlier.

Black Canary tackles El Jefe out of the chopper and into the ocean.  She saves him from drowning and they're both picked up by Galiant.  Dinah doesn't show much gratitude to Galiant; she's still not thrilled about her complicity in the Zesti Corporation's coup.

Holy crap have I missed good Birds of Prey!  I swore I would never talk about Duane Swierczynski again, but seriously, f*** that guy!  Birds of Prey is not a difficult concept, and the reason I know that is because Chuck Dixon isn't the most brilliant or nuanced writer.  Dixon does a few things very well, and BoP plays to his strengths.

The plots should be James Bond-ian globetrotting mysteries, heavy on the espionage and sexy ladies. The characters are business friends with individual trust issues but working on believing in each other: a reckless field agent constantly testing the patience of her handler.  The New 52 Birds... I don't even know or care anymore what they were trying to be.  They suck and can all die.

But let's get back to Revolution.  As much as I enjoyed Huntress and Catwoman in the Manhunt miniseries, I am really glad that Dixon went back to basics with this story.  Canary and Oracle are still in the early stages of their partnership.  No need to bring in more characters until these two have each other figured out.

Oracle's frustration in Dinah is natural.  She can't count on an agent who will defy her directives and go rogue whenever she feels compelled.  There may also still be some jaded resentment on Oracle's part that she can no longer go adventuring as Barbara Gordon or Batgirl.  And however mad she might be in Dinah, she still refused to let her twist in the wind.  She made a deal with the devil to ensure Dinah's rescue.

Dixon writes Black Canary a little more cavalier than I think her experience in the Justice League merits.  She's not a rookie.  She doesn't need a learning curve, but Dixon's portrayal of Black Canary is much more prone to heading into battle face-first.  Actually, he writes her like a female Oliver Queen.  Is this her years spent with Green Arrow rubbing off on her, or is this just the kind of character Dixon needed to service the plot and the odd-couple relationship with Oracle.

The art by Stefano Raffaele is pretty solid.  No complaints, but it's not as strong as Gary Frank's or Matt Haley's in previous Birds stories.  There's a few places where the human anatomy looks a little wonky and a few places where the setting is lost in lack of detail, but overall it's enjoyable and easy to follow.

One of my favorite bits in the story is right in the beginning when Black Canary is undercover at the theater.  Dinah dyed her hair blonde in the first BoP special.  Now she's wearing a dark-haired wig as a disguise.  It's a cute little reversal of the classic Black Canary costume, wear the blonde wig covered Dinah's dark hair.

Next Tuesday, I'll review Birds of Prey: Wolves, which at this point I have not yet read, but I know it reveals an important part of Dinah Lance's past.  See you then!

Looking Ahead for Flowers & Fishnets

I may have given up on the New 52 but I haven't quit on DC in general or Black Canary in particular. Something I did over the holidays was finally compile a list of Black Canary's appearances in everything from Birds of Prey one-shots to Green Arrow annuals to World's Finest backups; from her own short-lived ongoing series to her numerous revised origin stories.  Since Christmas I've begun aggressively searching out these issues in comic stores and online.

For most of the first year of this blog I was without a working printer-scanner, so I depended on digital comics and pre-existing Google images to fill the coffers of my reviews.  Thing is, there ain't a whole lot of Black Canary material on ComiXology.  Since I got the ol' scanner working, nothing can stop me from blogging every appearance of the Blonde Bombshell except for a) money,  and b) an inability to dig up some of the more rare issues of Action Comics.

From Injustice: Gods Among Us Annual #1.
Art by Bruno Redondo.

I'm really excited about the content I'll be sharing starting in the next couple weeks.  New series and new daily features will keep me busy and keep you entertained (I hope).  Here's a look at the weekly schedule as I'm envisioning it.

• Monday will still be sort of a mixed-bag day.  This is the day I review episodes of Arrow that prominently feature the Canary, which seems like it'll be pretty regular for at least the rest of this season.  When the show isn't on, I'll post artist sketches, random panels, or miscellaneous Canary stuff.

• Tuesday is going back coverage of Birds of Prey, but not the depressing New 52 series.  I'm talking about the classic.  Starting tomorrow, I'm kicking off the first of four BoP one-shots that lead directly into the ongoing series.  That's where we're headed: from Chuck Dixon to Gail Simone, and I'm super excited because, at the time of this writing, I haven't read the one-shots or a big chunk of Dixon's run on the ongoing.

• Wednesday will continue my reviews of Dinah's story in Action Comics Weekly.  That'll last another seven weeks or so.  As soon as that's over, I'm diving right into Sarah Byam and Trevor Von Eeden's Black Canary miniseries from 1991 and then her only regular series that lasted twelves issues in 1993.  I've been sitting on these books for a year and it's way past time I reviewed them.

• Thursday will be for assorted Black Canary team-ups in The Brave and the Bold, as well as guest appearances in books like Wonder Woman.  At some point, I've got to start reviewing her appearances in Justice League of America.  This might also be a day of rest, so no promises of anything permanent.

• Friday I am thrilled to rename "Pretty Bird Day".  Should be obvious: this is when I look at Green Arrow and Black Canary team-ups.  I've avoided this kind of regular feature for so long because there was just so much material to cover I felt intimidated.  No longer.  This Friday I'll look at the first of a two-part GA/BC story from Detective Comics #549 written by f***ing Alan Moore!

• Saturday is when I update my Sandman blog with reviews of Sandman Mystery Theatre.  Please check it out if you haven't already (the blog, I mean...actually, the comic and the blog).

• Sunday will remain Golden Oldie day where I spotlight Dinah's earliest appearances in Flash Comics.  I think I have fifteen or sixteen more of those before the series ended.  Once her Golden Age appearances have run out, I will switch over to reviewing the Sandman's early adventures on that blog.  Basically, the work week will belong to Black Canary while the weekend is devoted to Sandman--but that's still months away!

Again, I can't express how jazzed I am to share these stories, some of which I'll be reading for the first time as I sit down to review them.  Come back regularly and enjoy the bountiful Black Canary action!

Also, here's a sketch by Arthur Adams.

Thanks and You're Welcome!

Golden Oldie: FLASH COMICS #92

After slumming in Johnny Thunder's misadventures for half a dozen issues, the Black Canary finally got her own recurring strip starting in Flash Comics #92.  And she did it with style as the Flash and Hawkman, the heroes who had alternated cover appearances since the magazine launched, both graced the cover to welcome her aboard.

Up to this point, Black Canary has been the femme fatale to the flaky Johnny Thunder and his magic genie.  From a masked criminal in her first appearance, to a sort-of Robin Hood criminal amongst criminals to vigilante crime fighter, her reputation evolved over her five previous appearances.  Her identity, however, really didn't.  Creators Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino had yet to establish any backstory for the character, or even her real name.

That's going to change in "The Huntress of the Highway" by Kanigher and Infantino.

As private eye Larry Lance leaves Dinah Drake's flower shop, a severe looking woman enters wishing to purchase a funeral wreath.  When Dinah asks who the wreath is for, the woman says, "It's for Mr. Larry Lance at 15 Clark Street."  The woman then throws some cash on the counter (really!) and leaves.

Riding atop the trash, Black Canary sees headlights approaching directly in front of the truck.  There is going to be a head-on collision if the truck doesn't swerve out of the way onto a small dirt road.

When the truck stops on the dirt road, Black Canary gets off the roof.  In the dark, the driver sneaks up and tries to grab her, but she uses her expert judo skills to flip the assailant onto his back.  He reaches for a gun and she tackles him.

The woman who ordered the wreath, who happens to be the mastermind behind the hijacked trucks, has her gang lead Black Canary and Larry Lance to the river where the two investigators are tied to a log.  The log is sent down the river where it carries Canary and Lance toward a waterfall.

Later, the real truck loaded with expensive furs is cruising down the highway when it seems like it's going to face another head-on crash.  Before the driver can turn the truck down the dirt road, Black Canary, hanging from the driver's side door, grabs the wheel and swerves the truck in other direction, crashing it right into the villains' hideout.

Larry Lance jumps off the roof of the truck and takes out two of the armed gang members.  Their leader draws a gun on Larry, but Black Canary kicks the gun out of her hand and takes her down.

But how did the heroes survive the waterfall?  And how were the trucks being ripped off?  And how did Black Canary get involved in Larry Lance's case?

Egads! That blonde wig! That costume!  Then that means the Black Canary is Dinah Drake!

So that's Black Canary's first solo outing.  It's a great little crime caper that isn't bogged down by Johnny Thunder's attempts at slapstick.  Larry Lance is a great foil; the macho gumshoe who needs a woman's help to save his butt.  And, of course, most importantly, we get Black Canary's real identity. She is Dinah Drake (a great alliterative name), owner of a flower shop.  And she has dark hair.  The Black Canary's golden locks is just a wig!

As a bonus for this important entry in the Canary's career, here is Carmine Infantino's forward to the Black Canary Archives where he talks about the character's creation.

Come back next Sunday for another Golden Age adventure of the Black Canary in Comics Cavalcade #25.

Happy Valentine's Day from Ollie and Dinah

This awesome Valentine featuring the Emerald Archer and the Blonde Bombshell circa 1980 was posted on Twitter by my new best friend, Tom McAuliffe.  You can follow @TomMcAuliffe for other great comics and pop culture-related commentary and analysis.

Girl Power: WONDER WOMAN #309

Previously...

Black Canary interfered with an angry gypsy woman chasing a Nazi war criminal.  The gypsy, Zenna Persik, used her magic to transplant her mind with the Canary's so Dinah ended up in a stranger's body and captured by the mad Doctor Schlagel.  Zenna used the Black Canary's bod to board the Justice League satellite where she was captured by Wonder Woman and the Elongated Man.

Wonder Woman #309: "The Black Canary is Dead" is written by Dan Mishkin with art by Don Heck.  It was published in November 1983.

While bound in Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth, Zenna recounts how she swapped minds with Black Canary, the unfortunate result of which left Dinah powerless in the clutches of Dr. Schlagel and his army of mutant Bigfoots.  Wonder Woman refuses to believe that Dinah is dead, especially since Zenna didn't see Schlagel kill her.

Wonder Woman and Zenna Canary teleport down to Star City.  Zenna explains that Schlagel converted a warehouse into his lab to continue the inhuman experiments he began under Hitler.  She reiterates how he tortured and killed her people and her hatred for him knows no limit.

These panels amuse the ten year old boy in me.

Meanwhile, in Schlagel's lab, Dinah has been sneaking around in Zenna Persik's body.  She might not have her sonic scream or Zenna's gypsy magic, but she still has years of martial arts training locked in her mind.

She lets the villain monologue so he can reveal that he's been kidnapping children to tap into their latent psychic abilities to feed his powerful machine.  With gypsy telepathic and telekinetic powers feeding him, Schlagel will be able to destroy America and take over the world.

While he's rambling, Dinah notices her own face looking down from the skylight.  Wonder Woman and Zenna Canary are on the roof, preparing to act.  Wonder Woman uses her lasso to stun two of Schlagel's mutant servants, and Zenna reverses the mind-swap with Black Canary.

Dinah cautions Wonder Woman against treating the monsters too roughly--they are children after all--while Zenna uses her new spacial position to try to kill Schlagel.  Unfortunately, his machine is working, giving him enough superpowers to hold them off.  "Even if you were men, you could not reach me!" he taunts.  (Sexism from a Nazi?  Now I've seen everything!)

Wonder Woman punches through the psychokinetic shield, slowly forcing her way to Schlagel despite his powers and protests.  "It is impossible!" he shouts.  "They don't teach us that word on Paradise Island," Wonder Woman responds.  At the second-to-last second, Schlagel teleports himself, his machine and Wonder Woman with him.

And at the very last second, Zenna uses her powers to swap bodies with Wonder Woman so that she travels with Schlagel, leaving Diana trapped in her gypsy body.

Across the country at Walter Reed Army Hospital, Colonel Steve Trevor is about to be discharged.  On the phone with Etta Candy, he learns that the general sent someone else to an assignment in the Caribbean that was supposed to be Steve's.  Before leaving, he's visited by Lisa Abernathy and her daughter, Eloise, thanking him for saving their dad.  They know he knows Wonder Woman and hope they get a chance to meet her someday.

Wonder Woman in Zenna's body and Black Canary fly across the ocean in the Invisible Jet to where Schlagel is going to sabotage the United States' new missile defense system.  Zenna in Wonder Woman's body is trapped in a psychic cage, unable to use any of Diana's powers.

The missile turns right back into the machine killing Schlagel, and appearing to kill Wonder Woman in Zenna's body.  As Black Canary and the Army search the area, Wonder Woman comes ashore.  And it is the real Wonder Woman, who explains that Zenna swapped minds with her so that she could sacrifice herself to kill Schlagel and stop his weapon.

Hey, wait... Wasn't that machine powered by a bunch of children strapped down to it?  Did that missile blast just murder a bunch of kids?  Huh, I guess it was fully powered and Schlagel no longer needed the kids anymore.  Maybe I missed something.

Anyway, that's the concluding half of the crazy gypsy body thief.  Dan Mishkin delivered a fun little story that shows how obsessed Zenna became with revenge to the point that she endangered the others and had to die to fulfill her mission.  Black Canary gets some decent action in this issue, but as a character she's mostly a spectator this time around.  Her body at least appears on almost every page.

Black Canary returns in Wonder Woman #310 as Diana tells her a story of Amazonian glories past.  Come back next Thursday for that review!

Back in Action: ACTION COMICS WEEKLY #627

Previously...

Every Wednesday, I review an issue of Action Comics Weekly featuring a backup story starring Black Canary among others.  Each installment of Back in Action will look at Dinah's story and touch on my favorite or least favorite moments from the rest of the strips in these issues.

The cover to ACW #627 spotlights Nightwing drawn by Gil Kane, a polarizing and at times frustrating artist.  Polarizing because he drew some incredible stuff on Sword of the Atom and the Silver Age Green Lantern, and he contributed a lot to Marvel's monster characters, but then he went and crapped out a cover like this.  Aside from that being a horribly boring cover for a book called Action, his Dick Grayson looks a little chubby and a little ethnic.  I can't decide if Kane thought Dick was Mexican or Korean but that seems like what he's channeling in this cover.

Black Canary

"Knock 'Em Dead" Part 4: written by Sharon Wright, pencilled by Randy Duburke, inked by Pablo Marcos, lettered by Steve Haynie, colored by Gene D'Angelo, and edited by Robert Greenberger.  For the first time, I think, since her first story debuted in ACW #609, Canary's story is not the last feature in this issue.  She actually comes third in line between Secret Six and Superman.

The fourth chapter opens up with Ken Glazier thinking about the death threats he has received.  He believes the same woman out to get him killed Walt Sarno the night before.  Ken seems surprised and disdainful toward the note's assertion that he ruined the woman's life, considering she already took so much from him.  He even says she murdered him years ago.  Figuratively, I imagine.  Or not...

Anyway, Glazier isn't the only one driving around Seattle thinking about Sarno's death.  The police are cruising the streets questioning prostitutes off the assumption that Walt Sarno was murdered by a woman associated with the Barfly Robbers crime spree.

Black Canary is on the case, too, and dressed in her leather jacket and fishnet stockings, she does kind of blend in with the street-walking hooker crowd.  Some of the ladies are familiar with her--or, with her undercover persona, that is.  She asks about the heavy police presence, and a girl named Wanda mentions a hooker named Deborah who used to work the streets before upgrading to the barfly scene.  This Deborah was beautiful and claimed to have a boyfriend in the theater business.

Wanda is interrupted by the arrival of her knife-weilding pimp.  Black Canary puts the guy down in fast, efficient style.  Wanda tells her about Deborah's drug dealer, but the cops arrive and arrest Dinah on suspicion of prostitution.

Elsewhere, Deborah scores heroin from her dealer, Rich.  Elsewhere elsewhere from that, the mysterious woman who was following Deborah goes to bed, looking at a picture of a little girl, the same girl from the picture on Page 1 of the first chapter.

[Click the images below to enlarge.]

It's nice to see Black Canary go undercover and do some private investigator work.  It's all the more amusing by the fact that she's using her superhero costume to blend in with hookers.  Sharon Wright had Dinah burn her Justice League International costume in the first arc, now she's getting picked up by the cops for looking dressing like a prostitute.  I doubt that sort of thing happens to other Justice League veterans.

The mystery continues to deepen, but not so far it's out of sight.  Did Deborah really kill Walt Sarno, or was the mystery woman behind it all?  Who was Deborah's boyfriend from the theater world?  Was that part of Ken Glazier's background?  He's a lighting guy, right?  What happened to his family and why is he being targeted by a woman who thinks he ruined her life?

Randy Duburke is still doing a solid job on this story, but the few action beats in this chapter don't really shine.  They're muddled and lack a real sense of movement and fluidity; I'm not sure if that's all his fault or the inker's but Dinah beating up the pimp is confusing and underwhelming as a fight scene.

The Rest

The Green Lantern feature by James Owsley and M.D. Bright guest stars Captain Atom.  Cap has been sent from Justice League International to investigate the disturbance in the forests of Northern California--that disturbance being the alien Visitor destroying everything in sight, mistaking violence for human greeting customs.  The Visitor keeps "greeting" Captain Atom, which levels more of the Redwoods.  Down in Los Angeles, Hal Jordan gets a psychic summons from the alien, and learns that it has gathered enough resources for its shrine/ship that it will soon be leaving.  But before it can go, Captain Atom destroys its shrine/ship, stranding the alien and probably insulting it.  It's strange in this story to read Green Lantern being the more passive, tempered spirit.  I've never had much use for Captain Atom, but he makes a cool foil for Hal in this instance.

It seems like things are coming together in Secret Six by Marty Pasko and Frank Springer.  The redheaded lady manages to figure out some things about Mockingbird and the Agency and a deadly chemical weapon, while the guy with cybernetic legs breaks out of jail, sneaks into a control room and turns off some surveillance monitors.  Then three members of the team bust into a building and shoot some people.  There's also another guy talking to someone who looks like the grand wizard of the KKK.  Same as every week: I want to enjoy this but I can't tell what's going on.

In the two-page Superman strip by Roger Stern and Curt Swan, Clark Kent and Bob Galt are driving a jeep across the desert when two raiders in airships start shooting at them.  Clark fantasizes about how easy it would be to take them out as Superman, but can't do so because he can't reveal his identity to Bob.  It's a cute trick to throw in some Superman action even when it doesn't make sense at this point in the story.  I also really like that Clark considers using his heat vision, but holds off because he doesn't know how it will affect the ships.  It could accidentally kill the pilots, and killing is wrong.

In the previous issues, there were six different stories.  This time, though, there is only five, because Nightwing returns with a double-feature guest starring Speedy.  In a story cowritten by Marv Wolfman and Cherie Wilkerson and drawn by Tom Mandrake, Dick Grayson and Roy Harper are on a ferry heading to Ireland when superhero life happens.  A couple of drug smugglers drive a truck off the ferry and Nightwing fights with the survivor over a coffin carrying a dead body filled with drugs.  Roy rescues Dick, and they make it to Ireland where Roy explains that he was fired from the CBI for getting too close to a drugs investigation involving Ireland.  Now, when he happens to be bringing his infant daughter there, he's involved in another drugs investigation.  Coincidence?  Certainly not!

Next week, I'll look at Action Comics Weekly #628, which sees the return of Blackhawk as well as the continuing adventures of Black Canary, Superman, Green Lantern, Nightwing, and Secret Six.

Black Canary on ARROW S2 E13

I was going to write a recap and review of the latest episode of Arrow, featuring the return of Sara Lance to the present storyline.  It's a significant episode that's entirely about her so it deserves a good amount of attention.

However, I've been sick for the last couple days and don't have the concentration to write a review.  The website GreenArrowTV wrote a thorough and nuanced review which you can read right here.  Yeah, I'm handing off my review to their site.  They do a good job.  Enjoy!

Golden Oldie: FLASH COMICS #91 (Jan 1948)

Six months after her debut in Flash Comics #86, the decision was made to give Black Canary her own solo feature in the magazine.  Issue #91 marks her last guest appearance in Johnny Thunder's adventures.

"The Tumbling Trees" is written by Robert Kanigher and drawn by Carmine Infantino.

Johnny Thunder is roused from his leisurely nap in the woods by two of the Little Rascals.  The boys pick up whole trees and toss them around like they weighed nothing.  When Johnny tells the boys to put them down, a pair of armed gunmen come out of the woods and tell him to put 'em up.  The boys run off, but Johnny is caught.

As a plane comes in for a landing in the forest, the gunmen grab trees, which are made of cardboard, and create a clearing.  They reveal to Johnny that they were pulling a robbery job that required them to land by plane nearby.  The Black Canary got wise to their scheme and booby-trapped the grounds around the estate they're robbing.  So they faked a forest in the middle of a clearing to land the plane closer.  Whew!

As Black Canary comes out of the Peters home with the stash, the plane opens fire on her.  But just then, the Thunderbolt races out of the house carrying Johnny Thunder.  The Thunderbolt puts a whammy on the plane, bringing it down.  But in the crash, a piece of debris knocks Thunderbolt unconscious.

While Johnny and Canary are treating Thunderbolt, the crooks come out of the downed plane and capture the heroes.  Johnny, Canary and Thunderbolt are then each tied to miniature rockets and sent flying into the sky where the story began

Thus concludes Johnny Thunder's final appearance in Flash Comics.  From here on, Black Canary got the slot usually reserved for Johnny and his magic genie.  His crush on Black Canary would go undeveloped for decades until Roy Thomas used it as part of the weirdest retconned character origin in the pages of Justice League of America #219 and #220.

Come back next Sunday for another Golden Age adventure of Black Canary in Flash Comics #92, her first solo story in the series!