Black Canary

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Context

This profile covers the Black Canary’s appearances during the Golden AgeSuper-hero comics from the late 1930s to the early 1950s of comics. In her specific case this means :

Having been a member of the Justice Society of America, the Black Canary would endure for decades in DC Comics, gradually finding her own distinctive voice as a character.

Background

Powers & Abilities

The Black Canary is fast, smart, agile, creative and crafty.

She is a trained acrobat and climber, who can even do big top trapeze routines.

Black Canary is a proficient boxer and knows quite a bit of jiu-jitsu. She often uses judo throws, making her fighting style different from most.

She’s strong enough to lift a grown man right above her head and throw him several metres away. Or operate a fire hose by herself.

To pay the bills

Furthermore she’s :

Though she’s the least powerful Justice Society member, she contributes with her quick wits. Dinah is good at coming up with unexpected plans using improvised resources. She is often useful because she held herself slightly in reserve to intervene where most necessary.

She doesn’t do the rational deductions, though. This is Doctor Mid-Nite’s role.

Gear

The Black Canary’s locket can hold one or two tiny items.

It can be popped open by pressing her chin against her choker. This means she can use it when bound. And since Golden Age comic book heroes get captured and bound an awful lot, this makes her trick choker a “get out of jail free” card.

In dire situations, the choker will also “just happen” to have the right mini-gadget within. Howbeit, the choker only gets into play once per adventure. And it was seldom if ever used during JSA adventures.

Items in the trick choker have been :

As a JSA member, Dinah also carried a long-range Amazon two-way radio, though it can only communicate with compatible Amazon walkie-talkies.

Dinah somehow carried her wig and costume in her purse. Yes, including the boots. And the jacket.

Larry Lance

Larry Lance is a private eye with more than his fair share of macho swagger. He’s semi-competent as a P.I., and a decent brawler and gunman – though Black Canary is more skilled. He’s also fairly hard to kill.

Lance originally stopped at Dinah Drake’s flower shop every day to buy a flower and strut his stuff. Since he lacked the money to have his own office, he eventually convinced Drake to rent him a corner of her shop to serve as his agency. That was mostly so he could use her landline.

Though Dinah is irritated by Larry’s conceit and the flirting is one-way, they are clearly attracted toward each other. Lance’s boasts about how great he is also keep Dinah informed about his current cases. This lets Black Canary intervene in time – often saving Lance’s life.

This was the first hook that emerged in Black Canary’s solo feature. The hard-boiled detective is the sidekick, and it’s the pretty blonde love interest who’s the actual protagonist.

Of course, Lance will never admit it. And he will never realise on his own that Dinah Drake is the Black Canary.

Champions small with midnight wings

In Comic Cavalcade #25, Dinah demonstrated the power to summon and control flocks of black canaries.

No, really, she did. The idea was promptly abandoned, and jettisoned from continuity.

A flock was strong enough to :

The Black Canary even had a Green Lantern-like oath to summon them :

Let’s never talk about that again.

History

Dinah Drake is a florist.

Some captions in All-Star Comics imply that she lives in Gotham City. Others that she lives in Civic City. She may have moved from Gotham to Civic once she became a full JSA member. That’d match what little information exists.

That’s it. Any further biographical data has yet to appear.

Thunderstruck

As noted in the previous profile, the cases where Black Canary teamed up with Johnny Thunder are kind of, sort of in continuity. The Canary pretended to be a criminal for some months in order to learn about the local mobs, though it gradually became clear that she was a heroine.

The exact events probably do not match what was published. This is because Johnny Thunder was closer to a gag feature than a super-hero feature.

But honestly, the specifics aren’t important. What matters is that she knew Johnny Thunder and he knew that she was a dependable heroine.

Clearing her throat

Comic Cavalcade #25 had a strange, transitional Black Canary story. I am going to reflexively blame Robert Kanigher for that, even though I have no idea whether he had any involvement with it.

In there Black Canary was a costumed vigilante detective who foiled a nonsensical plot to claim ownership of a night club. She had a magic oath to summon flocks of super-strong black canaries.

The plot also involved a shooting lamp post, a flamethrowing fire hydrant, identical twins, and a huge turntable to shoot prisoners high in the air atop a giant vinyl record.

So, yeah. Anyway.

The great Society

In December, 1947 the Black Canary found Johnny Thunder hovering at death’s door after a car crash. Before he passed on, he told her about the Justice Society of America’s secret headquarters. Black Canary was then knocked out by a man looking like Attila the Hun.

Recovering, she reached Wonder Woman at the JSA HQ. Wonder Woman soon discovered that the other male JSAers had also been killed by evil men from history – such as Nero, Genghis Khan, Cesare Borgia or Captain Kidd. Thankfully, she could resurrect them all using the purple healing ray.

Disoriented by their death and not finding any clue, the men of the JSA were stuck. Black Canary had them impersonate their new foes, counting on the evil historical personages’ pride to reel them in.

History’s crime wave !

It worked and the evil men from history attacked anew. However, the JSAers were captured using disorienting vapours.

Black Canary shadowed their captor. She thus discovered that it was a madman with an obsession about great villains from the past. She rescued the JSA, but the fanatic was accidentally killed.

Dejected by this death, Dinah left the scene.

However, Wonder Woman tracked her down and made her an honoured guest of the Justice Society. The Canary would eventually become a full member.

Early cases

In her first documented investigation, the revised Black Canary investigated a road where trucks loaded with valuables kept vanishing. Larry Lance was also on the case.

Albeit the two were briefly captured, they discovered that the trucks were forced to swerve off the road using a giant mirror and a cardboard house façade. Drake and Lance arrested the criminals.

The Black Canary then intervened in another Larry Lance case. She unmasked a faux swamiA Hindu male religious teacher who enthralled wealthy women into a strange, murderous cult. The Black Canary also proved that the magical “Crimson Crystal” of the cult was just a prop, and saved Lance’s life (again).

More early cases

Drake and Lance were then framed for the murder of an inventor. They eventually discovered that the man had co-invented an early form of laser, which criminals stole to use as an invincible weapon. The Canary and Lance narrowly defeated the gang and cleared their names.

A rich man who the Canary had saved then willed his wealth to her. Infuriated by thus being pushed out of the will, his niece impersonated the Black Canary and killed him.

Dinah soon unmasked the impostor and had her confess to the police. She then donated the money from the will to a charity.

Even more early cases

Lance and the Black Canary were then — wait for it — framed for the murder of a druggist.

They soon established that the man was a disloyal fence, and that the murderers were about to steal a jewel at a horse race. Chasing the horse-mounted thieves on a motorcycle, Black Canary caught them even though they fled in a small plane then parachuted out (!).

The director of a chemical mill was then murdered right before Larry Lance. The man gave him a piece of cloth, but Lance was soon kidnapped to repossess this fabric.

The Black Canary easily found him and was briefly captured too. The pair soon defeated the crooks, learning that the fabric held a valuable formula for a new dye.

Rocks and paper

Black Canary then stopped some robbers who were after a famous set of diamonds. After deducing that a television camera was giving them clues to rob the place, she intercepted the bandits as they fled in a fast boat.

Though outnumbered, Dinah repeatedly tricked them so she could take them out.

Lance was then hired to bodyguard the rich owner of a rare stamp. The man was nevertheless forced to surrender the stamp in a blackmail scheme that used Dinah’s florist shop as a front after disguising it as a groceries shop.

The Canary and the detective saved the millionaire and stopped the conspiracy.

Meanwhile, at the Justice Society Headquarters…

Black Canary also worked as a sort of auxiliary for the JSA – for instance to conduct surveillance.

Thus, while the Society was tangling with the power of the Voice of the Lorelei in the dimension of Fairyland, she saw the dangerous criminal Slicer escape into Fairyland. Chasing him, she ably reinforced the JSA to defeat the Lorelei – and repel the invading Fairyland forces from Earth.

She next helped the JSA defeat the dangerous Crimson Claws gang. More importantly, they reformed the Claws’ kid auxiliaries before they could become real criminals.

Patriotic crimes

When the original Injustice Society launched its grand competition to capture American patriotic symbols, they captured most Justice Society members. The Black Canary and the Harlequin (Molly Maynne) allied to rescue them.

Though all JSA members, Dinah and Molly were recaptured, the persuasive Canary broke the Wizard’s hypnotic hold over her colleagues. The good guys thus ultimately prevailed.

After these exploits, the Black Canary was voted a full member of the JSA. She effectively replaced Johnny Thunder, who had recently resigned as his powers were fading.

This restored the JSA’s roster to seven members. Which is an important number for heroic teams in the DC Universe.

Their first known adventure after this decision was to defeat the Alchemist (Professor Zabor Zodiak).

More cases in Gotham City

More cases occurred around Miss Drake’s flower shop. By this point Lance had apparently enough money to have moved out of his corner in Dinah’s shop, though he continued to visit every day.

Near the end of this era, there’s a *loose* implication that Lance and Drake have become an item. Though in any case they aren’t living together.

However, Larry is then forced to crash at the flower shop after he fails to pay his rent at his new place. So they may have started living together just as Flash Comics finished its run.

Birds of a feather

Though her solo cases (well, solo with Larry Lance as a helper) stopped being chronicled at this point, Dinah continued to be a JSA member.

The further adventures of the Society included :

End of an era

The Key case was the last period appearance of the Black Canary during the Golden Age.

A dozen years later, the Canary returned. However, DC Comics stories had changed. This was now the Silver AgeSuper-hero comics from the late 1950s to the early 1970s of comic books, all characters were subtly different, and the cosmology had changed. For instance, the reality of the Golden Age characters was now called Earth-2.

Furthermore, a different Black Canary existed on Earth-1, and… by golly, I guess this all belongs to another profile, girls and fellows !

Description

Though Dinah is raven-haired, she famously wears a blonde wig as Black Canary. It is permanently styled in a 1940s glamour wave (think Veronica Lake, but without the signature peek-a-boo).

She’s sometimes depicted with an impossibly small waist. Which I guess is handy for when Hawkman has to carry her in flight.

The Black Canary costume evolved slightly. The floating, broad shorts (or short culottes, I suppose) make their exit. This leaves the costume’s torso piece with a cut much more like a 1940s women’s one-piece swimsuit (itself an evolution on the groundbreaking Annette Kellerman  design). The “swimsuit” might be leather.

Tough gal

The short, dark leather jacket is also interesting. Back then these were chiefly associated with military flight jackets (such as the A2 bomber jacket) or motorcycling enthusiasts (the landmark Perfecto jacket is from 1928).

Leather jackets were thus developing a tough guy image, with the help of post-demobilisation incidents such as the so-called Hollister biker riots  of 1947. The design choice is probably because the Black Canary was originally intended to be a hard-boiled quasi-villainess.

Fishnets apparently also had a edgy image back then, and were primarily associated with burlesque dancers and some pin-up models  .

Though it might be a stealth BDSM allusion (these aesthetics apparently already existed in the 1940s, and having such details sneaked into comic books does happen) Dinah isn’t sexualized in the stories.

So the costume likely caught on to such an extent (with Black Canary ascending to DC Comics’ all-star team book within mere months) because it was a semi-practical, attractive-yet-strong tough girl outfit that had few if any equivalents.

It does make Wonder Woman’s then-contemporary outfit seem dated and childish in comparison, for instance.

Personality

Black Canary is a standard Golden Age crimefighter, of the two-fisted detective sort. She’s determined to fight crime, and frequently does small puns – especially to make fun of her enemies as she attacks them.

As often in stories of this era, nothing really stands out. Except that she’s intelligent, dauntless, crafty and serves the common good.

Larry Lance is a boor and a blowhard, and some of his actions toward Miss Drake would be considered bullying in a more enlightened era. What Dinah Drake sees in him is something of a mystery. Though he is courageous and virile, and his overconfidence gives him a small amount of charm.

Quotes

“Tell the police about these phoney racketeers who promise you the sky in return for your valuables ! If you want to give away anything — remember the charities !”

“Well if it isn’t sleeping beauty, alias Larry Lance, the smartest private eye in the business – if you ask *him* ! Larry – it’s time to get up !!”

Larry Lance: “If only I knew how to reach the Black Canary, I’d send her some flowers !”
Dinah Drake (in her shop): “Oh, I’ll bet she’s just surrounded by flowers !”

The Atom: “Perhaps criminals have been scared into hiding by the new comet and the meteors !”
Black Canary: “Quite possible, Atom ! Superstition goes hand-in-hand with low intelligence !”

(Fighting ancient swordsmen) “You plug-uglies with those toad-stickers have no footwork – that’s your trouble ! You could use a few boxing lessons – such as always keep your chin covered, get me ?” (Conk ! Ooof !)

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