Black Canary – A guide to Black Canaries
(Disambiguation page)
Context
- We now have a fair few character profiles for DC Comics’ Black Canary.
- This might confuse readers who do not realise that the character dates back to the 1940s.
Therefore, here are the Black Canary profiles on writeups.org and what they do.
The chronological song
This series of profile uses the emergent history method.
For instance, the 1947/48 version of Black Canary only uses material from 1947 and 1948. The 1960s profile only uses material from the 1960s. Etc..
This is because there have been many takes on the Black Canary concept. Rather than present a “smudged together” view of these, we present each take in detail.
Which also means that reading the profiles in order will show you exactly how the *idea* of Black Canary evolves.
Profiles
1 The prototype version
The earliest take, in 1947/48. At this point she’s a bad girl and a thief, a bit like 1940s Catwoman or Harlequin.
2 The (late) Golden Age Black Canary.
Black Canary as she appears from 1948 to 1951. She’s reinvented as a heroine, and even joins the Justice Society of that time.
3 This 1960s Black Canary.
Black Canary then vanishes until 1962/63. But she then returns in strong form, chiefly as a member of the Justice Society of America.
4 The 1970s Black Canary (part 1).
Not the best era for Dinah, I’m afraid. But that’s when her powers — and the thing with Green Arrow — start developing.
5 The 1970s Black Canary (part 2).
Our 1970s profile for the Black Canary discusses a lot of things, so we ended up presenting it as a two-parter.
6 The gisted notes.
Our earliest notes about BC. Now dated, so we don’t really want people to read them.
We keep them around because there are useful pictures, stats, etc.. But the endgame is to fully replace these with a series of clear and excellent chronological profiles.
7 Rock star Black Canary part #1.
A specific version by two specific authors (Wu and Fletcher), seen during the mid-2010s. 2010s DC Comics continuity was a hot mess, so we have to do thin “slices” so characters profile remain clear.
8 Rock star Black Canary part #2.
Second half of this entry which yes, is surprising since it covers such a short time span. But look, there was a lot packed into that run.
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Related profiles
As long as we’re disambiguatin’, I should also mention :
1 Lady Lark / Skylark of the Squadron Supreme.
A somewhat obscure Marvel character, from a super-team who are obvious analogues to DC’s stalwarts. Lady Lark channels both Black Canary and older versions of Hawkgirl.
2 Mockingbird (Dr. Bobbi Morse).
Mockingbird is kinda, sorta an equivalent of Black Canary in the Marvel Universe. Well, that was the intent at one point, then it got complicated.
