I love Black Canary, always have. Maybe not so much when Mike Grell took away her sonic cry. Or when she went all butch leather-biker. But even as a kid, I used to draw Black Canary comics.
So, it's been kinda frustrating to watch Andrew Kreisberg turn Black Canary into a moron (she's leader of the JLA for crying out loud!):
GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY 16 (March 2009)Especially when just 2 pages before, she was knocking an arrow out of the air with her sonic cry, and now suddenly she's just overwhelmed!? WTF!!?
That got me thinking back to better times. There's the obvious run in BIRDS OF PREY, where Gail Simone practically turned her into a top-tier A-lister. Even Judd Winnick didn't do too poorly with her on his GREEN ARROW/BLACK CANARY run. But inbetween, she turned up in a self-titled mini-series. Not that it was spectacular or anything, but Tony Bedard gave me, literally, a jaw-dropping, OMG, no way!! moment:
BLACK CANARY 2 (September 2007)
It starts off looking like one of those "oh, he's a misogynist, having the man overpower the woman by cutting off her power" bits. Then he turns around and gives something so original and unexpected that it's almost flooring, while coming across as an obvious "duh, of course she could do that" type thing.
I'm not lying when I say, my jaw literally dropped when she snapped the bow string. I was shocked and awed. I love that scene. Tony Bedard made Black Canary even more awesome.Now she's a bumbling buffoon.
Sigh.
I have to say I have noticed the slow decline of Black Canary...She was my next favorite female hero after Wonder Woman.
ReplyDeleteEven back during the Hard Traveling Heroes days, Canary was NOT someone to mess with. She was capable of keeping both Ollie AND Hal in line. That's nothing to sneeze at!
ReplyDeleteI will always have a soft spot for Black Canary, she's quite an interesting character but sometimes writers have a hard time trying to make her interesting. She's way more than just the wife, that's for sure. And her run in Birds of Prey was amazing. She should have stayed there. I kind of lost track of Green Arrow & Black Canary, and I think that's just because the books isn't that enthralling.
ReplyDeleteThe current JLA stories are a little odd and I don't trust McKeever(?) very much. She's portrayed a little of a facist and that's so not her.
I dropped the GA/BC series when Judd left. Not that I loved his run, but it just seemed like a good ending point. I had a feeling that the new writer wasn't up to snuff. I really miss the classic BOP. It's sad that the series is ending. My hope is that after BATTLE FOR THE COWL, BOP will be back better than before - with Gail in charge again. I don't think SECRET SIX will be around too long, freeing up Gail to return to the birds she made soar.
ReplyDeleteJudd Winick isn't a writer I love or hate. His stuff is so hit or miss, I just don't worry about whether he's writing a book until I read it. His TITANS has mostly been suck, but I thought his run on GA/BC was pretty hot. Especially compared to what has followed...
ReplyDeleteI don't think you were wrong to bail when you did.
This is always a problem when trying to write couples and the same reason Joe Quesada was so insistent on unmarrying spider-man. Most writers faced with dealing with a couple turn one into the saviour and the other into the savee, unless one is "actually evil all along." Bedard had a decent balance, but largely made Ollie into the Savee. Now it looks like this guy is pushing Canary into the damsel in distress mode.
ReplyDeleteThey're even doing the same thing in New Avengers with Hawkeye and Mockingbird. they show Mockingbird as able to hold her own against clint, but she's afraid of the big scary world and clint will protect her, but it looks like she'll be pulling the "evil all along" trick as well.