- "Maybe we should call her the "Yellow Raven"?"
- "Black Canary" has a better ring to it." - Chloe Sullivan and Clark Kent about Dinah, Siren
Dinah Lance is the alter-ego of the superheroine Black Canary. Dinah was a conservative talk show host who worked at the Daily Planet, before becoming a member of the Justice League.
Physical Appearance[]
Dinah use to wear a dark wig as part of her civilian disguise.
By 2010, Dinah allowed for her blonde hair to grow out and no longer wears her brown wig when out of her Black Canary costume.
She often wears black and yellow clothing.
As the Black Canary, Dinah has blonde hair and a slender yet curvaceous build. Her costume is composed of a black leather bodice, leather jacket, fishnet stockings and leather boots. Rather than wearing a mask to cover her face, Dinah wears black and yellow make-up that somewhat resembles feathers.
Powers and Abilities[]
Black Canary has a background in martial arts: she is trained with throwing knives and was able to rappel off the roof of the Daily Planet at high speeds. In her appearances she has shown to have an above-peak human level of agility and can jump extremely far.
- Sonic scream: Black Canary has a subsonic scream which generates a powerful sound wave, which can disintegrate arrows, shatter glass and knock people unconscious. When she uses her subsonic scream, the sound around her becomes muffled in order to project her "Canary Cry". Her scream caused Clark Kent's ears to bleed: it's possible he was especially vulnerable due to his super hearing. According to Toyman's files, her Canary Cry is strong enough to shatter metal.
- Super dexterity: Black Canary is quite agile and mobile in her movements, as she has shown to be able to do flips and jumps easily.
- Skilled hand-to-hand combatant: Dinah is a very talented hand-to-hand combatant and fighter, who is able to overpower most, though not all, opponents, in fights. Where she learned her skills remains vague.
- Skilled knife thrower: Dinah is very skilled at throwing knives.
Equipment[]
- Black Canary suit:
- Throwing knives:
- Grapple:
Season Seven[]
Dinah was first seen as a mysterious blonde woman who watched Chloe Sullivan steal a file from Lex Luthor and burn the information onto a DVD. She was paid by Lex to steal the disc and attacked Chloe to obtain it. When Chloe got to the roof to wait for Green Arrow, Dinah fought Green Arrow and escaped. She gave the DVD to Lex Luthor and he offered to "make it worth her while" if she brought Green Arrow to him.
Out of her disguise, Dinah took great pleasure in informing Lois Lane that her old flame Oliver had come back to town. She then broke into Chloe's desk and seeing that she had called Oliver, deduced that Oliver and Green Arrow were one and the same. She donned her uniform and as the Black Canary, used her power to blast open the glass to enter the Queen Tower. She held Lois and Oliver hostage and refused to listen when Oliver tried to explain that Lex was deceiving her. She informed Lex to wire the money to her account for getting Green Arrow.
However, Clark Kent and Chloe had discovered her identity and stopped the transfer. Black Canary met Clark and the two fought. However, she began to have doubts about Lex's motives and investigated, learning that he was lying. She went to see Lex and demanded that he prove that Green Arrow was a terrorist. Lex shot her in response but she was saved by Clark, who sped her away, but knocked her out in the process.
As Dinah, she apologized for fighting them and declared that she would no longer be the Black Canary. Oliver, impressed with her skills, asked her to consider joining his team. She agreed to meet his team mates. It is unclear if she still works at the Daily Planet, or if she quit to work for Oliver's team of superheroes.
Season Eight[]
Dinah as Black Canary went in search of Clark when he went missing along with Aquaman and led by Green Arrow. They went to the arctic to see what the LuthorCorp base had found and infiltrated it with Green Arrow distracting and killing any threats while Black Canary destroyed their equipment with her Sonic Scream. Aquaman then burst up through the ice as he was causing the distraction. They went back to the Isis Foundation to collect all the data they had on Clark's whereabouts and they then set off again to find him.
Green Arrow went and tried a Russian Labor Camp, while Aquaman tried another place but was captured by LuthorCorp and Black Canary was also captured by LuthorCorp, who was using Chloe's new ability to locate the Justice League. They were strung up at LuthorCorp's base in Montana but were rescued by Green Arrow and Clark. Clark, Dinah, AC and Oliver all met at night in Metropolis to say they should disband to avoid Tess after their identities were exposed.
Finally, Dinah and Bart were summoned to the Kent Barn by Clark Kent to aid him in stopping Doomsday his way by burying him underground, as they later discovered from Clark that Oliver murdered Lex Luthor. However, the League still sided with Oliver to stop Davis/Doomsday once and for all and betrayed Clark.
However, they were still no match against Doomsday after he was split from Davis. The League later attended Jimmy Olsen's funeral. Following the funeral, Chloe told Clark that Dinah, Oliver and Bart were all missing now.
Season Nine[]
When Chloe and Roulette teamed up to convince Oliver Queen to retake the Green Arrow mantle, Chloe re-assembled Dinah, Bart and Victor to help in the efforts. Although Dinah was not shown, she used her Canary Cry to aid Oliver.
When Chloe and Clark began investigating the murder of Sylvester Pemberton, they discovered that Sylvester had been keeping files on the Justice League, Dinah included. Later it was revealed that Oliver and Dinah had been flirting through emails but Oliver claimed that the emails between him and Dinah were purely platonic.
The government agency Checkmate wanted to know the locations from members of the Justice League, including Dinah, but John Jones manages to erase the memories from the agent of the organization - Amanda Waller.
Black Canary joined the League's group of heroes to discuss the war against Kandorians, along with John Jones, Cyborg, Hawkman and Stargirl. She was hesitant when she first heard of Clark's plan to leave Earth, but later agreed. She saluted him as a final goodbye and returned to the field.
Season Ten[]
The VRA began their witch hunt for all the known existing vigilantes after they framed Oliver for a terrorist attack. Dinah established contact with the rest of the team, via satellite communications, to find out how they were going to proceed now that they were all targets by the government and citizens. Clark decided that the team would go underground until he could find a way to deal with the situation, so he shut down Watchtower.
When Hawkman died heroically in battle, Dinah was present among an entourage of heroes at his funeral in Egypt.
Dinah and the other heroes were ambushed by a mysterious obelisk that rendered all of them unconscious. After three weeks, they were placed into a dream world of virtual reality, where they had no special skills or powers by Trotter and the VRA.
They had some memories of Chloe Sullivan above them that looked like she was putting them under experimentation, when in actuality, she was trying to free them without killing them, Chloe entered the virtual world to help free them, after seeing this, Dinah distrusted Chloe and the two of them had a heated confrontation, resulting in a fight, which ended in a stalemate as Dinah could not defeat Chloe due to the Virtual Avatar being able to enhance Chloe's martial art skills. Dinah and Oliver joined Chloe and two members of the Suicide Squad in stopping the VRA as well as saving their others companions.
The Toyman was handing out assignments or missions to his super-villain group, the Marionette Ventures, so they could eliminate each member of the Justice League and Solomon Grundy's target was Black Canary.
Season Eleven[]
Months after the events following Hawkman's funeral, Black Canary is seen in Seattle alongside Green Arrow's protege Speedy while stopping a bank robbery during her duty as a member of the Justice League.
Mia revealed that Oliver Queen, who was busy with his own life, pawned her off to Dinah, who took Mia under her wing but she didn't want her own sidekick either. At some point Dinah and Chloe Sullivan convinced Mia to join Jay Garrick's school.
During the attack of Parallax's yellow rings on Earth, Canary communicated with the Watchtower to inform Tess on any updates about the situation.
Superman delivers a rousing speech to the heroes. The other Earths might have been erased or rebooted but they are determined for their Earth to survive and their continuity to continue. With that Superman, Luthor and all of Earth's heroes attack the incoming Manhunters.
The plan goes into overdrive and the attack is immediately full on. They may be on a zero fatality mission but the Manhunters are not and Superman makes it clear if they are hit, they die. All the heroes are fighting valiantly and at the end they win the battle.
Appearances[]
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | # | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Season 7 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 1 | ||||
Season 8 | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | 2 | ||
Season 9 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | 1 | ||
Season 10 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | X | X | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | 2 | ||
Total | 6 |
- Season Eight: Hex (Mentioned only), Injustice (Mentioned only)
- Season Nine: Roulette (Mentioned only), Absolute Justice, Part 1 (Mentioned only), Checkmate (Mentioned only),
- Season Eleven: Hollow
- Smallville Miniseries: Continuity
In the Comics[]
In modern comics, the Black Canary is a mantle possessed by two characters, the senior Dinah Drake Lance (a member of the Justice Society of America) and later, her daughter Dinah Laurel Lance who would become a member of the Justice League of America. Both characters are naturally dark-haired but either wear a wig or dye their hair to enhance their disguise.
The only child of a long line of police officers, young Dinah Drake was defied her chance to become a police officer. In honor of her father's wishes, Dinah fashioned a costumed identity to eradicate crime as the Black Canary. In the Black Canary's first appearance, she appeared to be a villainess but it was later revealed she was infiltrating a criminal gang from the inside. In her real identity, Dinah owned a small floral shop in Seatle named "Sherwood Forest" which shut down when her life began to fall apart. Her romantic interest was Larry Lance, a detective on the Gotham City Police Department. In the 1960s, the Justice Society of America and Black Canary were revived and put on a parallel Earth dubbed Earth-Two. When Dinah returned, it was explained that since the time she had been gone, she had married Larry. Dinah along with the Justice Society teamed with the Justice League Of America on numerous adventures, regaining her status as a JSA member. At some point Larry is killed in an attempt to save Dinah’s life. In mourning of her loss, Dinah followed Superman and the Justice League to Earth-One to start a new life. It was here she discovered her mysteriously gained sonic powers, an ultrasonic scream dubbed the "Canary Cry". Dinah eventually joined the Justice League of America, becoming the only Golden Age and Silver Age hero to have been on the JLA and JSA roster and soon began dating fellow Justice League teammate Green Arrow.
In Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series, which attempted to combine the histories of various multiversal Earths into a cohesive whole, removed the divide between Earth-One and Earth-Two. It altered the history of the Justice League of America and Black Canary was now a founding member, in place of Wonder Woman. It was revealed the first Dinah had been trained by her father, Detective Richard Drake and intended to follow in his footsteps on the Gotham City police. She was turned down by the force, however, as well as her disillusioned father died of heart failure shortly thereafter. Dinah was determined to honor his memory and fight crime and corruption by whatever method possible. This led to her debut as a costumed vigilante: she would use her inheritance to open a florist shop as her day job. Eventually Dinah married her beau, private eye Larry Lance. A few years later, their daughter, named Dinah Laurel Lance was born.
While the senior heroine used only her fighting physical prowess, her daughter was born a metahuman and possessed the power to an emit a devastating ultrasonic "Canary Cry", the result of a metagene not present in either parent. Trained by her mother's teammates on the JSA, most notably Wildcat, Dinah became an accomplished crimefighter of the highest tier. Dinah, at a very young age, had been married briefly before divorcing. Her ex-husband Craig Windrow reappeared wanting her to rejoin him after he had stolen funds from the mob. On the JLA, to which she was retroactively regarded as a founding member, she would later recruit Oliver Queen (the Green Arrow), with whom she would become lovers, as well as she would become a surrogate mother to his adopted son Roy.
Dinah's career was revitalized after joining the League, when Barbara Gordon, the former Batgirl and later "the Oracle" recruited her to become her crimefighting partner as one of the Birds of Prey. Her tour of duty defined the team, on which she served alongside the Huntress before resigning the team to look after her adopted daughter Sin. Shortly later, she and Green Arrow were finally married, but the wedding did not go as planned as Oliver was kidnapped and held hostage on the island of Themyscira, by the villainous New God Granny Goodness. As Ollie's wife, she is now the mother to his progeny, Roy Harper (the Red Arrow) and Connor Hawke (the other Green Arrow), Oliver's son. She also owned a new floral shop in Gotham City named "Sherwood Florist II".
After Green Arrow murdered the villain who destroyed Star City in an explosion that killed Roy Harper's daughter Dinah left Green Arrow for hiding the truth from her, further destroying the fragil trust they had rebuilt since his resurrection. Oddly enough, she returned to him the diamond engagement ring, but not the wedding band, implying perhaps she has not fully given up hope.
Regardless, Dinah returned to Gotham, where she, Huntress, Lady Blackhawk, Hawk and Dove were reassembled by Oracle and thus the Birds of Prey were reformed.
In the New 52, Dinah Lance the Black Canary is established as a tough, idealistic fighter and founder of the covert ops team, Birds of Prey alongside Ev Crawford alias Starling. She is now Dinah Lance (née Drake), wife of Kurt Lance and is shown to have been working with Team 7 before it disbanded. She possesses a metahuman sonic scream, the Canary Cry, as in her previous incarnations.
Dinah Lance has known John Lynch for many years, even before Team 7 was formed. She and her husband were Lynch's most trusted officers and the ones he put in charge of getting the team together in its early days. As an agent of Team 7, Dinah and her husband have fought alongside Lynch, Slade Wilson, Alex Fairchild, James Bronson, Captain Summer Ramos, Cole Cash, Amanda Waller and Major Dean Higgins against the likes of enemies such as terrorist John Akara, Eclipso, Basilisk, Spartan and Kaizen Gamorra.
It is during this period of time wherein Dinah had been married to Kurt Lance and during which Dinah's metahuman sonic powers, albeit beyond her control, are awakened from dormancy. In the final battle with Kaizen Gamorra, the Kaizen threatens to open Pandora's Box and agent Bronson, now Majestic, creates a tidal wave that submerges the island of Gamorra underwater. The team has only a few minutes before the upper tiers of the Kaizen's palace collapse. Here, Kurt Lance displays his abilities when he amplifies Dinah's scream to knock the Box out of the Kaizen's hands, after which Majestic approaches to open it despite all reasoning from Kurt Lance, which he responds to by swatting Lance aside. The palace finally crumbles on top of them and vaporizes when Dinah's powers are amplified by linking of hands with Lynch and Amanda Waller, to blast Majestic away from the Box and keep him down. In the aftermath, Dinah looks for Kurt to no avail, regretting the use of her power and stops looking when she is urged by Waller to take the Box away from Lynch now that he is tempted to open it. Finally, she boards an aircraft piloted by Steve Trevor, while Waller stays and shoots Lynch in the head to stop him from holding the aircraft from departing with his telekinesis. The Team 7 project is later mothballed, marking the end of Dinah's tenure with the team. While Dinah, Slade, Steve and Cole Cash survive, the rest are missing and presumed dead and the events at Gamorra are now classified with no record of Team 7 having ever existed. Kurt was supposedly killed by his wife's Canary Cry, but this is eventually revealed to be a lie, Kurt is actually alive and under the care of Amanda Waller, while his wife still believes that he had died by her hand.
Black Canary recruits Katana and Poison Ivy to the Birds of Prey team as they face and attempt to stop the crimes of the mind controlling menace known as Choke, who uses his abilities to make puppets out of members of society through a nursery rhyme. Although initially, Batgirl is approached for recruit yet reluctant to join the team, she eventually joins them on missions and joins the team. Black Canary is almost taken under Choke's control but the rhyme is aborted when in final resort, Starling knocks her unconscious. Black Canary and the Birds are lead to believe Choke to be Trevor Cahill before Katana kills him using her Soultaker and later it is revealed from communication with Maseo Yamashiro residing in the sword that Trevor is not Choke but another mind-controlled minion of Choke's. Black Canary and the Birds of Prey are confronted with Talons of the Court of Owls before they are able to subdue the Talons, especially the strongest with the help of Poison Ivy. Black Canary eventually finds she and the rest of the team are betrayed by Ivy, who has requested that she be brought near to the source of her powers, the Green in the Amazon, as a favor in return for her previous heroism, but through mysterious plant creatures encountered on their way poisons her team members and later forces them to cooperate in her eco-terrorism under her commands in exchange for a cure as well as the safety of the rest of the world from the poison. Black Canary and the Birds, albeit reluctantly, obey her instructions but before she can succeed, however, Poison Ivy's plans are foiled as the Birds turn on her and Katana injures her with her Soultaker, leaving Black Canary regretful.
Following Poison Ivy's betrayal and Batgirl's inclusion in the team, Canary and the Birds recover from Ivy's toxins while remaining in isolation. Their adventures resume with the rescue of Katana and the retrieving of her Soultaker Sword from a clan of ninja's, the Dagger Clan that have set out for vengeance against her. With the help of Condor, Black Canary and the Birds of Prey defeat them. While Katana chooses to leave the team, a new member is recruited by Batgirl, a former Talon of the Court of Owls called Strix. It is during these adventures Canary experiences increase in the strength of her powers to a level beyond her control. These amplifications follow the visions of her husband, Kurt. While fending off the Dagger Clan, Canary's scream almost liquefied Starling's skull and later after Strix's recruit, her Canary Cry, out of her control, had destroyed Gotham City's power station thus shutting off the power to the entire city block and knocking almost all of her teammates flat. However, this matter is settled when she pleads Starling and Strix to keep this a secret from Batgirl after explaining to them as only they realize the destruction had come from her powers. The team later faces a paramilitary strike team sent to respond to the destruction caused by Black Canary and floating machines called Heartstoppers that lock on to the electrical pattern of the nearest human heart and destroys it at close range with powerful shocks. With the help of Starling in her connection to Amanda Waller, these machines are deactivated and the Birds are victorious.
Other faces of Black Canary[]
Trivia[]
- Dinah Lance first appeared in Justice League of America #219 (October 1983), while her mother Dinah Drake had first appeared in Flash Comics #86 (August 1947).
- According to Sylvester Pemberton's files, Dinah is a martial arts master: Her fight skills include Dragon style Kung Fu, pressure point fighting, Amazon martial arts, boxing and judo. She was trained by a former heavyweight boxing champion. She also possesses a meta-gene that gave her a potent sonic attack.
- Dinah is 5'7", 130Ibs in Sylvester's files, but is said to be 5'4", 124 Ibs in Toyman's files.
- According to Season 11 writer's Bryan's twitter, Dinah is confirmed to be the same age as Oliver and she is around 30–31 years old by Hollow.[3]
- She has virtually "flirted" with Oliver via emails.[4]
- She's also known as "Pretty Bird" or "Tori". Tori is of Japanese origin and its meaning is "bird".[5]
- Black Canary's phone number is 429-555-0123 (Odyssey)
- Dinah's base of operations is revealed to be Platinum Flats. In the comics, this was temporarily the base of operations for the Birds of Prey.
- Mia Dearden refers to Dinah as Oliver's "not quite ex-girlfriend" (Titans), referencing the fact that Dinah and Oliver have had romantic inklings toward each other in the past (Absolute Justice, Part 1), but never quite made their relationship official enough to consider each other exes.
Notes[]
- June 2017 marked The 70th Anniversary of the Character's existence.
- According to Toyman's files, Dinah lives in Platinum Flatts, is 5'4", weighs 124 pounds, has blue eyes and blonde hair
- Clark and Chloe gave Black Canary her name.
- In the comics Dinah had originally short dark hair, while as Black Canary had long blonde hair though wearing a wig, she presumably now dyes it, thus it is always blonde. Smallville's version gives her a reverse look, as Dinah she wears a long brown wig and as Black Canary she has her real short blonde hair. In her latest appearances her real hair seems much longer thus aligning herself with her comic book counterpart. This look of Dinah is also featured in the TV show Arrow where a brunette Dinah "Laurel" Lance appears only as a civilian and not as a vigilante.
- Unlike the Smallville version of the character, in the comics, Dinah's political leanings have often appeared more towards liberal views than conservative. Furthermore, Dinah has never shown any interest or history of being a newscaster, but instead owned a small floral shop.
- Dinah appears in photographs on the Isis Foundation computers in Hex and in Sylvester Pemberton's book in Absolute Justice, Part 1.
- In Season Nine's Absolute Justice, a painting of the original Justice Society of America depicts the original Black Canary, implying that Dinah is the second woman to carry this hero identity. The original plan was for Dinah to be in Absolute Justice, with the woman in the painting being her mother. The connection was not acknowledged onscreen, because Alaina Huffman proved unavailable for the two-parter. The woman was acknowledged as Dinah's mother in an interview by Geoff Johns.[6]
- In the comics Al Pratt and Ted Grant looked after Dinah when she was younger and even trained her in combat. In Absolute Justice, Dinah is seen via photograph in Sylvester Pemberton´s book and the text implies that she maybe was indeed trained by Ted Grant.
- She was the first female member of the Justice League. Chloe, Courtney Whitmore, Tess, Lois and Zatanna Zatara would later join after her.
- Dinah is the only Justice League member to make full appearances with the exception of Salvation via video.
- In the Season Seven episode Action, there is a Black Canary action figure on display in Ben Meyers' apartment.
Quotes[]
- Lois: (sees Dinah on the elevator) Dinah Lance. The word of justice, the right-wing hawk of the airwaves. You're all dressed up. Heading to an execution?
- Dinah: (scoffs) If you ever did any fact checking Lois, you'd know that the state outlawed those years ago.
- Lois: I'm sure you'll get over it someday.
- Dinah: I don't take to the morally murky.
- Lex: Unless they pay you.
- Dinah: You know my standards. No matter how rich you are, you don't deserve to be robbed.
- Clark: (referring to Dinah) This blonde woman. Chloe said she shattered your arrows.
- Oliver: Not my proudest moment, but... yeah. She must have some sort of sound frequency control. All the noise went muffled right before it happened.
- Chloe: (upon realizing that Dinah is the Black Canary) This makes so much sense. I mean, Dinah's slogan is the "word of justice." Family of cops, hard line view of crime and corruption.
- Clark: Green Arrow isn't the villain here, Lex is.
- Dinah: Even tycoons who buy out the press deserve justice.
- Dinah: (walks onto roof of Daily Planet, where Clark and Oliver are waiting) Hey. Thanks for coming. I guess I need to eat a little crow huh. Is it too late to ask for an apology?
- Clark: Apology accepted. Assuming you stop moonlighting for Lex.
- Dinah: That won't be a problem, I've decided to hang up my fishnets. I think I was a little out of my league, I'll just stick to being the Word of Justice. At least I can't hurt anyone over the airwaves.
- Oliver: Well as long as they're not subsonic. Still, I gotta say umm... it kinda seems like a a waste.
- Clark: Besides Oliver and his boys could always use a den mother.
- Oliver: It's true.
- Dinah: I'm really not much of a team player.
- Oliver: Really? That's perfect, you're gonna fit right in.
- Dinah: (nods)
- Dinah: (to Oliver) Has anyone ever told you you have lousy taste in women?
- Oliver: Yah.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Siren
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Absolute Justice, Part 1
- ↑ https://twitter.com/bryanQmiller/status/391741065704665089
- ↑ This can be seen in Absolute Justice, Part 1
- ↑ This could be a reference to Black Canary's other alias of the comics. In the comics, Dinah is also known as "Siu Jerk Jai", that means "Little Bird". Both aliases are of Japanese Origin.
- ↑ http://www.kryptonsite.com/geoff-johns-absolute-justice.htm
External links[]
- Black Canary on DCAU Wikia
- Black Canary on Wikipedia
- Black Canary on DC Comics Database
- Black Canary on Young Justice Wikia
- Black Canary on Super Friends Wikia
- Black Canary on Arrow Wikia
- Black Canary on Arrow Wikia
- Black Canary on Arrow Wikia