Comic book reviews for Black Canary #10, Black Canary #11, and Black Canary #12 by Brenden Fletcher, Annie Wu, Moritat, and Sandy Jarrell
Average rating: 3.3/5 stars
Black Canary #10 by Brenden Fletcher
Art: Moritat and Sandy Jarrell
There were a few saving graces of this issue, but overall it was off the Black Canary quality. The moments that saved it for me:
- The general mystery being around Dinah finding more about her mother. While there are lots of stories about people trying to find lost parents, most of them don’t know their parents. Dinah did. She did grow up with them.
- When Batgirl’s seemingly out of the fight, but comes back around to kick some butt. Babs specifically saying, “‘Cause she knows I can take care of myself!” That kind of lady friendship trust is my favorite.
- Babs pointing out that Aunt Rena could be a fake, given Babs’ friend Greg. Nice to see them acknowledge a similar thing happened. Or could be happening.
- 80s fun with Dinah Sr.
Unfortunately, the entire battle with Greyeyes and the rest of the Ninja Death Cult felt like a waste. Especially when Greyeyes blew herself up. Seems like Fletcher had developed this character enough that he might want to use her more.
Moritat’s art is notably not my favorite and hasn’t been. I feel like every time a DCU struggles to find an end, Moritat ends up on pencils. Sadly, Jarrell’s work, especially in the many, many fight scenes, doesn’t move the book along. There’s no reason to see that much fighting and no real movement of the plot, unless you’re just trying to fill pages.
Black Canary #11 by Brenden Fletcher
Art: Sandy Jarrell
More battles without much plot movement. And apparently, there’s a few dimensional holes in the world in which one can travel great distances. I really wish I had those at my beck-and-call.
No one is surprised that Aunt Rena wasn’t really Aunt Rena. Or at least she was under the spell of Izak Orato. (Whose name I just picked up on now. Wow, sometimes I am slow.) Of course, he has a lot of people under his spell, seems that’s his thing.
I assume Izak is a vampire, but somehow broken by Dinah’s mother.
I wish Vixen had more to do in this book as I am fond of her. Maybe she’ll be the one to get Dinah out of this pickle. But maybe now.
Black Canary #12 by Brenden Fletcher
Art: Annie Wu and Sandy Jarrell
This was a solid ending to the series. The dream of the solo rock n’ roll life that Izak put in Dinah’s mind as he stabbed her felt with some truth of if Dinah gave up superheroing for music and broke up with the band.
At first, the tragic life of Dinah played out much like many sad rich rockstars. However, the scene where Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and Babs come to tell a pregnant Dinah that Oliver is dead says that her life was at least a little bit happy. Even if we are only seeing the sad parts. And takes it out of the this solo artist pain narrative, if a tiny bit.
The art really made these scenes. Especially as Dinah aged, which isn’t something we typically see in our heroes. And maybe is part of Dinah’s subconscious about what she believes either her life will be like or what will happen if she does not continue to be a superhero.
I do love that it’s the band who saves her. Especially since Izak gave her the giant lecture on putting them at risk. Of course, Ditto exists in a world Izak cannot see. After Dinah saved her, it was good to see the favor returned.
The entire five palms was ridiculous. Izak and Rena were pretty ridiculous too.
I enjoyed that Ditto was able to hid herself from Waller. Seemed about right and fair. Same with Dinah handing over lead singer role to Bo.
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