Black Canary is a familiar character for DC Comics fans. Since her debut in 1947, she's appeared in some of DC Comics' most famous titles, including Justice League of America, Green Arrow, Batgirl and Birds of Prey. Most recently, we saw the superheroine on The CW's Arrow television series.
Now, Black Canary has been reimagined for DC Comics in a new title that kicked off in June. Starring Dinah Lance, Black Canary is no longer just a single person, but a group of people: the rock band that has Dinah singing lead.
Although Dinah Lance was the original Black Canary, in her current incarnation, she's become something else: a rock star. We spoke with Black Canary writer Brenden Fletcher and artist Annie Wu about what it was like bringing Dinah to new life for her own solo title, which just released its second issue.
When you start working on a comic like this, featuring a character who many comic book fans are already familiar with, how do you write and draw the character in a way that's new — but still feels familiar for existing fans of that character?
FLETCHER: Yeah, that's always a challenge, I think, when jumping on these legacy characters. But some of that legwork was done for us already. DC did a big universe-wide reboot in 2011 that they called the New 52. So all the characters had slightly new angles from that time. So what we're doing is we're following that continuity in the newest adventure of Dinah Lance, who has always been known as Black Canary.
I have the good fortune of being one of the writers of the new Batgirl series for DC, and we had Dinah as a supporting character there. But she had been in a series called Birds of Prey with Batgirl previously, so we couldn't have her in our Batgirl series as a superhero and sort of retreading that whole ground — we had to give her something new to do.
So just to have her do something interesting in that book, we threw her in a rock band. Her superpower is that she has this Canary Cry, a scream that can literally level buildings. It just seemed like a natural fit that she would be screaming rock songs. And when we were through with that arc, it felt like we had shortchanged her story, that there was so much more to do with that: a superhero who can scream a building to the ground, in a rock band.
So I pitched it as a series: we put her on the road, we give her a record contract, give her a bunch of tour dates and give her a bunch of bad guys following her. And I think that set of new circumstances further rejuvenated the character, even when the character is one you recognize. There are all these iconic things about her, these things that we put in place that reach back decades. Her first outfit, costume, etc. But the circumstances make it all feel fresh.
WU: One thing I wanted to throw in there were the fishnets — which were really iconic, but not associated with the character for a really long time. We're bringing it back, but it's a little bit more rough around the edges.
It's great that the fishnets are back, but as a part of Dinah's stage persona. What kind of freedom did you have in designing some of the other clothes that Dinah wears when she's not onstage?
WU: It's totally open. Everyone's been really great with what I can do with costumes and what I can do with the character, from the very beginning. I don't think I was ever told what I could and couldn't do. It was my decision not to give her just one costume throughout the series. So I decide when to have her in civilian clothes and when to have her in her superhero/rock star gear. It's been great. I can put her in whatever I want.
So in the comic, we've got Dinah as the lead singer in a band called Black Canary. Where did that initial concept come from — that it's the band with the title Black Canary?
FLETCHER: That was a conversation that I think we all had early on. We had Dinah Lance singing in a band called Ashes on Sunday in the Batgirl book. And that's a great band name, but it also feels like any other band. When you call the band Black Canary, it sort of elevates it to this whole other level — makes it feel more important, more critical. And I think it gives the supporting cast a more concrete place in the book: it doesn't feel like we're going to have a revolving cast of musicians around Dinah. It feels like the supporting cast is important because they're also Black Canary.
And I know it's not traditionally what the character is all about, but it's something that she's going through right now. There's a reason for the band being called Black Canary and it's something we'll get to by the end of the arc.
When are we going to find out a little more about Ditto?
FLETCHER: Every issue! Issue #3 is a massive bomb drop for the deal about Ditto. And there's even more to come beyond that.
The two of you seem to work really well together. What's the process like when you're collaborating on a book?
FLETCHER: I just try to stay out of Annie's way and let her do the best, most awesome art that she can. I write a loose framework for the issue and send it to our editor. Annie and I talk about it. We all kind of bounce things back and forth. From there, I write out the script, but it's not a full panel-to-panel script: I wouldn't consider it a full script, but it provides all the information that you would need for a panel-to-panel full script. I've left it open, though, so that Annie can interpret it.
WU: Yeah, Brenden gives me a solid foundation for every issue: it's really tightly packed. Then we kinda do this back-and-forth, instead of the usual passing things through an editor. So we talk with each other and check in with each other regularly. I can call him up and ask, "Hey, is it weird if we do this?" It's a very collaborative effort, but Brenden is the one that has all the storytelling done really, really tightly.
What does Black Canary's music sound like?
FLETCHER: It's actually something I thought a lot about early on. In fact, it was almost a problem in the beginning that we didn't have an answer.
WU: We knew that she was going to be in a rock band, but there are so many different types of rock music that would affect the aesthetic of not only the book, but the fans reading the book. And I don't know how to dress her if we don't figure out what kind of rock music she plays. So we had a lot of discussions about what we thought they would sound like.
FLETCHER: Where we've ended up is a sound that is somewhere between Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. So it's not a complete throwback to the 80s. It's also modern, but it also has this sort of 80s sound to it. I think the obvious thing was for us to have gone full-on riot girl – early-90s hard-edge, post-modern sound – but we wanted to do something a little different, and I think that was the correct thing to do. It really inspired the fashion choices: for example, look at the shoes.
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Black Canary #3 arrives in comic book stores and online on August 19, with issues #1 and #2 available now.
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