Looks like DC's bringing Bloodspell back into print next year.
Would love to see Campbell do a new Black Canary/Zatanna team-up in his book, doesn't have to be a follow-up to this, but they always make a fun duo.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Da0cf8wSNOt/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=AcDhSiBiD1ueGylvAf9vZq6
Pornsak Pichetshote: "No matter how many people talked about it, I wasn’t prepared to believe it. I mean, I wasn’t prepared to believe this book would even exist, because back when I was a #dccomics employee, the company felt nowhere near bold enough to publish something like this. But that’s a testament to how successful #dcabsoluteuniverse is under u/ssnyder1835 ‘s leadership and the care of our amazing editors. And honestly, just how bold DC right now is willing to be in general. In any event, u/rafaelalbuquerque81 & I couldn’t be more excited to keep working with u/mmaiolo, u/jeffodman, u/holymotherofzelda & u/sabrinafutch on more #absolutegreenarrow! And of course, thanks to all the amazing readers and fans who’ve embraced this book in a way I could have never have guessed. It means more than you know. Much more to come from here… #greenarrow #blackcanary"
IMAGE SOURCES: Absolute Green Arrow #1 by Pornsak Pichetshote & Rafael Albuquerque, Flash Comics Vol. 1 #86 by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino
SPOILERS FOR ABSOLUTE GREEN ARROW #1:
So it seems like>! Absolute Dinah's backstory (and the actual core trauma she's working through) involves something going down with her mom, with a hint that it may have been something disgraceful!<. Pichetshote has mentioned looking back to the Golden Age BC stories for inspiration - and in the first couple Johnny Thunder stories where Dinah Drake debuted, she was a thief who robbed other thieves before being retconned to be a crimefighter pretending to be a thief, before becoming just a straightforward crimefighter once she got her own solo stories. I wonder if we're getting a spin on that.
In the darker universe that is the Absolute Verse, maybe Dinah Drake actually was a crook. Maybe she was a crook pretending to be a cop as a pure reversal, or she could've been a thief who robbed other thieves, or maybe she actually did start out with good intentions, then took the money like Wildcat and degenerated into being corrupt. >!Any of those would fit with the way Dinah mentions her mom in this issue. !<
That being said, Pichetshote has talked about how important legacy is as a theme to Black Canary and that that's something he's going to explore with Dinah here, so there's another possibility: Dinah Drake tried to be a vigilante and got framed as a crook, and Dinah's going to learn her mom was a good person trying to change things after all. There's a lot of ways it could go, but off this first issue I definitely have confidence in Pichetshote to deliver.
Art by Ryan Sook.
Despite their history as the first major mother/daughter legacy/shared heroic identity in DC, there are surprisingly few team-up stories or parallel stories for the two Dinahs (there's the one where Dinah Laurel ends up making her new costume, there's the BoP one where Dinah Laurel ends up bringing the Blonde Slasher to justice). Seems like there's an opportunity to correct that!
Given how little early continuity exists right now for both Black Canaries, would love to see a story where the two of them team up early in Dinah Laurel's career, maybe shortly after she's helped co-found the League. Would also love to see a story where both team up with Zinda Blake (one with Dinah Drake back in the 40s, one with Dinah Laurel in present day), and one that parallels Dinah Laurel's relationship with Dinah Drake with Diana's relationship with Hippolyta.
Let's fucking go. Time for Absolute Dinah to unravel the mystery.
Image Source: Secret Origins of Superheroes #10 (Mike Vosburg), JLA Vol. 1 #188 (Don Heck), World's Finest #251 (Trevor Von Eeden),
The legendary Gerry Conway passed today. For his work on the Satellite-era JLA and the Green Arrow/Black Canary World's Finest back-ups among others, he's one of the most significant pre-Crisis Black Canary writers... most notably because after giving Canary her first real origin in Secret Origins of Superheroes #10 "The Canary is a Bird of Prey", in JLA Vol. 1 #219 "Crisis in the Thunderbolt Dimension", he is the one (along with co-writer Roy Thomas, who takes over in the second part as the full retcon is explained) who introduces the retcon that the Black Canary we've been following ever since JLA Vol. 1 #75 is, in fact, Dinah Laurel Lance and not Dinah Drake Lance.
It's a complicated and controversial retcon, to be sure - and it's no surprise that when the COIE came along in just a few years, they retconned the retcon so that things were much simpler. No need for Dinah Laurel to have been in a coma after being cursed by the Wizard as a baby until her mom died and then she had her mom's memories put into her and so she thought she was her mom (though I do think some of that weirdness has stuck around subtextually in the Dinahs' complicated relationship). But without this story, we would not have gotten Dinah Laurel Lance, and for that we must say thanks. So thanks for all the stories, Gerry, the stories of Black Canary among them. RIP.