Bio
Dinah Laurel Lance, codenamed Black Canary, is the daughter of Silver Age hero Dinah Drake. One of the most recognized female DC superheroes around, she has had a plethora of fantastic adventures, ranging from helping the League take down Amazo to marrying Green Arrow.
I was very surprised to find that Comic Vine did not have a respect thread for the femme in fishnets, so let's make one, shall we?
Skill
Black Canary, as the former student of Lady Shiva, is an immensely skilled character character capable of holding her own against any martial artist in the DC Universe, with the exceptions of Karate Kid and Prometheus imho.
Birds of Prey v1 #63: Black Canary defeats Cheshire, one of the deadliest assassins in the world. People have said that she's second behind Deathstroke.
Birds of Prey v1 #85: Dinah defeats Rabbit. Rabbit and his eleven brothers were described as having near Shiva level skill, and one of them was giving Connor Hawke a hard time.
She's actually defeated Rabbit twice, but the first time was in an environment that heavily favored her, so I thought that posting this fight would be better.
Birds of Prey v1 #95: Dinah stomps Lady Shiva's mother, the woman who oversaw Shiva's training. It was in this arc that she went through part of the training that Shiva had.
Birds of Prey v1 #125: Oracle thinks she can defeat Batman.
And while normally statements are not a great indication of a character's ability, Oracle has spent years with both of these characters and seen them in the field and she has extensive training herself, so I don't think her word should be taken lightly.
Black Canary v3 #3: Lance treats Green Arrow (Ollie) like cannon fodder. And Ollie is one of the better fighters in the DC universe.
"You're better than you've ever been. But I'm still me."
Badass.
Black Canary v3 #3: Dinah also owns Merlyn, another excellent martial artist who has taken down Ollie before. [to the mods, the rule is that three full page scans per issue are allowed. I have 3 full page scans, and then two scans that are only two panels each. However, if this is still in violation of the rules, notify me and I will edit them].
Black Canary v3 #4: Some LoA agents consider Dinah on par with Lady Shiva in skill. Probably an exaggeration, but still impressive.
Batgirl v1 #67: Dinah fights evenly with Cassandra Cain for a while. However, when Canary puts her guard down to talk, Cass blitzes her and chokes her because she is using Shiva's moves, and Cass at the time was hunting Shiva.
Now, that isn't to say that Cass couldn't defeat Dinah, because I think that she could if Dinah didn't have her cry; however, it's interesting that Dinah was able to fight evenly with Cass, even for a while.
Birds of Prey v2 #3: Dinah knows a punch that can make someone's heart explode in a couple hours, without leaving a mark. She'd never use it though; she's too morally upstanding for that.
Stats
Birds of Prey v1 #76: This one fight shows so much. Not only does she react to Black Alice (using Shazam's powers), but she also manages to send her flying with the Canary Cry. And although the fight ends with Alice with her hand around Dinah's neck, that is to be expected considering that she had Shazam's powers.
Frankly I don't know enoguh about Lori to know whether she was really using Shazam's powers to their fullest extent, but it is impressive that she managed to harm someone with Shazam's durability.
Birds of Prey v2 #1: Contorts her body to dodge bullets. Then, after part of a ledge starts falling, grabs a little girl that was on the ledge and jumps off, onto a rope that leads to a helicopter, where she dodges even more bullets.
Black Canary v3 #4: Black Canary has neck feats. Merlyn is unable to strangle her, then she uses her neck to break his rope and owns him.
I couldn't manage to find the issue for this one, but I thought I'd put it anyway. Here, Dinah bends metal with an elbow. If anyone could tell me the issue number, that would be appreciated.
Black Canary & Zatanna - Bloodspell: Canary casually gets in the way of some bullets and destroys them with her scream.
Canary Cry
Black Canary's description in the Birds of Prey series (volume 3) is: "One of the world's most dangerous hand to hand fighters and possessor of a sonic scream that can shatter steel".
Birds of Prey v1 #63: Shiva, who is facing the opposite direction, has to put her hands to her ears and still grimaces as Dinah uses the Cry to bring a door down.
Black Canary v3 #1: A less experienced Dinah uses her Canary Cry to blow back some goons against a wall. She also gains the approval of the Batman on the next page.
In the second scan, she shatters glass and sends some thugs flying.
Birds of Prey v2 #2: Dinah sends police cars and cops flying.
Birds of Prey v2 #10: The Canary Cry sends Mammoth, who I'd estimate as a 40-tonner, flying across the water like a skipping stone.
Justice League of America v2 #15: Black Canary one-shots Giganta with her scream.
Justice League of America v2 #24: Dinah makes Amazo's head explode. I honestly don't know what to say.
JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice #1: Canary unleashes an ultrasonic attack that knocks out the everyone in the White House. Except for Despero, but Despero is one of the most durable beings in comics, so that isn't exactly a low showing.
Very impressive stuff, imo.
Birds of Prey v2 #10: Dinah breaks the chains on some handcuffs, without hurting the person wearing them. It's a precision feat.
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