The Stable Relationship Of Green Arrow & Black Canary
I give details and highlights towards Green Arrow & Black Canary's relationship.
When it comes down to classic characters in the DC Universe, Green Arrow and Black Canary comes into my mind and when I think of those 2 iconic characters, I think of them as a stable relationship and it’s on par with Superman and Lois Lane. Now, Green Arrow first appeared in “More Fun Comics #73” and he is officially a “Golden Age” character together with Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Jay Garrick (Flash) and Alan Scott (Green Lantern). But because of continuity errors that plagued DC Comics for a very longtime, they decided to reboot their universe with the “Crisis On Infinite Earths” event and after that event, they decided to revamp the character by giving him a limited series in 1987 called “Long Bow Hunters” which was the start of a brand new story in a a “Post-Crisis” DC Universe. It was there he fell in love with Black Canary during his time with the Justice League and the two began a relationship that has spanned the decades. Also in this new continuity, Green Arrow aged in real life for the first time, showing us a hero can age when Oliver Queen turned 43. It was then during Mike Grell’s legendary run on Green Arrow, he realized his foster Roy Harper was now a father and this made Oliver realized he wanted to marry Black Canary, when he asked her the first time, she declined and the two would separate and would not reunite until many issues later. And this gave Oliver much time to focus on himself such as dealing with Shado, CIA Agent Osborne and this was also around the time Shado drugged Oliver and performed sex on him, which led to the birth of his son Robert Tomango and Shado continued to use her manipulating ways to turn Robert into another Archer and in the form of villainy, but this wasn’t explored due to rejections from editorial and Robert soon faded into obscurity when DC launched “The New 52”. In addition to Shado, Oliver also met a woman named Sandra “Moonday” Hawke which led to a one night stand and Sandra giving birth to Connor Hawke, when Oliver learned about this, he told Sandra he wasn’t ready to be a father due to his commitment at his company Queen Industries and as Green Arrow.
While Oliver was present with Connor as an infant during his first day, he fled due to not wanting to put Connor in danger especially with his enemies such as Count Vertigo, Merlyn, Spider and Red Dart. This ultimately led to Sandra raising Connor on her own and this would later lead to Sandra finally revealing the truth to Connor about Oliver Queen and him being the Green Arrow and after revealing the truth to him, she left the same way Oliver did in the same Ashram he once stayed to find inner peace. A couple of issues later during the 1990’s, Black Canary would later form the “Birds Of Prey” which was also co-led by Oracle a.k.a. Barbara Gordon, the once famous Batgirl after losing her ability to walk due to being shot by the Joker. During this time, in issue #101, Oliver makes a sacrifice to save the people of Metropolis during a fight against Hyrax, who is an extremists and this led to a confrontation with Oliver activating a dead man’s switch which gave him two options; either he would lose his arm to escape the inevitable explosion or lose his life altogether. Oliver chose death, making the ultimate sacrifice, leading to many heroes mourning him and paving the way for Connor to take over as Green Arrow in that following issue.
And then we cut to Black Canary. Now, there are 2 versions of Black Canary the first one is Dinah Drake, the original Black Canary and from the Golden Age who was introduced in “Flash Comics #86” in 1947, while the second Black Canary, Dinah Laurel Lance was introduced in “Justice League Of America #219” in 1983. Now the original Black Canary was a member of the Justice Society Of America where it consisted mostly of World War II heroes such as the original Flash, Jay Garrick, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Doctor Fate, Hourman, Hawkman, The Spectre and The Sandman (Wesley Dodds). And during her time with the team and sometimes fighting solo, she was also married to Detective Larry Lance; Dinah would go on many adventures with the Justice Society Of America, but during one mission, Dinah would lose her husband Larry to the villain Aquarius while trying to save her. She would mourn his death for a while, until another mission called in and she would follow the main Superman to Earth-1 and this is where her powers began to manifest dubbing it “Canary Cry”. But because of confusion among the readers, many of them began to question which is the main hero in the DC Universe along with who are the main teams in the DC Universe? As a result, editorial under the leadership of Jennette Kahn and Paul Levitz, decided to reboot the DC Universe with “Crisis On Infinite Earths” to fix their continuity problems and restart their characters. Shortly after the events of “Crisis On Infinite Earths”, Black Canary’s origin was revised and this time, they decided to use the second Black Canary, Dinah Laurel Lance who is later revealed to be the daughter of the original and Golden Age Black Canary and Det. Larry Lance who is an acquaintance of Jim Gordon. After the death of her husband Larry, Dinah decided to raise her daughter on her own and grew up being surrounded by her mother’s friends and teammates from the Justice Society Of America. Awed by her mother’s exploits as the original Black Canary, Dinah decided to follow in her mother’s footsteps despite her mother being against it. Going up against her mother’s wishes, Dinah decided to train secretly under the watchful eye of Wildcat and unlike her mother, Dinah’s “Canary Cry” came from a metagene and is fully capable of controlling it. After years of training, Dinah becomes the new Black Canary and began her vigilantism and all the while retaining a job as a florist. One of her first acts was reforming the Justice League Of America, alongside Green Arrow, Green Lantern, The Flash, Martian Manhunter and Aquaman. During her tenure with the Justice League, she began to fall in love with fellow hero, Green Arrow. But during a battle against the villain Aquarius, Dinah would lose her mother to radiation-induced cancer, resulting in Dinah quitting the Justice League and moving to Seattle with Green Arrow to start her own Florist shop. Despite trying to adjust to life in Seattle, her life slowly started to turn into a downward spiral and she decided to join an operation to bus a drug ring, but failed. Instead, Dinah was kidnapped, bound and tortured. Dinah lost her powers and her fertility from the traumatic experience. It was then Green Arrow came to her rescue and she took counseling and she was able to recover psychologically from the events, but her relationship with Green Arrow took a turn for the worst. With years of trust issues having accumulated from being abandoned and walked out several times by Green Arrow, she broke off her relationship with Green Arrow after seeing him kissing her young Florist shop assistant Marianne on New Year’s Day. Soon, she lost her job as a florist after it was destroyed and this led to Dinah moving to Gotham and form the Birds Of Prey with Oracle a.k.a. Barbara Gordon.
Around this time, Green Arrow would sacrifice himself to stop the villain Hyrax, leading to Dinah mourning his death along with many other heroes in the DC Universe. She continued to do missions with the Birds Of Prey up until the story “Quiver” which saw the return of Oliver Queen after the events of “Final Night” when Hal Jordan used his powers to bring Oliver back from the dead, which led to his son Connor and Dinah making attempts to revive him and bring back to the world of the living which resulted successfully in restoring Oliver back to the real world and resuming his vigilante duties. At one point in 2007, DC editorial decided to finally have Green Arrow and Black Canary get married and this took place in the “Green Arrow & Black Canary Series” that ran from 2007 to 2010 which lasted 32 issues. In the first-four issues of the series beginning with the “Dead Again” story, The Amazons interrupted their wedding the night before due to the events of “Amazons Attack!” story which led to Dinah and Roy rescuing Oliver from them and then proceeded to get married and this wouldn’t last due to Oliver crossing a moral line in murdering the villain Prometheus after cutting off Roy’s arm and Oliver deciding to murder him in secret. This led to Dinah and Oliver divorcing, because this is something that former Editor Dan DiDio wanted, not wanting to see superheroes be happy for once in a healthy and stable marriage. Because, when Dan DiDio became the editor-in-chief of DC Comics in 2002, he started going on a murderous warpath in destroying and deconstructing the DC Universe along with it’s heroes by making dark, grim and gritty and sometimes not giving a care in the world. Sad to say, Green Arrow and Black Canary were also affected this beginning in 2004 with the crossover event “Identity Crisis” when Green Arrow was one of the many heroes who agreed to erase Batman’s memory of Sue Dibney being raped by Dr. Light and later murdering Prometheus. This right here, is exactly why DiDio was never fit to be in charge of DC Comics in the first place, because all of the heroes in the DC Universe were all about “Hope” and “Optimism”, something that many of today’s creators can’t seem to get right, just because some of them were going to personal struggles in their life.
Now the reason why Green Arrow and Black Canary’s relationship works and lasts longer, because they are both an icon couple in the DC Universe alongside Superman and Lois Lane, despite their volatile romance in the past, Oliver was originally possessive towards Dinah during the 80’s run, but over the course of different titles, Oliver finally toned down a little bit and learned how to repress his chivalric impulses and let Black Canary do her own thing especially when she’s a member of the Justice League or Birds Of Prey. But during the events of “The New 52”, DiDio had every hero restarted and not knowing who their partners were and the previous lives they lived, this resulted in a huge backlash among comic fans and leading to DC launching “DC Rebirth” where they finally restored the memories of Green Arrow and Black Canary in a relationship, ignoring the events of “The New 52” as it never happened thanks to the story “Doomsday Clock” where it turned out Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen Universe was meddling with the timeline of DC.
Another reason why their relationship is stable, is because of the times Green Arrow proved it to Black Canary that he loved her and currently in the DC timeline, Oliver has proven time and time again that he truly loves Dinah, no matter the odds and despite their personal differences. Even though Oliver has had 2 sons from different women, his love for Black Canary remains the same and whatever the issues he had in the past, he already confronted them, because Black Canary became his guide into becoming father to his sons and ready to become a father again if Black Canary does decide to have a kid with Oliver. And no matter how many times editorial tries to destroy their relationship, they will always find a way to be back together and this was even shown in the classic series “Justice League Unlimited” when Green Arrow saw Black Canary the first time, he was taken by her beauty and awe with her skills and abilities.
This is why Green Arrow and Black Canary are one of the most iconic couples in the DC Universe, because they have shown us that despite the odds and “Adversity”, they both overpowered it no matter how difficult it was and they also showed, despite their busy schedules both personal and professionally, they still make room for themselves and have all that times for themselves, something that other heroes can’t do, especially in the case of Batman, The Question and sometimes Azrael or Nemesis. Sometimes I wish DC Comics would just let Green Arrow and Black Canary get married again and be happy and let their sidekicks take over like Connor being Green Arrow again and then Sin, being the new Black Canary, but when it comes to corporate involvement, that will never happen. As long as the money keeps coming at the cost of happiness, nothing good will ever come with the heroes in the DC Universe.