What is Dinah Drake Lance to do in the face of unbeatable odds? The answer is simple… Mother knows best. Read up on Black Canary: Best of the Best #2 right here!
Black Canary: Best of the Best #2
Written by: Tom King
Art and Main Cover by: Ryan Sook
Variant Cover: Lesley “Leirix” Li, Chuma Hill
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: December 26, 2024
Every great fighting story needs a training montage… Black Canary: Best of the Best #2 delivers exactly that! Welcome back to the ring, here’s the scorecard: world-infamous martial arts master Lady Shiva has hometown superhero Dinah Drake Lance (AKA Black Canary) against the ropes, quite literally. In a fight expected to end in the second round, it’s a miracle Black Canary is even standing for the bell. But momma didn’t raise no quitter. Dinah’s mother, the original Black Canary, a Pacific Northwest crimefighter in the 80s, trained her daughter in the ways of vigilantism – and she’s one tough cookie.
Outlandish workouts are de rigueur for comic book protagonists with impossible physiques, but writer Tom King takes Dinah’s fitness to a whole new level. A quick two laps around the frigid, churning waters of their island, followed by a five-mile sprint, and a few hundred reps of strength drills – all before breakfast! But as Ryan Sook’s gorgeous, color-washed flashbacks reveal, this has been a morning routine for about as long as Dinah’s been ambulatory.
In these wonderfully textured scenes from the past, we feel the sting of a double-edged sword: the admiration of one’s parent as an iconic hero, and the pain of that parent wounded in action. Alluded to in Sook’s terrific cover, Dinah, only a little girl, puts on her mom’s wig and stands confidently in front of her bedroom mirror – a powerful depiction of her instincts toward heroism and veneration for her mother. Present day, the original Black Canary struggles against a new foe: cancer. Her daughter’s fight in the ring represents a greater struggle for life and legacy; the physicality of her training regimen becomes more than just a testament to her resilience – but a very challenge to impossible odds.
Complete with some of the most dynamic dialogue in recent memory from fictional ringside commentators “Wordy” John Sunter and Mike Berg, Black Canary: Best of the Best #2 provides the “fun & games” phase of the series. But what comes next will certainly challenge Dinah’s yet-indomitable spirit. A story of maternal love, willpower, and courage in the face of insurmountable difficulty, Black Canary: Best of the Best is the best of the best on shelves right now.
