Review: Black Canary: Best of the Best #1

Review: Black Canary: Best of the Best #1
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]

Writer: Tom King
Art: Ryan Sook
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Clayton Cowles

Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd

Summary

For some reason…in a very public match, two very public celebrities (not kidding), Lady Shiva and Black Canary are gonna fight to find out who is the Best of the Best.

Positives

It should be no surprise that like almost all of Tom King’s comics, the art is the best part.  We see it in Wonder Woman, Human Target, Strange Adventures…and, again with Black Canary: Best of the Best #1 it’s exactly the same.  You’re probably checking this out for the Ryan Sook art anyway.  And, honestly, I’ve seen better from Sook.  The interiors are missing something.  There’s a static quality to some of the figures and unnatural facial expressions.  

King does have a few details that are nice…well, maybe one…the Drake Florist shop.  Dinah’s mother still has the Florist shop.  Also, King suggests that Dinah and Ollie are having trouble.  He’s never been good enough for her, maybe King can ruin their relationship and make it stick!

Finally, I’m inferring this is an out of continuity book that can be ignored.  You’ll see….

Negatives

Sorry, folks- it’s all downhill from here.  The biggest issue with Best of the Best #1 is that there doesn’t seem to be a reason for this fight.  It just seems frivolous.  This fight is not some secret tournament  with all the best martial artists in the DC Universe, or even a tournament for ANYONE in the world not just the heroes/ villains of the DCU…it’s a Las Vegas, broadcast live, streaming to MULITPLE galaxies.  It seems King is using the template of the big boxing or MMA matches.  In story though, there doesn’t seem to be a REASON.  Like his Wonder Woman run, the set up in the first issue doesn’t make sense, it’s simply there so King can tell the story he wants to tell, even if it doesn’t doesn’t fit.  By the end of the issue there’s a twist that may be the contrivance for the fight.

Additionally, Black Canary and Lady Shiva are announced like they are known celebrities and their identities are publicly known and widely.  This adds a very bizarre feel to the story.  Lady Shiva is not a public figure.  She’s in the shadows, undercover, she’d never get caught.  It makes no sense that she would be out in public like this with her given name, Wu-San used along side “Lady Shiva.”  The same goes for Dinah Lance.  Why would her identity be public like this?  Even if you count the terrible Black Canary series with her as a singer in a band, I don’t believe she was known as Dinah Lance…just Black Canary- although we have seen it referenced recently that people know what BC looks like because of her music fame. (UGH!)  Keeping that series in continuity is a bad decision, best to ignore it and it makes no sense for either of the characters to be public figures.

Negatives Cont’d

 From the solicits for Best of the Best #1, I had no idea that Dinah Drake Lance, the original Golden Age Black Canary, who is at least 100 years old (MAYBE 97 if we’re stretching it) would be a living character in the present of this series.  Nor did I think she would be actively training her daughter for the fight.  I could imagine flashbacks of Dinah as a little girl getting some lessons and remembering them for motivation and inspiration, but what’s Dinah, Sr. doing alive?  She died YEARS ago.  YEARS.  But, by the end of the issue, it’s clear that this is King’s contrivance. ….

King has Dinah meet Vandal Savage at a bar…and from their conversation it’s clear that there’s some sort of deal in which she throws the fight or something in order to get Vandal Savage (the Immortal Villain, mind you) to help cure her mom of…cancer.  That’s right.  King can’t write a hero, he has to find a weakness that somehow makes them less a hero.  Adam Strange was the out and out bad guy of Strange Adventures.  Ice was the killer in Human Target, etc….  

To make the book difficult to read, King writes the narration in the form of two sportscasters calling the match.  It could be clever, but it’s overwritten just like Wonder Woman.  The particular speech patterns of the announcers are annoying  and what they have to say isn’t particularly interesting, because well…there’s no meaning to this bout.  It’s apparently just for the sake of it.  There doesn’t appear to be anything deeper behind it.  It’s not some ultra clandestine contest with a high stakes outcome or noble/ heroic motivation for Dinah to win…it’s spectacle.  It’s frivolous.  It’s King’s chance to show how no matter what, you can’t cheat death.  I’m calling this as the bigger theme King wants to write about and chose Black Canary’s character to abuse in the process.

Verdict

Without stakes, it’s ultimately a boring idea.  Without a noble cause or heroic background motivation it’s purposeless.  With Black Canary making a deal with Vandal Savage…it’s EXACTLY what you expect from Tom King and his contrivances.  Best of the Best?  How about Worst of the Worst?  Ok, it’s not really quite that bad, but it was too easy….  It just feels uninspired.  Best of the Best #1 has all the ticks and tells of King at HIS worst.  Stepping back it all feels forced and manufactured.  There’s no genuine conflict or underlying appeal in this first issue.  Even the art doesn’t wow as it should.