Review — ‘Black Canary: Best Of The Best’ #1 Is Pretty But Confusing

She’s one of the greatest fighters in the DCU. In Black Canary: Best of the Best #1, Dinah Lance is about to prove it.

Tom King, Ryan Sook, Dave Stewart and Clayton Cowles bring the ultimate fight to life.

Black Canary has agreed to a fight against Lady Shiva. As she begins to take the beating of her life, the picture forms of why she’s taken this fight. Just why is Dinah taking such a huge chance and risking her life though?

I’ll say this first. This is an absolutely gorgeous comic. I don’t remember the last time Sook did interiors, but this is well worth the wait. Dinah looks gorgeous and intimidating. The fight is incredible on every page it follows, but the training scenes with Dinah’s mom are equally great. The best page might be the spread of the Justice League, entirely in civilian garb, gathered to watch. Stewart’s colors breathes life into the fantastic pencils as well.

The problem here though is in the script. The dialogue is awkward, but that’s largely because it’s paced in a very specific way. It’s a problem King has had for a lot of his career. It’s something I’d even be willing to look past.

The bigger problem though is that I do not understand the stakes here at all. This is scripted very specifically as a massive exhibition bout that’s being watched not just by most of the planet Earth, but intergalactically as well. I don’t understand what’s at stake at all. Her opponent is a noted assassin, but the fight is treated like just any boxing match. The stakes are bragging rights, but that doesn’t make sense. If instead of a villain, Dinah was fighting her JL teammates, it would have made so much more sense. Without that though, it all feels a bit, well, pointless, and that’s to its detriment.

Black Canary: Best of the Best #1 is available now from DC Comics.