In its five year history, Arrow has managed to produce a lineage of Canaries that’s starting to rival the number of Robins that Batman has accrued. First, Sara Lance broke the ice as the Canary (keep in mind that she never used “Black” as a prefix), with her sister, Laurel, following in her footsteps as the first proper Black Canary. And although neither women were metahumans and instead relied on hypersonic technology to produce their “Canary Cry,” both boasted loyal fanbases.
But after Laurel was killed off in season 4, the viewing audience was damn near ready to riot because the character is such a key component in the Green Arrow mythos. Luckily, we were introduced to Dinah Drake (played by Juliana Harkavy), whom some of you may know as the Golden Age Black Canary from the comics, in season 5.
In the time since, she’s proven to be an invaluable member of Oliver Queen’s squad, and can actually lay claim to being able to belt out a Canary Cry without any augmentations, for she actually is a metahuman herself. Having established all that, we were thrilled to learn that she was becoming a more permanent fixture on the show when Harkavy was promoted to being a series regular.
There was just one important ingredient missing, though: A stylish superhero costume. Fortunately, that’ll change at some point early in season 6 when Dinah gets some new threads. Actually, executive producer Wendy Mericle touched on this very notion when speaking with Entertainment Weekly:
“Last season, she wasn’t a full fledged superhero, you could say. She was, she had this power, she had this ability, she was part of the team, but really what this costume signifies more than anything is that she is now a full-fledged member of the team. She was before. But she’s now owning it in a different way. We had talked about having the costume at various points last season and it never felt right. It felt that we wanted to save it for a special occasion, and the premiere seemed like a really good place to do it.
“She needs something tactical. She has this meta power, but she also has the bo staff, so we just felt it was right for her to have something that was definitely more than a nod to the DCU character, but also something that was distinctive from what we’ve seen before. This really fits the bill. Maya Mani, as usual, did an amazing job with it. My favorite part is actually the subtle hint of the gold and yellow lines in it.”
When taking a closer look at the first official image provided, I can’t help but think the costuming department took some visual cues from the New 52 Black Canary. After all, she’s pretty much the third iteration this show has offered as mentioned earlier, so they have to do something in order to make Dinah stand out in a visual sense.
Another thing that’s likely on all our minds is if she and Black Siren will have a rematch at some point in the coming year. And regardless of whether or not Earth-2 Laurel can somehow redeem herself, it sounds like these two ladies are indeed on a collision course.
“That’s a great question. I’ll just say this: She’s probably not going to like it very much. [Laughs] I mean, I don’t know how much research she’s done about her Earth-1 Laurel, but I would have to say that I think there’s going to be some sparks flying there.”
So, be sure to check out the latest addition to the Arrow Cave below and let us know what you think in the comments section!
