At DC, Tony Bedard and Paulo Siqueira kick off a new Black Canary miniseries.

In keeping with DC's current editorial direction, this book is swimming in continuity.  Bedard has a good hard shot at trying to explain it all for new readers, but there's so much to get in.  To follow this, you need to know about Black Canary's relationship with Green Arrow (both recent and historic), her relationship with Sin from Birds of Prey, and Sin's own back story. 

Bedard dutifully manages to weave all of this material into the story, at least at a superficial level.  But there's so much to keep track of that a rather more fundamental blunder slips through: the villain isn't identified.  The story does at least remember to flag up that he's a longtime enemy of Green Arrow, but forgets to tell us who he is or what he's about.  Apparently he's called Merlyn, but I had to look that up.  That's not great, when your big cliffhanger depends on me recognising him. 

For that matter, if you don't know the back story and you're not reading closely, you could very easily miss the fact that Sin was raised in the League of Assassins, which is the same group that Merlyn comes from.  Because that connection is only drawn by two lines of dialogue, four pages apart.  And I strongly suspect it's central to the plot, because it explains why Merlyn is interested in Syn.  The information is there, but it's not exactly prominent, to put it mildly.

Now, if you're already familiar with the characters, none of this will be a problem.  And you'll probably enjoy this a lot, since it's a well-paced thriller, which plays mainly off the Canary/Sin relationship that worked so well in Birds of Prey before it spiralled off the rails.  It's also got good punchy artwork, without the usual obnoxiousness that female solo heroes tend to suffer in their own books.  (Tangent: some people think the most ludicrous thing about Black Canary is the fishnets.  They've got a point.  But surely the name is a thousand times worse.  "Black Canary"?  That's one step above "Night Gerbil", surely.)

In fact, I'd cheerfully recommend the series to anyone who doesn't have to worry about being introduced to the characters.  If you do... well, like I say, the information is mostly there, save for the bizarre decision not to identify the villain.  It just doesn't exactly leap out at you if you don't know what you're looking for.

Rating: B

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