In the history of the Justice League of America, since issue #21, the JLA has teamed up with the JSA for a team-up which would usually involve a “Crisis” (there’s that word again) and that Crisis would frequently involve one world’s issues bleeding into another.

However, DC also has a practical problem, one that plagues them today as well.  Characters from the Golden Age of Heroism are still wandering around in your 1984 comics as if they are still 40 years old.  Even if the original Flash or Green Lantern was 18 when they started their careers as heroes earlier in 1941, that would mean that they were born in 1923.  It is now 1984.  These characters are now 61 years old and still are functioning as heroes, which is fine on Earth-Two.

They had another problem too, only Wonder Woman was a popular female character and due to story reasons she has exited the Justice League.  The League had become a “boys only” club, and there were no good female candidates to take Wonder Woman’s place who did not already duplicate other characters like Supergirl or Batgirl.

There was this ONE character though from the 1940s, the Black Canary, a beautiful judo expert who might fit in with the Justice League if they ramped her up a bit and gave her a super power, like a sonic cry to disable villains.

Black Canary was a problem however, in an earlier Crisis story, Black Canary’s husband was killed by a cosmic being called Aquarius.  Stricken with grief, Black Canary migrated from Earth-2 to Earth-1 and joined the Justice League of America.

Almost immediately, the Black Canary began to date Green Arrow and the two have one of the longest running love affairs in comics today.  (So much for a large mourning period, eh?)

The new Green Arrow however is a man in his early 30s, making the Canary logically, 20 years his senior, yet she looks younger than Green Arrow or at the very least, of the same age as Green Arrow.

This makes no sense and it causes writer Gerry Conway to suggest a solution.

This Black Canary, the one we have been reading in Justice League since her appearance as a Justice Leaguer, is actually the original’s daughter.

Superman of Earth-1 was carrying the original Black Canary from Earth-2 to Earth-1, Dinah Drake Lance began to experience pains.  These pains were caused by the radiation that also killed her husband Larry.  It is at this point that the original Black Canary asks Superman to take her to her daughter who has been kept in suspended animation for years.

Black Canary and Larry Drake had a child after the Canary retired from hero work thanks to the McCarthy era, but retirement of the heroes does not mean the retirement of their foes, and one of the most insidous of the Justice Society’s foes, The Wizard paid the Drake family a visit and cursed their new daughter.  Giving her a cry that could shatter eardrums, Dinah, named for her mother, was put in suspended animation with the assistance of Johnny Thunder’s Thunderbolt.

The original Black Canary begs to be left in her place and for Superman to take her daughter to Earth-1 so she may live her life out and to assist her in controlling her powers.  Before the original Canary dies, the Thunderbolt passes her memories onto her daughter, so the second Black Canary believes that she fought crime alongside the original JSA this entire time.

The JLA and JSA assembled for this story includes:  Batman, Black Canary, Doctor Mid-Nite, Elongated Man, Firestorm, Flash – Jay Garrick, Flash – Barry Allen, Green Arrow, Green Lantern – Hal Jordan, Hourman, Huntress, Power Girl, Red Tornado, Superman – Kal-L, Superman Kal-El, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna.

In the midst of this origin story is also the inclusion of a new Injustice Society taking villains from both Earths and teaming them up against the heroes:  Chronos, Doctor Alchemy, Felix Faust, Fiddler, Icicle, and the Wizard.  Additionally, the evil Earth-1 version of Johnny Thunder has taken control of the original’s Thunderbolt and is using it as a weapon against the heroes.

Sargon the Sorcerer even lends a hand as an old ally of the JLA.

All in all, this is what one would call a “retcon” or a Retro-Continuity change.  This is when you take a character’s story and reveal something that has happened that intrinsically changes the character from what you knew before.  A retcon can be mild or completely changing.  In this case, we now get two separate characters.

Black Canary, the mom and Black Canary, the daughter.

Get used to the concept of the retcon, we’re going to be seeing a lot of this shortly.

Next Up:  The Animen and the reunion of the Hawks!