Black Canary: Best of the Best

Are six-issue miniseries the new twelve for writer Tom King?  After doing several maxiseries to both good (“Mister Miracle”) and middling (“Adam Strange”) effect the man has been writing shorter ones focusing on specific characters.  “Best of the Best” is the latest one of these and it features a character who’s shown up in a lot of comics I’ve read, but one where I’ve only started following her best-known series with the latest incarnation of “Birds of Prey.”  While it’s hard to say if I’d like this miniseries any more or less if I was more familiar with the adventures and character of Dina Lance, there’s no denying it has its own issues regardless of that.

The first one being the actual setup for this title:  A fully sanctioned fight between Black Canary and Lady Shiva that’s being broadcast to over two billion people worldwide.  How is this even a thing?  Fights between superheroes and villains of all power levels happen all the time, so I guess you could assume that there’s been some effort to commercialize it, as Vantal Savage is doing here, but this is also the first I’ve read about it.  If King is building off of some other stories to set this up then he’s not acknowledging them here, nor is he doing any effort to establish why this would be a thing, let alone why two billion people would be tuning in to watch it.

Then there’s the question of what the hell Lady Shiva is even doing here as Black Canary’s opponent.  Not because she isn’t qualified, as the story smartly establishes early on that she may be too good of a fighter for Dinah to handle and therefore provide a good match for everyone.  No, it’s because she’s always been more of a character who has avoided the spotlight given that, in addition to being a master martial artist, she’s also been described as an assassin who has had ties to the League of Shadows over the years. So it makes perfect sense that she’d want to get involved in a fight that’s being broadcast worldwide that will make her profile instantly recognizable to anyone who cares to know about it.

Now, say you’re willing to assume that superhero fights watched by billions are something that’s been a part of the DC Universe and that Lady Shiva would want to be a part of in the first place.  Is there anything else here that would derail your enjoyment of this?  Well… there is something, and even if it’s not a dealbreaker it’s thoroughly annoying and it all comes down to how King has chosen to present the fight itself.

In order to replicate the feel of an official sports contest between two fighters that’s being watched by lots of people, the match is being overseen by two commentators.  Two commentators who just Will.  Not.  Shut.  Up.  I get that King is trying to replicate the feel of how this fight would come off if it was being done in real life but it just does not work in comics form.  Not only are the two jokers (not actual Jokers, though that might’ve been preferable) he’s come up with not as funny or entertaining as he thinks they are, but their constant narration actively works against the comic itself.

Let me digress for a bit to talk about the work from artist Ryan Sook in this volume.  In addition to providing work that boasts an appreciable level of detail from issue to issue that draws you in, he’s great with depicting the multiple timeframes and settings that the miniseries dances across over the course of its run.  What’s great is that Sook doesn’t sacrifice detail for the expressiveness of his character as his varied cast emotes well whether they’re helping train Dinah for the match, being part of the crowd cheering her on, or more relevant to my issue here, in the ring fighting it out.

The thing is that Sook’s in-ring work is great both when it comes to rendering the determination evident in both fighters’ faces as well as the ongoing and increasing physical toll the match takes on them.  So when you’ve got two yahoos yammering on about all the stuff that’s already evident on the page, it’s more distracting than anything else.  In fact, I’d say that it’s even more distracting than the overwrought teenage narration that King gave us in “Supergirl:  Woman of Tomorrow” because that was at least understandable as it was coming from the over-dramatic mind of a teenager on a quest for vengeance.  This feels like a situation where an editor should’ve stepped in and told the writer that the ongoing commentary was actually hurting the story, but didn’t.

With all of these issues against it, does that mean there isn’t a story in “Best of the Best” worth struggling to enjoy in spite of them.  That may be the biggest disappointment here because the overall tale of Dinah reckoning with her mother’s history, trying to prove her worth to the superhero community and the world, and with the devil’s bargain she’s struck with Savage is actually quite good.  It shows the character to not only be a capable fighter, but one who has the commitment to transcend her own limits and the cleverness to deal with problems that just can’t be punched into submission.  The focus may have been on the fight, but the miniseries still works very well as a character study regarding the hero in the title.

I’ve read elsewhere that King will sometimes plug characters into the superhero stories he writes based on their suitability for them, rather than writing the story around them.  If that was also the case for “Best of the Best,” it feels like this would’ve been better suited as a story about characters in a real world setting that didn’t have to deal with any of the baggage from the DC Universe.  Of course, even if that was the case, that wouldn’t have gotten around the truly excessive fight commentary that the writer was clearly so enamored of here.  That’s not the story we got, however, so while there is a good Black Canary story with fantastic art that’s here for you to enjoy, there’s also an excessive level of crap that you’ll have to dig through in order to get to it.