Black Canary: Best of the Best

by Tom King, Ryan Sook (illustrator)

Comic book superstars Tom King and Ryan Sook present the match of the millennium: beloved superhero Black Canary versus deadly assassin Lady Shiva!

It’s Black Canary versus Lady Shiva to determine who is the single greatest hand-to-hand fighter in the DC Universe! Who will walk away with the title?

Find out as Eisner Award-winning writer Tom King (Wonder Woman, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) and Ryan Sook (Legion of Super-Heroes, Seven Soldiers: Zatanna) go six rounds to see if our hero has what it takes to be…the best of the best.

With an opponent as ruthless as Lady Shiva, this fight won’t be an easy one, but luckily, Black Canary has some powerful people in her corner—including her mother, the original Black Canary, ready to train her daughter for the fight of both their lives. And will Batman cheer her on or tell her to throw in the towel?

Exploring Black Canary like never before, this is a self-contained, action-packed character study from Tom King, in the vein of his hits Mister Miracle and The Vision!

This volume collects Black Canary: Best of the Best #1-6.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2025

Reviews

[Molly™☺ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tom King of waffling. What is supposed to be a heartfelt story between mother and daughter turns into a long winded text fest that is broken up by impressive combat composition and the occasional one-liner that lands. It features the right amount of brutality, and as stated prior, the fighting looks fantastic. However, that is where the compliments stop. The character writing for Lady Shiva in particular feels off, and despite excessive amounts of dialogue, more time is spent on inconsequential sports commentary than meaningful moments. Even the reason that the fight is happening in the first place lacks clarity and conviction. Lady Shiva and Black Canary in a boxing match televised to the whole universe should be epic and memorable, but instead, the execution only scrapes the surface of entertaining.

actual rating 2.5 stars

TRIGGERS terminal illness

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Rod Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This book triggers so much nostalgia in me that my positive rating cannot be trusted.

In a story that evokes the classic Superman vs. Muhammad Ali and the many Superman vs. Flash races, Black Canary enters the ring against long-time rival Lady Shiva for a definitive answer to who is the greatest hand-to-hand combatant in the DC Universe.

Along the way, we are given one of the most in-depth looks at the relationship between Dinah Lance and her mother, the original Black Canary. This is a most welcome tale for those of us who feared Watchmen was as close as we'd get to such an offering.

Throw in some well-done cameos from Green Arrow and Batman, and this is my favorite Black Canary story ever.

Ryan Sook's beautiful art is the frosting on the cake.

There are flaws throughout the story, sure, but I cannot see them through my misty eyes.


FOR REFERENCE:

Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Black Canary: Best of the Best #1-6.

Contents: Rounds One-Six / Tom King, writer; Ryan Sook, illustrator -- [Cover Gallery] / Ryan Sook, David Nakayama, Leirix, Saowee , Rachta Lin, Joelle Jones with Jordie Bellaire, Belén Ortega, Chrissie Zullo, Dan Hipp, Otto Schmidt, Chuma Hill, Kendrick "Kunkka" Lim, Chris Ng, and Dustin Nguyen, illustrators

[Sina Tavousi Masrour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom King almost never disappoints and this is definitely one of his good ones!

[Eli Seibert · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could’ve been a one shot. Not every idea worth exploring needs to take six issues.

[Oscar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two badasses getting after it!

[Drake Zappa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Once again I fight from the underdogs side of an endless war of bandwagon rage, and hate trains running rampant over the work of one of my personal favourite comic book writers; Tom King continues however, in this reviewers eyes, to make interesting, continuity avoidant tales of wayward characters in need of reassessment/resurgence within their respective wonderfully dangerous worlds, as full of hate and hardship as they are undying hope and high-flying heroism!

Whilst this is almost certainly not King's strongest work, it is still an undeniable hit to me; a six issue epic, but of surprisingly grounded proportions in regards to the usual DC landscape as of late. What we get here truly feels like a 6 round pay per view battle for the title of the best! Like watching some major wrestling even, an hyped up MMA match, or some old school boxing movie, it builds upon each round with tension, but also with peppered emotional character beats to keep things interesting. It is a slugfest scrapathon spectacular, lovingly paced within a tightly wound rhythm of thunderous punches and kicks like lightening, yet all the while laced and paced still with adorning decorations of character driven context drops and emotionally deep splashes of nostalgic colour.

Best Of The Best moves with such palpable drive that it is hard to put the book down once you start it, hence why I never did. I felt as though the whole thing unfolded before me like a movie, and I truly think that's the best way to read it; it had a cinematic quality in how it operates as a whole.

I had at certain points found myself thinking of Daniel Warren Johnson weirdly, and an alternate reality wherein King adopted a similar art split for this project as he did with Strange Adventures, and had someone such as Johnson flexing their wrestler loving muscles and their penchant for such bodyslamming visuals they've become known for. That said, I came around to Sook's undeniably effective work here after not too long; I'd always appreciated his cover work, but hadn't been too familiar with his interior output, here I must say once I realised what was being achieved, I was ready to stand strong until the much anticipated 6th round! We are given very visually emotive combat, and very methodically structured, at times almost combative dialogue/conversation here, and the way King and Sook dance around the ring with each other in this sense, much Like Mrs. Lance and Lady Shiva themselves, is a fun and effective execution of a surprisingly engaging and savage (heh heh) little story!

Kind of obsessed with how obsessed with Batman King is; he puts him in like everything he does now and I love that for him. I will always, ALWAYS defend his Batman run as one of the greatest of all time. You're allowed to not like his stuff, for it not to be your thing, but let bro cook in his corner and go read something else then. don't listen tom you're doing fine sweetie. Xx

[James De Leon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a Tom King book: wordy, maybe in continuity, a bit out of character, and with very good art

Despite the overly wordy writing, the art and story kept me hooked. I finished it in one sitting. But it doesn’t quite stick the landing.

It works if you know little about Lady Shiva, but for fans of her character, it’s disappointing. Shiva, one of DC’s top martial artists, feels reduced to a wall for Dinah to break through, stripped of her usual nuance. Like much of Tom King’s work, it might be best read as out of continuity.

The flashbacks are strong, especially the emotional moments exploring Dinah’s bond with her mother. Still, the book highlights King’s main flaw: he writes stories, not characters. He bends established personalities to fit his themes, which works in Elseworlds, but not in mainline continuity.

That said, the art’s great. Even if the fight damage defies physics. It’s stylish, ambitious, and entertaining, but flawed. The ending to the fight fell flat.

[Scott A. Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is essentially a six round boxing match told in six issues, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time!

[Sean Lassiter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ladies and gentlemen, another King classic!

[Tony Laplume · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps no greater testament to this one is that, later, DC decided to do KO.

Black Canary, Dinah Lance, has more to her history, but much of it is: the eternal girlfriend of Green Arrow. She doesn’t have a grand history of solo titles. The last one I can think of basically reinvented her as a punk rocker. That was pretty cool, though, giving her some added new wrinkle.

She, and her mom, also helped inspire the Silk Spectre in Alan Moore’s Watchmen, which might be why Tom King ended up writing a story about her.

King’s reputation has gone through six rounds, itself. At this point common fan belief is: “Oh, that Tom King. Doing his nutty thing again.”

And this one’s practically engineered to be dismissed. Except it’s another deep dive, and arguably, his deepest, or at least certainly most concise, story yet. Certainly he went pretty deep with Batman, with Scott Free, with Wonder Woman. But, certainly with Black Canary, at any rate, has anyone ever bothered to try something like this before?

Moore’s Silk Spectre is probably the heart of his story, the tragedy upon whom everything else pivots. King doesn’t go for anything quite so grandiose. (That, probably, was Jenny Sparks, half of which was his take on Dr. Manhattan.)

King goes the MMA/boxing/wrestling route fans are always chasing, that one definitive fight. He goes with a matchup of girls. I’m sure he’ll upset some people just on that score. (Batman has a fight like this all the time, right? And the writers usually just let him lose it and get his revenge later.) To do it with unexpected opponents, two characters who’ve never been given anywhere near this kind of consideration, regardless of their reputations, opens the storytelling to broader opportunities. Yes, it’s about the drama of the fight (on this level it’s King revisiting that boxing match Superman has in Up in the Sky), but it’s also so much more.

Lady Shiva alone, never really depicted as someone’s archenemy, but always said to be among the most feared opponents. So King mostly uses her as a given.

Instead, it’s mostly a fight between mother and daughter. It’s the legacy that was never really explored. Mother is unreasonably tough on her daughter. We have natural sympathy for Black Canary right there. And then the additional layer that this is literally a fight for her mother’s life…

I think it works. It’s another new story from Tom King, who somehow keeps telling stories no one ever has with superheroes. Me, I’ll keep treasuring that.

[Jos Trinidad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a really fun sect of a Black Canary story and I loved every bit of it.

While it wasn't as action-packed and dense as I wish that it was, it had so much more when it came to the characterization of both Canary and Shiva.The entirety of the ending where King makes is seem like Canary is going to put herself first and prove that she is the best fighter, instead of taking the deal to save her mom. Ugh chef's kiss. And then the entire reversal where Canary just needs the ref to affirm that Shiva is out and she takes the title, only to surrender.

This story showed Canary as not only someone on top, but with a character and morality to her that separates her from just her skills. She isn't like Shiva only known as the Deadliest Woman Alive, she is the Black Canary. 5/5

[Rory Wilding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although he has done some great work with the heavy hitters like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, Tom King’s most interesting comics are the ones where he tackles characters ranging from the B or C-listers to the really obscure of the DC Universe. King may not always succeed, but he takes big swings in telling stories that are not of the typical superhero fodder and more in the vein of psychological examinations that domesticates these larger-than-life figures, including Black Canary: Best of the Best.

Over the course of six issues, King and artist Ryan Sook present the match of the millennium: beloved superhero Dinah Laurel Lance/Black Canary versus deadly assassin Lady Shiva. As we see these two bad-ass women brutally kicking each other’s ass that is broadcast for the entire universe, the story flashes back to the various points in Dinah’s life from her upbringing to her reasons why she would talk part in the match of the millennium, much to the bafflement of her fellow heroes.

If you have read many of King’s comics, you will notice certain tropes that the writers tend to use. When you look at the way that he approaches action set-pieces, he can devote an entire issue to one of these sequences with a great deal of captions and dialogue to coincide with the action. Whilst King has used this to great effect in a single issue of Danger Street and his ongoing Wonder Woman run, devoting six issues to a single fight is a big ask.

While Sook’s highly detailed art delivers on the bloody, impactful hits that the opponents go through, you have this ongoing narration from two sports commentators that have their funny moments, but the pacing can be awkward. While there are some good character beats from Dinah in how she changes throughout the fight with plenty of bruises, there is rarely development towards Shiva, who is more brutish than graceful given her position as an assassin who has mastered every martial art.

The book is at its best when leaning towards Dinah’s relationships with other DC characters, most notably her mother Dinah Drake, the original Black Canary. There is no denying that King is an Alan Moore fan as you can see the similarities between the Canaries’ relationship and Silk Spectre’s relationship with her mother in Watchmen. Inspired by her mother’s actions as the original Canary, Dinah wishes to be just like her, and as one is training the other, it causes a strain between their relationship, even if what is currently happening to her mother is what is motivating Dinah to fight Shiva.

Despite the central match being viewed across the whole universe with only one panel featuring anything cosmic, King and Sook present the world with a grounded sensibility, with many of the superheroes featuring in regular clothing. You do get a brief appearance from Batman in all his costumed glory – proving that King will find some way to continuously write The Dark Knight – you get a fun issue on how Dinah met Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and how their romance is born out of the fighting ring.

Like some of King’s comics, Black Canary: Best of the Best is a solid, if frustrating piece where the elements are there for something really compelling, though King gets indulgent with tropes that try to go against the typical superhero fodder. Not the worst, but definitely not the best!

[sia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art was definitely the highlight of this comic, it conveyed emotion to a deep level and made us connect with the characters — something the writing didn’t achieve. Sook’s art delivers and gives us a great, detailed character designs, not only with Dinah but with every single character in this book. It shows that you can draw women without the need to make them seem weak or overly-sexualized, something that ends up happing in many comics.

King takes his writing of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and tries to adapt it to this new story, in which he fails to do so. While the writing wasn’t completely awful it lacks a deep and meaningful connection between the writer and the main character, and it shows. In the case of this run —where the main idea revolves around the match— the use of overly-detailed narrator with a strong bias does not work, and while it was purposely set up this was to make us root for Dinah it ends up being tedious and not really adding much to the plot at all.

The flashbacks were used well and it added much to the story that the main plot did not give. That being said, it’s clear that the comic tried to approach much more than it could handle. And while most ideas are great they lacked context or development. Ollie is used as a plot device and nothing more, and knowing him he would have confronted Dinah about the fight, instead we have Bruce showing up telling her she is not like this, and that’s it, they train and he just leaves. Another weak point is the fact that Dinah Drake does not know in the first place why her daughter is fighting Shiva, apparently she thinks its for the praise and victory. But if Drakes ever taught Lance anything is to be a hero and fight for the ones who cannot fight for themselves, so it strikes me odd that she just agreed to train her daughter for this purpose alone.

Most characters outside of Dinah and her mother are just shown for the sake of being shown. There’s one scene where we see some of Dinah friends watching the match, and that’s it. They go on about with their lives like nothing happened. Such as Ted Grant, what happened to him? Are we to believe Dinah didn’t even visit him after the match? That’s just not like her. Lastly, what annoyed me the most was that, at the end, when Dinah had clearly won —but still surrendered— the commentators just agreed that the Black Canary was never at the level of Lady Shiva… which is just not true. We see how Dinah won, and even is she decided to surrender she still was the better fighter. Which was completely put aside by the commentators who just made it look like Dinah never stood a chance.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5. King is a very hit or miss writer for me, here some parts dragged on but I liked the focus on the past and the Canaries' relationship. I feel like Shiva was mischaracterised and Dinah's complicated relationship with her mother not fully resolved. The fight itself wasn't too interesting on its own even if it's the premise, though I'm not someone who watches these sports.

Narrating through commentators was a decent choice but they were annoying, especially at the end - everyone saw Dinah beat Shiva and she wasn't shown getting up. Yes, Dinah surrendered before Shiva could, but she essentially did beat her, something that should have been acknowledged. The ending is a cop out that doesn't commit to either outcome.

I still liked most of it and understand the ending to a degree, though some parts could have been handled better.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sook's art is gorgeous, but this is another Tom King deconstruction special where he strips Black Canary down to such a bastardized ghost of herself, she's almost unrecognizable. This was not a fun or enjoyable read for me.

[Khurram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am extremely disappointed with this book. This book is all hype and way under-delivers. I wanted to give this 2.5 stars, it just barely rounded up. I don't think the Then, now and way back then style Tom King likes to use worked for this book. The commentary was annoying and the fight itself came off as a C-class pro wrestling event.

The Black Canary and Lady Shiva are fighting it out in a "surrender only" match. What the WWE/WWF would call a "I Quit" match. Black Canary has gone back to train with her mum, the original Black Canary. If you thought she was tough on criminals this is nothing compared to the drill sergeant she is going to be to get her daughter in shape for the fight. However is there a bigger secret behind this fight?

If you are making a book about a fight you don't need to make it complicated or a chapter profile and especially not give 80% of the book's dialogue to a couple of talking head parade characters. If the book was just the fight over six issues/rounds it could have been great. Sure have the training bits in between.

One lady is an assassin who lives in the shadows the other is a superhero are they really going to fight in the middle of Las Vegas on pay-per-view? Make the fight in a secret location with a couple of seconds and a ref. Everything else is unnecessary. The book finishes with a variant cover gallery.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.75
I did not know what to expect going into this, but I tend to like King's work (but not always) and the art is great. The premise didn't interest me. But BC has been growing on me as a character.

This exceeded my expectations and made a simple fight story >mto something much much more that made me think. A lot. Legacy. Motivation. Love. Family. And all the weird complications of that. Death.

So much.

[Bob · Rating 3 out of 5]

As ever with King, I never know if we're going to get one of the best comics ever written, the worst (albeit always w/ great art, here's it's Sook), or the middest: I'd put this at mid, for it has great stuff between Canary & her mom & interestingly reimagines the old noir *The Set-up* but ill serves the amazing Canary-Shiva work Gail Simone did on *Birds of Prey*.

[Eva B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a little bit hesitant to pick this one up. Look, I LOVE Lady Shiva and Black Canary (both of them), but I'm not big on, like, "Superhero Death Battle" type stuff because at the end of the day, we all knot that powerscaling is bullshit and the winner is whoever the editorial wants to win. Lady Shiva is the best martial artist in DC--wait, no, Black Canary is! Wait, no, Cassandra Cain is! Wait, no, what about Karate Kid, and Richard Dragon, and Batman, and Bronze Tiger, and Connor Hawke, and Drakon, and Wildcat, and and and and--whoever the writer feels like it is in the moment! Yes, I am mad that my DC KO bracket was destroyed completely within the first round of fighting. So it's never had much appeal for me. However, I do love beautiful buff women and characters getting hurt, so watching two of my favorite (and, in my opinion, two of the most attractive) DC badasses beat the hell out of each other was pretty up my alley. I expected fighting dirty, fanservicey shots, last-minute "no...it can't end like this..." moments and all that jazz.
What I got was a really beautiful and emotional story about motherhood, daughterhood, and the expectations that come with it. If you're a casual DC comics fan, you probably don't know that there are, in fact, two Black Canaries: Dinah Drake and Dinah Lance. There used to be one, but classic tangled DC continuity resulted in it becoming a legacy title, with Dinah D being the Black Canary of the Justice Society and the Golden Age and Dinah L being the Black Canary of the Justice League, Birds of Prey, and JLI. Sometimes they get smushed back into one character, like in New 52. Y'know, comics. But while a lot of times one is overlooked for the other, this comic delves deep into both Dinahs, making their relationship less "she's her daughter now because it's been forty years" and more "Sally Jupiter and Laurie Juspeczyk and the Silk Spectre mantle". One of the negative reviews on here is complaining that this was a full six-issue story and not just a one-shot, but respectfully, that idea is stupid. This could never have been a one-shot because this isn't actually about a fight to see who's the strongest martial artist. It's about being a daughter and loving your mother and resenting your mother and wanting to be your mother told through the lens of the woman who, in a meta sense, literally became her own daughter. If you just want to see hot women punch each other, you'll get it but you'll end up resenting the actual meat of the story. As for the actual fight...I did think that there were a few too many fake-outs of Black Canary being KO'd, especially since we know she's planning to stay in the fight until round six, but the actual fight ended perfectly. I was expected a basic underdog victory from Dinah, where in the last round she miraculously beats the woman who'd been kicking her ass for six rounds, but instead, Dinah knocks Shiva out and then surrenders, saving her mother while not surrendering her dignity by sitting back and letting Shiva beat the shit out of her. And the fake-out of Dinah apologizing to her mother before standing up and knocking Shiva out? Incredible.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Black Canary agrees to fight Lady Shiva in a televised match, for reasons unknown. Each issue follows one round of the six round fight, revealing a little more about her motivations along the way.

This might be the first Tom King book I've read that kind of misses the mark for me. It attempts to deconstruct Dinah in King's usual fashion, but it mostly just makes her look a bit sad. The real reason for the fight makes sense and is quite heartbreaking, but it doesn't feel like enough to make me care as much as I should.

I'd also question the characterization of Lady Shiva - she usually seems like a woman of honour, and she comes across as utterly heartless here, which doesn't feel right to me either.

My biggest issue however is probably that I just don't enjoy sports commentators. They talk and talk to fill the air, and it always feels like they're not really saying anything of substance as a result. To that end, King captures the same feeling, but by the end of the story, if I read OH MY AND APPLE PIE one more time, I think I was going to throw the book off the couch. So, yes, appropriate, but just as infuriating to me in text as in real life.

The art's fabulous at least. Six issues of Ryan Sook without a fill-in or a break? Yeah, sign me the fuck up for that.

Maybe add half a star if you like boxing matches and listening to people talk really fast about nothing. Otherwise, just okay.

[PebbleInTheBrook1794 · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Black Canary: Best Of The Best is a great Black Canary comic, and it features the best exploration of BC's character that I've read.

The set-up to this title is that, for some reason that no-one knows, BC has agreed to fight the incomparable fighter Lady Shiva, in an MMA match, for money. Why Dinah is doing this is slowly revealed in flashback sequences that intersperse the fight with Shiva, and it's all heading towards a point.

A lot of the flashbacks are associated with Dinah's mother, the original Black Canary. We get deep cuts into Dinah's training with her mother, and her motivations into being BC. This is terrific work by King, and I relish these sequences.

To my knowledge, this two-generational exploration of BC hasn't been done before, and I love the sequences here. King doesn't ignore continuity but rather cleverly pays homage to it and works with it. This could be Silk Spectre and her daughter from Watchmen, and that's the only place I've seen something comparable to this mother/daughter relationship.

The fight with Shiva in the present is okay but the emotional heart to the fight is located in the flashbacks as they play out. King does well in constructing this. Meanwhile the artwork by Ryan Sook is lovely to look at for the entire book, and the art really suits a Black Canary title.

I don't like the ending so much, but that is little in comparison to all the good work in getting there. I am very happy with this read.

[Jake · Rating 1 out of 5]

OH BROTHER THIS GUY STINKS!

To start with what I liked: the art is nice and the concept of Dinah and her mom's relationship is interesting. The most telling thing about this is that all the covers for this are of Dinah and Shiva, but when you read it, 90% of this book's dialogue/narration is the two most grating and jumbling fight commentators who fill pages with unfunny jokes, nonsense, and attempts to describe what you are already seeing in the art. Dinah is written ok here, but her and her mom are often reduced to physically strong but mentally weak women who were saved by their marriages. The biggest victim here though is Shiva. Shiva is a great character who has evolved over the years, and this story reduces her to the racist "Dragon Lady" Asian stereotype that speaks maybe 10 lines, showing not an ounce of personality or accurate characterization. I thought surely the story would open up more to show her side and role in all this, but no! That time was given to a random Batman appearance and for Dinah to cuss like a 13 year old who just learned how. It ends with a befuddling message and no real emotional depth. This should be submitted into evidence at the Geneva Convention for Tom King's trial.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe this is a little high for this title, but I remain hooked on Tom King's recent work. Perhaps there is some irony in that I completed this (read as digital floppies) on Mother's Day. Because this is very much a story about mothers and daughters (and don't let yourself get too hung up on the DC continuity issues).

Dinah is taking a big money fight against the deadly Lady Shiva to help pay for/find a cancer cure for her mother the first Canary. In between rounds (one issues equals one of the six rounds) the story flashes back to Dinah's time spent being trained by her mother (and their mother/daughter dynamic), time with Ollie, and Vandal Savage.

Why is she spending time with Savage?

SPOILERS













Because to pay for her mother's cure all Dinah has to do is last to, then throw the fight in the sixth round.

[Emile Rudoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Otra miniserie de Tom King que honestamente no me termina de gustar. De hecho, en realidad la sentí de dos estrellas y media. Me choca que cambie tan drásticamente a los personajes por el shock value. Específicamente hablando de esta historia en particular es inverosímil que ella haya llegado a un acuerdo con Vandal Savage para salvar a su mamá sin contar con sus amigos en la Justice League. En realidad siento que solo vale la pena por el arte, pero hasta ahí. Que pena. Ojalá ya le dejen de dar personajes para destruir. Aunque lo único que me consuela (es un decir) es el hecho de que son fuera de continuidad (aunque en realidad hace mucho que la "continuidad" de DC es una mierda).

[Amna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm at a point now where I think I'd sell my soul to ensure that Tom King never writes for any of my favorite characters ever again.

Black Canary's one of my favorite characters. I tried going into this with an open-mind, hoping King would prove me wrong. I managed to get to issue 3 before I gave up. This isn't Dinah. And the completely gross treatment and mischaracterization of Lady Shiva shouldn't surprise me, and yet...

The art is good though, so there's that at least?

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of hype..

6 issues of comic book MMA. 1 issue per round of the fight. Lady Shiva vs Black Canary ...because...(?) reasons...

Win? Accolades and media adoration
Lose? Isolation and scorn

Fight for the glory or throw it for the medical miracle promised by a known villain?
====
Bonus: Continuity be damned, this is a Mother's Day story...
Bonus Bonus: Wildcat cameos are always welcome (even if this feels like a poorly scripted Fight Night)

[Greg Trosclair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tom King when he is totally on writes some of the best comic stories every. Here he takes on Black Canary, a DC character that for much of her existence has been an extra. Here King brings her story and character all the way to the forefront. Great story. Great characterization. Ryan Sook's art is fantastic. I loved this book from cover to cover.

[Jota Houses · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me reconcilio con Toma King tras el tropiezo de los omega men. Un combate entre Canario Negro y Lady Shiva le sirve como excusa para explorar al personaje mientras la brutal pelea (¿amañada?)nos mantiene en el borde del asiento. La lástima es que no queda mucho por explorar de Canario Negro después de que Alan Moore la usase como patrón para Silk Spectre.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a pretty decent story about a mother/daughter relationship and also some great in-ring action during the fight. It's structured pretty well with each issue dedicated to one round while the backstory slowly unfolds. The whole thing is held back by the obnoxious and overlong broadcast commentary though.