Later this month, DC Comics will launch Black Canary: Best of the Best, a six-issue series that pits the title character against assassin Lady Shiva in a no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle brawl to determine who is the best hand-to-hand fighter in the DC Universe. But as we discovered during an interview with writer Tom King and artist Ryan Sook about the book, behind the scenes it’s a veritable love fest.
“Tom King,” Sook said over Zoom, when asked him what interested him about the character, and book. “First thing was Tom King. I’ve been looking for an excuse to work with Tom for a long time.”
Added King later on in the chat, “I have trust in Ryan, I know his art. I’ve spent a decade reading his stuff and buying it, putting it on my wall.”
Clearly, the duo is excited to work with each other, and on this book, which finds Dinah Lance in the fight of her life, for very good reasons that will become apparent when reading the first issue. While that’s still a few weeks off — issue #1 hits stores on November 27 — we sat down to discuss the surprising inspiration for the book, how the fights differ from your typical superhero comic book fights, and more. Plus, read all the way to the end for a special look ahead at Black Canary: Best of the Best #2.
Comic Book Club: Probably the broadest, most general question possible: why Black Canary? What is it about this character in particular that draws you to her?
Tom King: That’s the easiest question in the world. Why Black Canary? She’s probably the most underrated mainstream superhero in the DC universe, just in terms of amount of potential to the amount of execution. There have been amazing Black Canary stories, but not nearly as many as such a character deserves. So it seems to me to be a place we can mine for so much gold, because that character is beloved by fans, has an incredible design, has an incredible history, incredible power, a super cool origin story. She has everything you need to be a top tier, Superman, Batman, level superhero, and she deserves the stories that go along with it. So why Black Canary? Just because it’s both easy and fun.
Ryan, what about you? What draws you to her visually, or also, same thing about the character,
Ryan Sook: Tom King. First thing was Tom King. I’ve been looking for an excuse to work with Tom for a long time, but the fact that with Black Canary, she’s always been one of my favorites, because visually, she is the perfect dichotomy. She’s beautiful, but she’ll beat the snot out of you. She’s amazing. She’s an amazing character, like Tom said, there’s so much there, not only story-wise, to explore, but visually as well. There’s just not been this amount of material produced with this character here, and Tom kills it. It’s such a good story. And it’s one I couldn’t help but want to draw.
On the flip side, her adversary is Lady Shiva. So same sort of question, what makes her the perfect — hopefully perfect — foil for Black Canary?
King: The idea for this book originally is so long ago, when I was at a Batman retreat and we were discussing, because we’re nerds, and I think it was me and Scott [Snyder] and James [Tynion IV]. Steve Orlando was there. Becky Cloonan was there. And we started talking about who would win in a fight. The general consensus was Lady Shiva, she was the best fighter in the DC Universe. There’s also, Cassandra Cain is up there.
But the general consensus was that Lady Shiva was number one and number two, just in terms of hand-to-hand comment, in terms of power, in terms of two people in a ring, no power, punching at each other… Lady Shiva was number one, and number two was Black Canary. Which was shocking to me, because you just don’t think of Black Canary that way, because she has the Canary Cry and all that. So it’s nothing simpler than this: this is a [comic] about a match. It’s called the match of the millennium. This is Ali and Frazier. This is the Yankees and the Dodgers. It’s putting the best against the best. So it’s the number one hand-to-hand combat fighter in the DC Universe against number two. This is the champ against the top contender.
Sook: Lady Shiva was a great adversary because of what Tom just said. But what I love about this story as a whole, to explore the basic premise of who’s the best fighter is that there’s more to the best fighter than just who can throw the hardest punch, and that comes to life in this in the course of the story. So when you’re going up against Lady Shiva, who’s beaten Batman… How do you go up against someone like that as Black Canary? It’s because she’s got something that is more than just her power or more than just her strength. She’s got something else inside.
This is a very public fight, but Lady Shiva is, at least as far as I think of her, an assassin working in the shadows. Are there a lot of assassin fans in the DC universe who are cheering for her? How does that logistically work?
King: [Laughs] It’s an absolutely excellent question. The general idea, as I have it in my head, is Lady Shiva is a secret assassin and all that. But she is not one who is shy about her prowess or about her reputation. She is willing to brag anywhere and everywhere, that she’s the best who ever lived. And so what this is, is someone came up and challenged her and said, If you are the best, prove it. Prove it on a public stage. And she’s like, let’s do it. Let’s do it tomorrow. Soon. Five minutes. Let’s do it every day of my life. I will always step up to prove it… She suffers no doubts about her ability to take on anyone [in the] DC Universe.
If Batman was to knock on her door, she’d be like, let’s drop gloves right now, I can show it to you. So that’s the concept that she has been challenged, that the thing that makes her a unique human being in all society, which is that she is the best at this one thing is being called out, and she’s answering that call and when she looks across the ring, it’s Black Canary yelling at her.
Sook: The DCU, like in the real world… People love a villain. I mean, we wouldn’t have Joker movies and all these different things going on if people didn’t love a villain. They want to root for them, because they want a fight. We have the UFC and MMA fights and stuff, because people want to see who can go the rounds. And like Tom said she’s willing to go all the time, so it makes her a great opponent.
To talk about the fight scenes, the main event, literally, is this fight. I imagine writing fight scenes that actually take place in the ring is a little different than writing or drawing a superhero fight scene. What was involved in choreographing this, both from the script and from the art perspective?
Sook: Yeah, absolutely… There’s no shorthand for it. You have to draw the punch, the kick. And there’s no way to do it in shorthand the way you can when superheroes are fighting in a cityscape. You can have laser beams, flying around in capes, and all that different stuff. In this, it’s all stripped down… What I love is, the way that it’s written, you have… the fight scenes unfolding while the story is unfolding behind the scenes. And so we get to actually feel the impact of all of those things that are going on in the fight while the characters are being developed. That choreography made it really fun to draw, but mainly it’s just to strip it down, and really land the punch to the jaw and the kick to the gut and feel it for each of those characters.
And Tom, what about you from the script perspective? Is there anything different in terms of writing the fight here? Or is it like, “Hey Ryan, go watch some WWE footage.”
King: [Laughs] I don’t think I recommended him watching WWE. As he was talking, I was debating the answer, and I was like, gonna give you the generic, “Oh, it’s all about trusting your artists and giving them room to do their thing.” But it’s not about trust. I have trust in Ryan, I know his art. I’ve spent a decade reading his stuff and buying it, putting it on my wall.
And so when I wrote the fight scenes, I had trust… It implies some lack of confidence. I had utter confidence. I knew Ryan would make it pretty and make it a lot prettier than my words were saying. When I’m just like, “Dinah punches Shiva in her stupid face,” he’s going to make that epic. He’s going to find the way, in the angle and the ring. It was knowing you’re working with a legend like Ryan. It’s just, you know, let him cook. Let him cook.
Well, Ryan, was there anything you referenced in particular? Did you watch mixed martial arts for reference? Or where did you pull this from? Because it’s so specific.
Sook: I did. And I’ve never been a fight fan, exactly. I mean, I’ve watched some of the big bouts over the years and stuff, but I did dig into MMA for this in particular. WWE always also is a really good reference for any comic book artist. But in this instance, the MMA stuff — And I was shocked by the brutality of the fights that go on in the UFC and the MMA fights. Boxing, you knock someone down, someone counts. MMA, they jump on you and beat you until you can’t get up again, and it was shocking to me, and hard to watch. I couldn’t watch for long.
But when I read the script, that’s the sort of grit, that’s the sort of reality this fight actually has to have. If it doesn’t have that, it’s not the fight of the century. It’s not the best of the best. And so, yeah, you look into that stuff. And I mean, brutal fights have happened, but boy, drawing it, translating that into the page, it was fun to do. It took some effort, that’s for sure. No shortcuts in this one.
You have these great almost paper doll shots of them in their costumes, the first time you see them in their corners of the ring. Both of these characters have had so many different costume designs, so what inspired you for Black Canary, and what inspired you for Lady Shiva?
Sook: It was trying to bring [them] into what this fight is about, which is, stripped down, no powers, no over accentuation of decoration or anything like that in these costumes. It wasn’t about trying to design a costume that looked new and fresh and all that different stuff for a superhero. This was about two women who get in a ring and beat each other to the end. So we had to strip it down just enough so you know who it is you’re looking at, and rely on those basic core elements and images and emblematic stuff that they’ve had all through their tenure as comic characters.
Tom, this is in continuity, right? These six issues, I assume this occupies a very similar space to The Penguin book, where it’s happening in its pocket, and then eventually things will catch up? Or how do you see it working? I asked specifically because Black Canary is in Birds of Prey, Lady Shiva is currently in Batgirl.
King: I view it in the Supergirl space. I guess that’s a pun, so I apologize for that. But yes, the idea is that this is happening, this is something that is in main continuity, just just like Supergirl was, but it exists next to continuity where you don’t have to know what’s going on in the universe to read it. You can just pick up issue one and go, and when you get to issue six, you will have a full story that doesn’t have to be continued, like when I write a Wonder Woman comic. This is on the line of what Mr. Miracle was, what Supergirl was, Human Target was. It’s in sort of that vein.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Black Canary: Best of the Best #1 hits stores on November 27, 2024. And get an advance look at three covers and four interior pages for Black Canary: Best of the Best #2, which hits stores on December 25, 2024. You can click the images for larger versions.
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