Birds of Prey: Redesign Black Canary

Just a personal redesign of the New 52 Birds of Prey, starting with Black Canary.  Trying to keep most of what's been established in the New 52 for Black Canary while re-establishing the Birds of Prey in a closer capacity to what they were before and giving Black Canary the personality she's been missing for most of the reboot.

Natalie Lance (née Reed) was a member of the freelance fighter pilot group known as the Blackhawks.  They were sent on missions by various governments for several years, but eventually the team disbanded.  The still young and active Natalie Reed would continue to volunteer her services, eventually performing wartime rescue missions throughout the 80’s and 90’s.  Eventually retiring, settling down, and caring for her growing daughter, Natalie is an extremely confident woman who takes on any task she sets her mind to.

Her daughter, Dinah Lance, adored her and her adventures, but felt entirely inadequate compared to her extraordinary mother.  Upon reaching young adulthood, she feels the need to make her own way in the world, and moves out.  Out of her mother’s shadow (and military household), the young Dinah Lance begins riding motorcycles and learning martial arts, forming an all female vigilante team called the Birds of Prey, which very quickly fell apart and disbanded.

She remains close to her mother, and one day is helping Natalie (now in a wheelchair) in her unsuccessful attempts to secure a military gravesite for herself (despite her wartime rescue missions, her requests are being rejected for being a volunteer), she meets another young woman, dissatisfied with her own treatment by the military she’s trying to join, and the two hit it off.  With this new friend, one Zinda Blake, Dinah begins thinking about the possibility of starting the Birds of Prey again.

So there’s my origin, going through the New 52 versions so far but establishing a version with more personality, and reaching the point where a new version of the Birds of Prey could form.  I tried to retain as much as possible of the current versions, but seriously the modern version being Dinah Drake?  Being married to this Kurt guy and having him die?  I’m not dealing with that, sorry.  There’s no good reason to go back to Dinah Drake; Dinah Drake is a representative of a different time period, and a modernized version of that character is Dinah Lance the daughter.  Not using the daughter character does nothing but piss off the people who love the character so much.  Plus, that was all stuff from Team Seven, and I don’t think anybody actually read it.

My design hews close to the post crisis version, the body suit, fishnets, no blue tights, no cleavage, and the sensible ponytail.  I turned the swimsuit cut into shorts, and made the whole ensemble more informed by motorcycle gear.  I took particular inspiration from Ryan Gosling in Drive (didn’t see the movie, but I’ve seen pictures of his costume in it) and Ryu from Kamen Rider W.  I emphasised the black and yellow color scheme.  She now has a motorcycle jacket with a logo (and that is a line from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.)

This is my second version of Black Canary, the first is here: harrisongrey.deviantart.com/ar…