The DC Comics character of Black Canary has starred in four self-titled comic books:
Black Canary Vol 1 (1991-1992) was a four-issue mini-series written by Sarah Byam, with art by Dick Giardano von Eeden. Dinah Laurel Lance is having money troubles with her shop, Sherwood Florist, and her boyfriend, Oliver Queen. When she accidentally runs into Gan "Duke" Nguyen, who is having troubles himself with drug dealing gangsters, she finds herself in a spot of trouble.
Black Canary Vol 2 (1993) was a twelve-issue series also written by Sarah Byam, with art by Trevor von Eeden. Continuing from the mini-series, Dinah Laurel Lance remembers her upbringing, being trained by her father Larry Lance and her "uncle" Ted Grant, as she takes on assassins and murderers in Seattle.
Black Canary Vol 3 (2007) was a four-issue mini-series written by Tony Bedard, with art by Paulo Siqueira. Spinning off of Gail Simone's Birds of Prey run, Dinah is now mentoring and living with Sin, a young girl who was being groomed to be the next Lady Shiva. Now, she has to protect Sin from being manipulated by Merlyn the Dark Archer.
Black Canary Vol 4 (2015-2016) was a twelve-issue series written by Brendan Fletcher, with art by Annie Wu. Dinah Drake has restarted her burgeoning musical career and is now the head of a band named called, well, Black Canary. Made up of Lord Byron on drums, Paloma Terrific on keyboard, and Ditto on guitar, with Dinah as the lead singer, everything is looking up. Except for the former lead singer, Bo Maeve, is pissed and willing to do anything to stop them. And someone is after Ditto for mysterious reasons. And, somehow, Dinah's secret agent ex-husband is mixed up in everything, too.
- Archnemesis Dad: Chad Brennan eventually grows disgusted with his father's actions and helps Dinah and Gan.
- Cold Sniper: Sgt. Brennan, who is given the assignment to kill Gan Nguyen.
- Distracted by the Sexy: In the fourth issue, Dinah deliberately readjusts her costume to make it more appealing in order to attrack the attention of the drug dealers.
- Money Dumb: Oliver Queen apparently spends way outside his means, especially since he is unemployed. After all, he did used to be a millionaire, so perhaps habits are hard to shake.
- Sex for Services: Lampshaded after Oliver tries to make up almost hitting Dinah with an arrow with the offer of "hot sex":You're not listening, Oliver — The bank won't take hot sex as collateral. This time, you figure out how to pay the rent — and I'll go up to the mountains!
- The Syndicate: A multi-million dollar cocain syndicate run by a Senator's son who uses an army of white supremacists as enforcers.
- Accidental Murder: During issue 7, Dinah fights the supervillain Capoeira, who has an electrified glove. Dinah ends up dumping a drainpipe full of water on the glove to short it and it electrocutes Capoeira. Dinah only wanted to stun him, but it turned out that the shock killed him instead.
- Assassin Outclassin': Subverted: Dinah is trying to stop the assassination of Sally and throws a knife into the back of the assassin just as he prepares to kill her. However, the knife doesn't kill the assassin, only wound him, and he kills Sally before Dinah can stop him.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Jakob Whorrsman, who hires supervillains and assassins to do his dirty work.
- Continuity Nod: Since Green Arrow and Black Canary were a couple and the books were coming out at the same time, there are often nods to Mike Grell's Green Arrow. If you weren't reading both books, you could still understand the story, but if you read both, you got a deeper understanding of the characters.
- The Grovel: Ollie tries giving Dinah chocolates to help smooth things over between them. It doesn't work. Giving her a tip for her case? That does.
- Last Episode, New Character: The twelfth and very last issue of the book introduces Jack Lynch, Larry Lance's former partner who was secretly in love with Dinah Drake, Larry's wife, Dinah's mother, and the original Black Canary. He is fighting a one-man war against the gene-spliced New Sparta and ends up recruiting Dinah to his side.
- The Masochism Tango: Dinah is having problems with her relationship with Oliver. Oliver, despite wanting to make things right, keeps doing and saying the wrong things. At times, you wonder why they are even still together.
- Mistaken for Cheating: At one point, when Dinah is teaming up with Ray Terrill (The Ray), Oliver gets jealous and accuses her of cradle robbing, especially since Ray seems to have a crush on her. Dinah responds by kissing Ollie...and then when Ray leaves, punching him.
- Badass Boast: After Merlyn kidnaps Sin, Dinah goes to Craig, her ex-husband who set up the whole thing and tells him, "Tell me exactly where my daughter is and I won't cripple you for life."
- Faking the Dead: Oliver ends up having to fake Sin's death in order to get the League of Assassins to stop from kidnapping her. He doesn't even tell Dinah, so that her reaction can look genuine, but she finds out afterwards.
- Blob Monster: A race of black goo creatures that want Ditto.
- Child Popstar: Ditto is a child.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Five Heavens Palm, a dangerous technique that Dinah was taught by her mother.
- Evil Diva: Bo Maeve. Angry that they kicked her out of the band and jealous of Dinah, she ends up kidnapping Ditto and exchanging her for a sonic scream like Dinah's. She ends up with a band of her own called Bo M and they go up against Black Canary.
- Fight Clubbing: Greyeyes runs a German fight club that Rena used as a place to force Black Canary and Vixen to fight.
- Make Some Noise: This turns out to be Ditto's power.
- Mythology Gag: The band that Bo Maeve puts together has members named Auntie Gravity, Bonfire, and Harpy, who were all Black Canary villains pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- Shout-Out: An interview with Dinah is published under the title "Musical Marvel or Menace?"
- Working with the Ex: Dinah has to work with her ex-husband Kurt in order to save Ditto's life.
