Black Canary: Best of the Best #5 – Tom King, Writer; Ryan Sook, Artist; Dave Stewart, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: Tom King writes comics that can be utterly brutal, but there’s always an emotional core at the center of the story. That’s definitely the case with this miniseries, which combines a no-holds-barred MMA fight with a surprisingly heartfelt mother-daughter story. It’s round five of Canary’s fight with Shiva, and she needs to make it to round six where she’s supposed to fight back. But to get there, she’s had to push back and deliver some brutal blows to Shiva – and that’s made the ruthless martial arts master very angry. So after some truly cruel words to start off the round, they’re back at it – and this round, it doesn’t feel like they’re fighting to win. It feels like they’re fighting to put each other down for good – and Shiva nearly gets to do exactly that. Because of a quirk in the rules, there may be no other way to end the match with an unconscious opponent but to kill them – but Canary might have one last surprise up her sleeve as we head into the final act.
However, as brutal as the fights here are, nothing is more brutal than the unflinching way King depicts the slow decline of a parent from cancer. This kind of look at death is pretty rare in comics, and this issue is pretty hard to get through in points. Even as she’s getting to the end of the road, the original Black Canary continues to push forward, trying to make her daughter the best she can be – not knowing that there might be a larger plan at play in Dinah’s deal with Vandal Savage. There’s also a brilliant flashback-within-a-flashback where we see the earliest days of Dinah’s training as Black Canary, and how her mother was trying to build her up even then. Sook changes his art style up a little for these segments, creating an almost painted style in the nighttime. All three storylines come together to create one of the most emotionally packed series on the stands as we head into the final issue.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
