Every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without retconnng away the previous story. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.
Today, we look at a rather odd romantic entanglement introduced during a fill-in issue of Justice League of America that was quickly abandoned.
The other day, I wrote an article for the main CBR site about the history of Green Arrow and Black Canary's love affair.
The relationship was clearly driven by Denny O'Neil, who had killed off Black Canary's husband and brought her to Earth-1 (and the Justice League of America) and decided to develop Green Arrow and give him more of a personality (Green Arrow was a bit of a blank slate in those days). Both Canary and Arrow were at odds with the world, so O'Neil felt that they were perfect to explore the world as they explored their feelings for each other. From Justice League of America #78-81, the relationship developed from a flirtation into more...
(All art by Dick Dillin and mostly Joe Giella, although I think Dick Giordano might have inked one of the above panels)
Until finally, in the pages of Green Lantern/Green Arrow (also by O'Neil, with Neal Adams and Frank Giacoia), we see that they are now finally a couple (we learn this AFTER she's been brainwashed into joining a cult, of course)...
So by the time Denny O'Neil leaves the writing job on Justice League of America with #83, it's been established that Black Canary and Green Arrow are dating. But then Robert Kanigher wrote a fill-in issue before Mike Friedrich took over the book with issue #86 (#85 was a reprint issue). And Kanigher...well, he felt that the matter was still open between Black Canary and other guys...
Wowsa! Damn, Kanigher, that's some classic romance comic stuff right there!
Okay, so how did Mike Friedrich deal with this bomb dropped before his run began? Go to the next page to find out!
Friedrich waited until Justice League of America #88 to deal with it (he likely didn't even know about it when he wrote his first couple of issues of the series - his first issue was likely based on an O'Neil plot, to boot) and he nipped it in the bud quickly...
Batman would wait until Green Arrow #100 to get his revenge, where he murdered Ollie (no wonder Batman is always mad at Hal Jordan - he brought Ollie back after Batman went to such great lengths to murder him!).
That's it for this installment! If anyone has a suggestion for Abandoned Love, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com