Green Arrow’s and Black Canary’s Child Explained: Who Is Laurel Lance-Queen?

Green Arrow and Black Canary are some of the most iconic DC characters ever. Both Green Arrow and Black Canary have been revised in DC Comics, with the latter assuming the superhero mantle from her mother, Dinah Drake. Ollie and Dinah have been superhero partners for decades, and their relationship has also been heavily discussed for a very long time. However, they never had children together in the main continuity of DC Universe, but they met their child in the ‘Dark Nights: Death Metal: The Last Stories of the DC Universe’ annual: Laurel Lance-Queen.

Laurel Lance-Queen is a vigilante from Earth-11 who goes by the name “Black Arrow.” She was inspired by her parents’ superhero mantles, whose “roles” were reversed – Oliver Queen was a Black Canary while Dinah Drake-Lance was acting under the mantle of Green Arrow.

This whole event was huge since it featured the return of Wally West and the full distancing from New 52 continuity, which was far from good for our characters. Ollie and Dinah were once again together and, with that, met their daughter from an alternate universe. Who is Laurel Lance-Queen? If you’re interested, stay with us until the end.

A brief rundown of Green Arrow and Black Canary relationship

As we already mentioned, Green Arrow and Black Canary have a long history with each other. Since the 1960s, Green Arrow and Black Canary have worked together to fight crime in Star City, but also as one of the founding members of the Justice League of America.

Dinah Drake and Oliver Queen first started a romantic relationship in 1969, but her story changed after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

The Earth-One version of Black Canary is later retconned post-Crisis, and we learn she is actually the mother of modern-day Black Canary, Dinah Laurel Lance. Once again, despite her origin story being revised, Ollie and a retconned version of Dinah became lovers and entered a serious relationship.

They were having an up-and-down relationship, which resulted in Dinah leaving Oliver after finding him kissing his young assistant Marianne and learning that she couldn’t have children.

Despite Ollie cheating on her, Dinah was devastated when she discovered Green Arrow died. Ollie gets resurrected by Parallax, and the couple reconciles, which leads to Green Arrow proposing to Black Canary.

Oliver admitted to Dinah that she helped him change for the better, hence why he sees them being together forever. The wedding arrives in 2007’s special issue titled ‘Green Arrow and Black Canary’s Wedding,’ but the couple eventually divorces because of the secrets and problems they had in their relationship.

Unfortunately for the popular couple, DC decided to reboot the DC Universe with the New 52 in 2011, which doesn’t change Green Arrow and Black Canary’s origin stories (at least for the latter) that much, but their relationship with each other was vastly different – they barely knew each other.

This was a surprise since Green Arrow and Black Canary were among the most notable superhero duos in DC Comics. It didn’t help that Green Arrow’s other important person, his trusty sidekick-turned-Teen Titan, Roy Harper/Arsenal, has distanced himself from Oliver Queen.

Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen barely knew of each other as well, after being best friends for decades, but the fact DC retconned Green Arrow and Black Canary’s relationship was incredibly sad.

Thankfully, DC Rebirth arrived in 2016, “fixed” the aforementioned characters, and revisited Green Arrow and Black Canary’s romance, which mostly saw them flirting on the rooftops of Seattle, as they did for so many years before.

Who is Laurel Lance-Queen?

After DC Rebirth, Green Arrow and Black Canary were “returned to their old ways,” and after years of being separated, DC decided to revisit their romantic side during the ‘Death Metal’ event, which features another destruction of the whole world and crazed, overpowered being attacking our esteemed heroes.

After Darkest Knight becomes the ruler of the Prime Earth, superheroes need to find a way to defeat the overpowered being, and just before the final stand (mostly by incredibly powered Wonder Woman), the remaining superheroes go to Themyscira to organize the last attack on the Batman Who Laughs.

The special TPB titled ‘Dark Nights: Death Metal The Last Stories of the DC Universe’ showcases a few superheroes reminiscing and having brief moments with their loved ones and other important characters.

Green Arrow and Black Canary are also in focus, and even though Themyscira is mostly destroyed, the dynamic duo finds time to speak about their lives and what they have been through as people and superheroes.

Ollie admits that he should’ve asked Dinah on a date before, and just as they are having a romantic moment, a strange woman appears and greets them. A young blonde woman with a crossbow and green hood introduces herself as Black Arrow, also known as Laurel Lance-Queen. She adds that her world was one of the 46 that the Darkest Knight has destroyed, and after explaining her parents died, Laurel admits she wanted to meet Ollie and Dinah.

Of course, ‘the love birds’ are in shock but also impressed seeing their daughter from the alternate universe. Interestingly enough, Laurel reveals she is actually from Earth-11, a planet where “roles” are reversed – Batman, Superman, and other male superheroes are actually women and vice versa. Laurel’s Green Arrow and Black Canary are reversed genders, which is an interesting concept and hilarious to Ollie and Dinah.

Nevertheless, this is the only time we actually see Laurel Lance-Queen in DC Comics, but it is still cool to see how DC acknowledged they made a mistake removing the Green Arrow and Black Canary partnership from their lore.

Elseworlds have multiple examples of Green Arrow and Black Canary happily married with children, as we saw in the ‘Injustice’ universe, and it’s nice seeing the iconic duo being together again.

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