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What Does Absolute Green Arrow Mean for Black Canary?

Absolute Green Arrow is coming… which means we could be getting a very different Black Canary, too.

DC’s Absolute Universe is moving full steam ahead, with the roster of characters expanding to include Green Arrow and opening many possibilities for Black Canary alongside him. At 2025’s San Diego Comic Con, one of the major snippets of DC news was the announcement of Green Arrow as the next DC superhero to be up for his own book in DC’s ongoing Absolute Universe. The Absolute Universe, presented as an alternate reality born out the energy of Darkseid, has been a tremendous hit in the comic book world, with fans enjoying wildly new and unexpected re-imagined versions of DC superheroes like Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Martian Manhunter.

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With Green Arrow to make his debut in Absolute DC in the near future, that inherently opens the door even wider for more DC heroes to get their own Absolute spin. Arguably the one who springs to mind the most immediately after Green Arrow’s announcement is Black Canary, due to their shared character history. However, the nature of Absolute DC ensures that Black Canary’s Absolute incarnation will be just as wild a change-up as everyone else’s.

Green Arrow & Black Canary’s Relationship Explained

Like several DC superheroes, Black Canary has a foundation in the Justice Society of America, with the first iteration of Black Canary, Dinah Drake (created Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino), being one of the JSA’s founding members. Her daughter, Dinah Laurel Lance, was created by Dennis O’Neal and Dick Dillin, and subsequently became the second Black Canary in modern times. Dinah Lance is generally the version of Black Canary that modern fans are most familiar with.

Green Arrow and Black Canary first became a romantic couple in the ‘60s, with their romance being an intrinsic element of their superheroic partnership ever since. Indeed, it has also been a core element of virtually every major Green Arrow and Black Canary adaptation, including Justice League Unlimited, Smallville, and Arrow. However, that does not necessarily mean that Green Arrow and Black Canary are being set up as a romantic couple again in DC’s Absolute Universe.

Black Canary Will Not Be the Character DC Fans Know in the Absolute Universe (& That’s a Good Thing)

From its inception, Absolute DC has been all about tweaking and re-imagining DC’s superhero roster in unexpected ways. Absolute DC set the table for that early with its behemoth construction worker version of Batman, its new spin on Wonder Woman as a warrior raised in Hell, and its take on Superman as a Kryptonian refugee arriving on Earth as an adult with an A.I. powered super suit. Absolute DC’s subsequent portrayals of The Flash, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and the many villains of the new universe have similarly followed suit, and there is no reason to think that Green Arrow will be the Absolute DC character to perfectly mirror his mainline DC counterpart.

In turn, Black Canary is likely to be just as heavily re-tooled and re-imagined in her Absolute incarnation as well. While she’ll likely retain some version of her signature power of the Canary Cry, even that could be re-worked quite a bit, while the Darkseid-connected origins of Absolute DC also ensure that everything from Dinah’s romance with Oliver to her origin story as Black Canary is subject to a much darker change. While there’s plenty of directions Absolute DC could take Black Canary in, the presentation of the characters to precede her could offer clues about what Absolute Black Canary could look like.

Other Absolute DC Characters Hint to How Black Canary Could Be Different

One aspect of Green Arrow’s character history is confirmed to remain in place in Absolute DC is Oliver Queen’s status as a billionaire. While that’s very much the opposite direction of the blue-collar makeover Batman has gotten in Absolute DC, it could also facilitate a much less amicable beginning to how Oliver’s relationship with Dinah begins. By keeping Oliver a billionaire in the Absolute Universe, the plan could theoretically be to show Dinah as coming from poverty, which would put the two on opposite sides of the economic spectrum from the start and make Dinah far more embittered and resentful towards a rich boy like Oliver, before getting to know him on a deeper level which could be how their romance begins.

That is, if Absolute DC even intends to maintain Oliver and Dinah’s romance at all. With Lois Lane beginning as an agent of the Sinister Lazarus Corps and an enemy of Superman upon their first meeting. Though Superman and Lois Lane eventually become allies, Absolute DC could throw a real unexpected change into the mix by not only not pairing Oliver and Dinah romantically, but actually showing them as two heroes who cannot stand one another. That certainly seems plausible as the major Absolute DC change to their usual dynamic, especially with Oliver remaining a billionaire, and Absolute DC could go even further by having Dinah Drake, rather than Dinah Lance, as its primary Black Canary.

Wally West being the main Flash of Absolute DC alongside the (most certainly not permanent) death of Barry Allen certainly makes such a switch-up with Black Canary’s backstory in the new universe entirely plausible in itself. All of the above possibilities highlight the tremendous fun that DC’s Absolute Universe has been for comic book readers in creating entirely new versions of DC’s most iconic superheroes, and with Absolute Green Arrow on the way, the possibilities for Absolute Black Canary are just as vast as they are for every other hero.