3. Green Arrow And Black Canary's Lost Relationship - New 52
DC Comics
DC has plenty of power couples within their pages, with Superman and Lois Lane probably able to steak a claim to the top spot. However, within the superhero community, there is one couple more iconic than any other - Green Arrow and Black Canary.
Oliver Queen and Dinah Lance have been an item since the late sixties, to the point where it feels strange to tell a story about Oliver and not include his partner, and vice versa. They're heroes together, and lovers forever (ignoring that one time Oli cheated on her after their marriage), and so obviously DC thought it would be a fantastic idea to get rid of their relationship for their line-wide reboot in 2011. Obviously.
Clearly, depriving Queen of Neal Adams' iconic Van Dyke beard wasn't enough, nor was bringing the main GA series in line with the decidedly dour Arrow TV show on TheCW. For pretty much the entirety of the New 52 - from 2011-2016 - Oli and Dinah didn't share so much as a kiss.
Thankfully DC realised how much of a mistake this was and brought them back together for DC Rebirth, but those five years where Arrow and Canary weren't together were so pointless.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
