Arrow: Who is Dinah Drake and why is she important?

During the closing moments of Arrow on Wednesday, Tina Boland revealed she is actually Dinah Drake. Why is this reveal important, and how could it impact Arrow moving forward?

When Tina Boland made a brief appearance at the end of Arrow’s winter premiere, it was clear that the show was setting her up to be the new Black Canary. It also appeared that this character would be entirely new for the show and not connected to a version of Black Canary from the comics.

But then the final scene of Wednesday’s Arrow happened, and DC fans were excited by Tina Boland just being an alias for Dinah Drake. For the non-comics fan this probably just seemed like a weird coincidence that she now shared Laurel’s first name. So why is Dinah Drake on Arrow exciting?

She is the original Black Canary. Dinah Drake was first introduced in the pages of DC Comics back in 1947. She spent her first years as a sidekick until Black Canary became one of the members of the Justice Society of America — a group of older DC characters brought back in  the1960s that served as Earth-2’s Justice League. Drake is one of DC’s Golden Age comic book characters.

Drake was skilled in hand to hand combat and also had her signature Canary Cry. She was married to Gotham police detective Larry Lance, and when Earth-2 was nearly destroyed, she settled on Earth-1, becoming a Justice League member.

Thanks to a retcon of Dinah Drake’s history in 1983, she became part of a mother-daughter team. Her daughter was none other than Dinah Laurel Lance. In this version, Dinah was trained by her father Richard Drake, who worked for the Gotham City Police Department. She planned to follow in her father’s footsteps, but was rejected from the police force. Instead, she used her powers to become a vigilante, Black Canary.

Eventually, she left that life behind, married private eye Larry Lance and ran a flower shop. Their daughter eventually learned of her mother’s past as Black Canary and decided to take up the mantle. Dinah Laurel Lance eventually joined the Justice League, where she met Green Arrow. They eventually got married, making Oliver Queen Dinah Drake’s son-in-law.

In the New 52 DC Universe reboot, there was only one Black Canary, Dinah Laurel Drake-Lance. After years of being a couple, Green Arrow and Black Canary barely knew each other, angering many fans.  With DC Rebirth, Wally West noticed how wrong it is that Dinah and Oliver are not together.

Arrow is clearly not touching the mother-daughter relationship on the show. But bringing on Dinah Drake is a sign that Black Canary is a very important character to the series. This also means that Green Arrow can now still end up with Black Canary like in the comics.

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Of course it is way too early to tell if Oliver and Dinah will have a romantic relationship. The two do have a lot in common, and Dinah could probably better understand what Oliver went through on the Island better than Laurel or Felicity ever could. Dinah is also much more of an equal to Oliver in terms of skill level. This could be a return to what the Green Arrow/Black Canary relationship was like in season 2 when Sara Lance filled the role.

But that is getting ahead of things. For right now, all that seems certain is that by the end of season 5, Black Canary and Green Arrow will be fighting together. She does not need a collar to create the Canary Cry. And she shares a name with Black Canary from the comics. Only this time it is Dinah Drake, not Dinah Laurel Lance.