| “ | And I guess once you let the darkness inside, it never comes out. And now I am trapped in a parallel dimension telling my sob story to the doppleganger of the man that... that I loved. | „ |
| ~ Black Siren to Oliver Queen. |
Dinah Laurel Lance, also known as Black Siren, is a major character in Arrow and a minor antagonist in Season 2 of The Flash.
She is the Earth-2 version of Dinah Laurel Lance/Black Canary and was an ally of Zoom, Prometheus, Talia al Ghul, Vincent Sobel, Anatoly Knyazev, Cayden James, and Ricardo Diaz. After she witnessed the depths in which Diaz was capable of stooping to, she betrayed him. Currently, she is reformed and serving as Star City's District Attorney. Months later, she would adopt her Earth-1 counterpart's moniker, Black Canary.
She was portrayed by Katie Cassidy, who also played Juliet Sharp in Gossip Girl, Laurel's Earth-1 counterpart and her more malevolent Nazi Earth-X counterpart, as well as Lilith and Ruby in CW Supernatural.
Personality[]
Original
Prior to becoming a meta-human, Earth-2 Laurel was apparently a kind and loving person, like her Earth-1 self. After losing Oliver Queen to his shipwreck in 2007, she was heartbroken and started to become a lot more reclusive and cold-hearted. Losing touch with her humanity, she became cruel, reveling in her use of her powers to crumble buildings and kill people. She seemed to have a twisted sense of humor, mocking Oliver's pain over remembering her Earth-1 self by saying "Laurel Lance is dead. On this Earth, anyway. Poor Black Canary, bye-bye birdie". She also condescendingly asked Felicity Smoak if she had a sister, referring to Earth-1 Sara Lance having an affair with Earth-1 Oliver in order to spite her.
She was incredibly defensive of her individuality and differences from her Earth-1 counterpart, calling her weak and vulnerable, after imitating her. When Quentin showed her pictures of his Laurel and footage of her saving lives as the Black Canary, Laurel began tearing up and destroyed the projector. She was a very convincing liar and actor, having been told by Prometheus all about her Earth-1 self and managing to successfully impersonate her until the last minute.
Laurel is also shown to be extremely sarcastic woman, even when after she was shot by Dinah, claiming it would still be easy to kill her. She also mocked Team Arrow on most of their occasions, calling John's failed attempt to shoot her "cute".
She was also very observant of Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, knowing that their attempts to imitate their Earth-2 counterparts was just acting all along. She exposes them as liars when she makes Cisco catch a brick and he uses the wrong hand which shows that she is probably pretty smart. Zoom seemed to respect her for her power and inability to take no for an answer, being able to trust her enough to talk to her without his mask on (meaning that he knew about him being "Jay Garrick" when his other meta-human henchmen did not know this). However, she is not without fear, as she was threatened by Prometheus so that she would pose as her Earth-1 counterpart, and seemed to be terrified of what he would do to her if she failed to successfully hurt Oliver.
Redemption
Laurel is not, however, without redeeming qualities and still retains humanity, which Oliver and Quentin correctly believed led to her redemption. She hesitates to kill Earth-1 Oliver and openly noted how hard it was to look at and harm him as he resembles her lost love. She also truly cared for Earth-1 Quentin, working with Chase to ensure his safety. Even after Quentin shot her, Laurel could not bring himself to kill him and allowed him to escape. Over time, she came to deeply care for Quentin as a father figure she never had, continuing to protect him from Diaz. She eventually chose to redeem herself and transitioned from a hardened immoral thief and coward to a rather courageous and caring person, first by testifying that Chance disguised as Tommy was the Green Arrow despite Diaz's threats and then proceeding to confront him directly and even willing to die to stop Diaz from getting control of Star City.
She was utterly distraught and devastated by the death of Quentin, being fully willing to confront Diaz unarmed despite knowing fully well she could not overpower him without her powers and then crying over his body, and left with great shame and guilt for having indirectly caused Oliver to be arrested. At this point, any contempt she had towards her Earth One doppelganger is gone and even turned into admiration as she tearfully and sincerely acknowledged how far she is from being her. She eventually completely took over as district attorney in her place and would use her position to atone. Indeed, Laurel was even willing to give up her desire for revenge so that Oliver could be free.
Although briefly becoming dark again over being frustrated by Team Arrow's repeated conflicted feelings towards her, Laurel proved she had overcame her demons and managed to once again redeem herself at the end of the day. She proceeded to fix her mistakes and despite any crimes of hers being cleared, Laurel decided to redeem herself by becoming Black Canary in her earth.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
Black Siren using her powers
- Sonic scream: As a meta-human, Laurel is capable of elevating her vocal cords to exceeding the normal level of decibels a normal scream can make, allowing her to topple large buildings and cause immense brain damage with her super-sonic scream. She is apparently able to reach 250 decibels or higher, strong enough to kill a normal person that hears it. Her scream is powerful enough to even stun the Flash, who is much more powerful than the average human. Her scream is also stronger than Dinah Drake's. However, Prometheus knew her weakness: if her throat was gripped hard enough to prevent her from speaking, potentially choking her to death, she cannot use her scream to save herself.
- Sonic scream immunity: Laurel's sonic scream powers would normally destroy a person's ears if hit by her scream. However, as a self-protection mechanism, she herself is immune to her own sonic screams, and is presumably unaffected by sonic screams emitted from other meta-humans with the same power like Earth-1 Dinah Drake.
Abilities[]
- Peak physical condition: Laurel is perfectly capable of fending off an individual without her powers, managing to fight Barry Allen with apparent ease. She was also able to beat Dinah Drake, an extremely skilled combatant, on multiple occasions and even hold her own against John Diggle. After being hit by Wally West's car, she just got back up, as if to say that she was not hurt or injured by it, thus meaning that her body is more durable than that of an average human.
- High-level intellect/Expert tactician/Expert leader: Laurel's observant nature allowed her to almost-instantly tell that Cisco Ramon and Caitlin Snow, who were posing as their Earth-2 counterparts, were not actually like their Earth-2 counterparts at all. She is also relied on by Zoom as her last-living lieutenant during the invasion of Earth-1, considered to be a brilliant planner and leader by her subordinates. This also allowed her to learn everything about her Earth-1 counterpart so she can perfectly impersonate her, fooling even Oliver Queen/Green Arrow for a short time.
- Stealth: Laurel was able to sneak through heavily guarded buildings with ease and disappear from a pursuer's sight, even in broad daylight.
- Network: On Earth-2, Laurel's many connections and friends allowed her to gain intel on people and places of interest. She was also able to gather information about her Earth-1 self through similar means.
- Expert Markswoman: As a long-time criminal, Laurel is an expert in the use of many types of firearms. She was able to systematically take out a group of Diaz's men in a firefight. Laurel is highly skilled with knives, she managed to quickly incapacitate Dinah Drake and hold her throat at knifepoint in order to prevent her from using her powers, all this while moving extremely fast. Laurel is also skilled in using knives in long-range combat, she was able to kill a man with a single stab throwing him a shuriken before he could fire his gun even though he was in her field of vision for only an instant.
- Intimidation: Due to her incredible power and her well-known coldness, Laurel commands an intimidating presence, instilling fear into both enemies and allies. She scared a long-time mobster by whistling in his direction.
- Acrobatics: Since becoming Black Siren, Laurel has developed free-running skills and could drop from a height of several feet without injuring herself. She was able to incapacitate Dinah Drake by jumping on her and holding a knife to her throat in a matter of few seconds. She was also able to perform a backflip without using her hands during her fight against Dinah. Her skills allow her to fluidly dodge and attack from different directions without losing balance.
Weaknesses[]
- Sonic dampener: Like Earth-1 Dinah Drake, Laurel's sonic scream can be cancelled out by a sonic dampener device.
Trivia[]
Black Siren in the DC Animated Universe
- In DCAU, Black Siren is the alias of Donna Nance, a founding member of the Justice Guild of America, in an alternate Earth, from the TV series, Justice League. The character herself was actually based on the Golden Age Black Canary.
- Like the DC comic version of Black Canary, Laurel possesses the meta-human ability of a supersonic scream, which she can deploy to shatter objects and incapacitate her opponent; however, unlike her Earth One counterpart, she is a villain, instead of a hero.
- She is the second doppelgänger of an Arrow character that has appeared on The Flash: the first was Floyd Lawton. She is also the first doppelgänger to appear on Arrow.
- Black Siren is known for having worked under three separate antagonists in the Arrowverse: Hunter Zolomon , Adrian Chase and Ricardo Diaz.
- Unlike her Earth-1 self, Black Siren does not seem to be an alcoholic.
- Having been promoted to a main character for Season 6 of Arrow, Black Siren is the fourth villain in the series to be credited as a main character, after Slade Wilson in Seasons 1 and 2, Malcolm Merlyn in Seasons 3 and 4, and Adrian Chase in Season 5. She is also the first main character in the series to have made her debut in a spin-off (The Flash, in this case) and the first meta-human character to be a main character on Arrow.
- Black Siren is somewhat similar to Helena Bertinelli, in that they are both black leather-clad anti-heroines/villainesses whom Oliver sought to redeem. They both also lost their loved ones (Earth-2 Oliver and Helena's fiance, respectively) and sought revenge for it. Whereas Helena was imprisoned for her crimes, Oliver still has hope for Black Siren, which she finds naive and pointless.
- Ironically, Black Siren tells Oliver that "Once you let the darkness inside, it never comes out". This is the same thing Helena said to Earth-1 Laurel in the season 2 episode Birds of Prey.
- Black Siren made her first appearance in an episode of The Flash. The original Golden Age Black Canary made her comic debut in Flash Comics issue 86, which is centered on Jay Garrick, who in the series was impersonated by Hunter Zolomon who Black Siren worked for.
- Black Siren's survival of the Lian Yu explosion was confirmed by the actor that plays Curtis when he posted a picture of them shooting for Arrow's sixth season, as well as the CW when they confirmed Katie Cassidy's return as a main character.
- It is speculated that Black Siren being promoted to series regular for Arrow season 6 is an appeasement move by the executive producers after the overwhelming backlash Black Canary's death in season 4 received, and the mixed reception her successor Dinah Drake has received. This is supported by Katie Cassidy claiming to have not expected to return to Arrow as a series regular.
- Despite being a villain, many fans have noted similarities between Black Siren and the traditional Black Canary in the comics that make her arguably a more faithful adaptation of the character than the Arrowverse's actual Black Canary.
- Black Siren has the sonic scream as a meta-human power whereas Black Canary utilizes an electric collar.
- Black Siren originates from Earth-2, whereas Black Canary is from Earth-1.
- Black Siren has fishnets on her suit like Black Canary, though Black Siren's are on her shoulders whereas comic Black Canary's are on her legs. Although Earth-1 Laurel did reference wearing fishnets at a Halloween party in "Damaged".
- Black Siren does not wear a mask unlike Black Canary.
- Black Siren's suit also greatly resembles the New 52 version of Black Canary's suit, unlike Arrowverse's Black Canary.
- Being the Earth-2 doppelganger of Black Canary, Black Siren is a unique Arrowverse villain as most protagonists hesitate to fight her given what Black Canary meant to them. While some like Barry see her as a villain, others like Oliver see her as misunderstood and have tried to prove that there is still some humanity left in her.
- She defeated every member of Team Arrow from Seasons 5 and 6, including Green Arrow, Spartan, Ragman, Wild Dog, Overwatch, Mr. Terrific, Black Canary, Speedy and Quentin Lance. She also almost killed several members of Team Flash, including The Flash, Vibe and Killer Frost. This makes her one of the most dangerous antagonists in the Arrowverse.
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