Black Canary

An orphan raised on the streets of Gotham City, Dinah Lance was eventually found and trained to fight in a dojo run by a man name Desmond Lamar. Lamar took Dinah in and raised her as best he could until he succumbed to terminal cancer.

In his will, Lamar left the dojo to Dinah, and she did her best to keep it running but quickly fell on hard times. The local gangs extorted every business in the area for protection money and Dinah was forced to close down and go right back to fighting for survival on the streets. Eventually, an opportunity to join a metahuman fighting squad was presented to her by a man who realized her martial artist potential. The gang forced all recruits through grueling physical training and experimentation, the result of which granted Dinah her own metahuman ability: her "Canary Cry," a high-powered blast she can create with her voice.

Dinah joined the Birds of Prey alongside Oracle and, eventually, Huntress. She also began working occasionally with the Justice League and Justice League International, where she met Oliver Queen, the Green Arrow. Over the next several years, Dinah and Ollie would fall in to a torrid on-again-off-again relationship.

For most of the 1990s and early '00s, Dinah worked as a core member of the Birds of Prey, eventually trading in the blonde wig part of her costume (a trick she had borrowed from her mother) for actually dyed blonde hair.

Following Oliver Queen's resurrection, Dinah and Ollie were engaged to be wed. Their marriage was unofficially dissolved following Green Arrow's murder of the super-villain Prometheus.