Is DC’s new Black Canary series derivative of Marvel’s Spider-Gwen?

We here at Whatever a Spider Can do not shy away from controversy. No! We, like any other media institution, actively grab controversy by the horns and revel in it. Unfortunately for us nothing controversial at all has happened with Spider-Man recently (Ahem) so we need to make our own controversy.

And here it is! Recently DC announced a bit of a comic book shake-up that mostly seems to be exciting news, for example Starfire is actually wearing clothes and there’s going to be a Harley Quinn/Power Girl team-up miniseries. Whats not to like?

One of the more exciting pieces of news stemmed around the announcement of a Black Canary solo comic! She’s been one of DC’s prominent super-heroines for quite some time after debuting in Flash #86 in 1947 as a blonde haired doe-eyed heroine.

So for DC fans it’s about damn time she got her own solo comic book! But how will they make it different, what will Black Canary’s character be like? Well, for a start DC have come up with the completely original idea that she’ll be in her own all-girl rock-band….

Hang on a minute.

A blonde haired, doe-eyed comic book character getting a brand new reboot and identity as part of an all-girl rock-band propelling her into a solo-comic book series, now where have I seen that before?

Whilst I’m quite obviously implying that DC seem to have flat-out copied the idea for Spider-Gwen with a character of their own that looks like her I’d like to point out that right now it seems that all of the big storylines across Marvel and DC appear to be the same thing. Or at least the similarities are uncanny.

Take DC’s ‘Convergence’ storyline for instance. Which features Braniac trapping cities from various timelines and planets that have ended in domes and bringing them to a planet outside of time and space for a great experiment to see what happens when he opens the domes and all these folks meet. Sounds very ‘Secret Wars-y’ doesn’t it?

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Then there’s the Multiversity featuring a collection of heroes from different universes being forced to band together to face off against ‘The Gentry,’ a race of demonic destroyers that are invading the Multiverse. Look me in the eyes and tell me that doesn’t sound like the narrative for the Spider-Verse!

Now I’m not necessarily suggesting that DC are copying Marvel, or that Marvel are copying DC. However it does seem like the two comic book properties are deliberately trying to tell the same stories as each other, just with their own set of characters. Or perhaps I’m just a crack-pot conspiracy theorist that’s losing my mind!

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