All 8 Black Canary actresses ranked from worst to best

1. Katie Cassidy

Appeared In: Arrow, The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Vixen

Katie Cassidy was the very first person that Arrow cast all the way back in 2012 as it was announced that she would take on the iconic role of Dinah Laurel Lance in The CW’s new Green Arrow-inspired series. Though that character didn’t necessarily have all the fighting qualities associated with the comic book counterpart yet, Cassidy ensured that Laurel’s heart possessed the most important of those qualities.

A more grounded take on the character, Cassidy remained the show’s strongest performer throughout the first four seasons as she carried Laurel through a heap of emotional storylines and ensured that even when the writers were unnecessarily unkind to her, she was stealing the show.

Though the writing would again let her down with Laurel’s short-lived ascension to Black Canary and the character’s subsequent death, her popularity resulted in her return as the villainous Black Siren – a skilled metahuman with a Canary Cry from Earth-2 who eventually achieved redemption and took up the Black Canary mantle.

It took Arrow a long time to get Black Canary 100% right, but Cassidy was always on form, elevating anything subpar. She portrayed the first Laurel with the heart, tenacity and grit of a real person and the second with the sass, fortitude and emotional depth of her comic-book counterpart. And that perseverance ultimately paid off because the iteration of the character that we saw in Season 8 – a mix between both and the one that should have gone on to headline Green Arrow and The Canaries – was undoubtedly the best (and most accurate) live-action iteration of the character of all-time. This is, no doubt, the reward that this exceptional actress deserved.