Black Canary Was Almost in BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES

Black Canary was cool. Batman: The Animated Series (BTAS) is the definitive Batman in my book. Put the two together and you’ve got amazing potential. Paul Dini, one of the writers for BTAS, talked about this with CBR recently mentioning that the reason Black Canary wasn’t introduced was to feature Robin in more episodes. Dini states:

“Yeah, the Black Canary/Catwoman episode was a casualty. They [FOX] wanted more Robin in the series, and each time we wanted to drop him from a story, we had to fight for it. Not that we had anything against Robin, we just wanted to stretch now and then and do solo Batman stories or episodes that focused mainly on Gordon or the villains. After the experimentation of the first season, the network felt we might be leaving the boys behind, so we got the edict, add more Robin. Other than that, there was a Poison Ivy seducing Swamp Thing story I toyed around with, but the rights to Swampy weren’t available then. I did a sort of version of it years later as an episode of Justice League Action.”

Don’t get me wrong, Robin was a good character. However, can you imagine what that Black Canary/Catwoman episode could’ve been? What about that Swamp Thing/Poison Ivy story? There are times I wish the networks weren’t as involved as they can be. Thankfully Black Canary was introduced to many kids and teenagers through Justice League Unlimited and even found a spot on the popular video game Injustice 2. Do you wish they could’ve explored more options like Black Canary or Gordon? What character do you think should’ve been introduced in BTAS?