She first appeared in a back-up story featuring Johnny Thunder (Flash Comics #86). "I was drawing Johnny Thunder, which was not much of a character," Carmine Infantino later recalled. "I suppose he could have been better because his Thunderbolt was interesting, but the situations they were in were pretty juvenile. Bob Kanigher wrote those stories, and he had no respect for the characters. These stories were nowhere near as good as the Flash stories. DC knew it--they knew Johnny Thunder was a loser, so Kanigher and I brought the Black Canary into the series. Immediately she got a good response, and it was, 'Bye, bye, Johnny Thunder.' Nobody missed him."

At her Golden Age debut, Black Canary was the alter ego of Dinah Drake, an undercover crime-fighter who worked with Gotham City detective Larry Lance to infiltrate criminal gangs. Initially, she was a hand-to-hand fighter with no superpowers, but later stories endowed her with a high-powered sonic scream.

She joined the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics #41 (July 1948) after helping the JSA prevent the Wizard and his Injustice Society from stealing America's national treasures.

Gotham City detective Larry Lance first appeared as a civilian love interest and occasional crime fighting partner for Dinah Drake. Larry and Dinah had a dynamic similar to the relationship between Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman, with Larry serving as a male "damsel in distress." Eventually, they married and had a daughter who would grow up to replace Dinah as Black Canary.

After a universe spanning battle in Justice League of America #74, Larry sacrificed himself to save his wife from a blast of cosmic energy directed at her by the cosmic-powered villain Aquarius. After his funeral, Black Canary decided to migrate from Earth-Two to Earth-One with the former universe reminding her too much of her lost husband.

After moving to Earth-One and joining the Justice League, Black Canary began dating her JLA colleague Green Arrow. Over the years, the duo has had some pretty bitter breakups, but they always seem to end up back together.

When Oliver and Dinah moved from Star City to Seattle, they needed a cover for their superhero adventures. So Dinah opened a flower shop called Sherwood Florist.

The Birds of Prey originated as a partnership between Black Canary and Barbara Gordon, who had adopted the codename Oracle at the time, but the team would expand to include additional heroes, including Huntress, Vixen, Katana, and others.

In Birds of Prey #32-34, a vacationing Dinah thought Ra's al Ghul was just an exotic European, fell in love with him and almost got married.

Following the "One Year Later" jump in Infinite Crisis, Dinah trades lives with Lady Shiva in hopes of softening the warrior, undertaking a harsh training regimen in an unidentified Vietnamese shantytown, while Shiva assumes Dinah's role in Oracle's group and demands that her associates call her the "Jade Canary".