For example, during the "Dollar Comic" era of World's Finest, when each issue was super-sized and featured a half-dozen characters in four different stories, I looked forward to the Black Canary/Green Arrow stories most, because I enjoyed their tempestuous relationship.
When I first read this issue - #253, cover-dated November 1978 - I was only nine years old, and I thought Black Canary was being kind of mean to her boyfriend. I took their argument at face value, missing the nuance entirely, because I hadn't learned about the birds and the bees yet...nor the menstrual cycle:
"This Earth 2 deal, going home, finding yourself, all of it's part of the mood you get in. A few days, you'll be over it."It seems pretty clear to me that Oliver is attributing Dinah's current feelings to her period - edgy stuff for a comic book allegedly targeted at kids! From an adult perspective, Green Arrow's dismissive behaviour is revealed as almost hilariously sexist and blockheaded; my sympathies now lie entirely with Dinah. No wonder their on-again, off-again relationship didn't work out in the end.
"Do you seriously think my problems are biological? That I'm like a faucet you can turn on and off?"
