The Twelve Brothers in Silk, also known as The Silk Brothers, is a group of

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a tradi ...

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

villain A villain (also known as a " black hat" or "bad guy"; the feminine form is villainess) is a stock character, whether based on a historical narrative or one of literary fiction. '' Random House Unabridged Dictionary'' defines such a charact ...

s, a family of killers that have fought the

Birds of Prey Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and other smaller birds). In addition to speed and strength, these predat ...

in the

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. ( doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with the ...

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...

. They were created by artist Joe Bennett and writer

Gail Simone Gail Simone (aka Gladys Simonetti) is an American writer best known for her work in comics on DC's ''Birds of Prey'', ''Batgirl'', Dynamite Entertainment's Red Sonja, and for being the longest running female writer on Wonder Woman to date. Oth ...

Fictional history

The Twelve Brothers in Silk, 12 martial artists named after the signs of the

Chinese Zodiac The Chinese zodiac is a traditional classification scheme based on the lunar calendar that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating twelve-year cycle. Originating from China, the zodiac and its variations remain ...

, first appeared in the employ of Mister Tan, a

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

an drug lord. Posing as American mobsters,

Wildcat The wildcat is a species complex comprising two small wild cat species: the European wildcat (''Felis silvestris'') and the African wildcat (''F. lybica''). The European wildcat inhabits forests in Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus, while th ...

and Black Canary attempted to fool Mister Tan into selling them all of his drugs, which would ultimately cripple his operations while simultaneously depriving the real American Mafia of one of their main drug suppliers. Led by Huang Chao Ran, the brother known as

Rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit sp ...

, the Twelve Brothers monitored Black Canary and Wildcat during these dealings, attempting to determine if they were legitimate. Their attempts to force Canary and Wildcat to reveal their true identities failed, and culminated in a spar between Rabbit and Black Canary that was interrupted by a furious Mister Tan. Mister Tan realized that he had been set up after agreeing to the terms that Black Canary stipulated, and in an attempt to avoid being ruined, he arranged for a real mob group to buy his drug shipment. The Twelve Brothers accompanied the shipment to protect it, and met Black Canary and a group of fighters in America. The two groups agreed to a duel. Black Canary's team consisted of Wildcat,

Richard Dragon Richard Dragon (or simply Dragon) is the alias of two fictional, comic book characters appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Although both incarnation differ in alignment, they're portrayed as extremely accomplished martial arti ...

, Green Arrow II (Connor Hawke),

Savant Savant syndrome () is a rare condition in which someone with significant mental disabilities demonstrates certain abilities far in excess of average. The skills that savants excel at are generally related to memory. This may include rapid calc ...

, Creote, Huntress, and herself. Before the fight could end in one side's clear defeat, however, Black Canary signaled her teammate

Lady Blackhawk Lady Blackhawk is an alias used by three Fictional character, fictional comic book characters appearing in American comic books. The first, Zinda Blake, was introduced in a DC Comics publication in 1959 (''Blackhawk (DC Comics), Blackhawk'' #133); ...

to attack the drug shipment, destroying it. Black Canary then gave Rabbit an ultimatum: with the shipment destroyed he had already failed in his mission. The only way the brothers could be sure to walk away with their record of never losing intact was to call a draw. Rabbit agreed, and the groups parted ways.

White Canary

During the ''

'' relaunch tie-in with the 2010 ''

Brightest Day ''Brightest Day'' is a 2010–11 crossover storyline published by DC Comics, consisting of a year-long comic book maxiseries that began in April 2010, and a number of tie-in books. The story is a direct follow-up to the ''Blackest Night'' storyli ...

'' storyline, one of the female children born to Huang was spared after

lightning Lightning is a naturally occurring electrostatic discharge during which two electrically charged regions, both in the atmosphere or with one on the ground, temporarily neutralize themselves, causing the instantaneous release of an average ...

appeared on the day of her birth and killed her

midwife A midwife is a health professional who cares for mothers and newborns around childbirth, a specialization known as midwifery. The education and training for a midwife concentrates extensively on the care of women throughout their lifespan; ...

, making Huang believe that something powerful wanted her to live. She was trained by her brothers in the same techniques, and after their defeat at the hands of Black Canary, she hunted them down and killed them for dishonoring their father's name. Now calling herself White Canary, she traveled to Gotham and set to blackmail Black Canary by revealing her secret identity and threatening to kill one teammate for each hour that passed, enlisting the help of Oswald Cobblepot,

and Creote. Upon being defeated by Black Canary, she denied being responsible for the death of a kidnapper in Iceland to frame Black Canary, claiming that it was in fact

Lady Shiva Lady Shiva (real name Sandra San or more recently Sandra Wu-San) is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was co-created by Dennis O'Neil and Ric Estrada, and first appeared in '' Richard ...

, and offers Black Canary help in killing Shiva if she is set free. Later, White Canary takes Black Canary to

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...

and reveals that she is holding Black Canary's adopted daughter

Sin In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...

as a hostage, and will kill her if Black Canary does not battle Lady Shiva in a duel to the death. Black Canary agrees despite her broken wrist, but at the last minute

Helena Bertinelli The Huntress (Helena Rosa Bertinelli) is a antiheroine appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. She is the third DC character to bear the name Huntress. Originally introduced as a new interpretation of Helena Wayne, no longer ...

challenges Shiva in her place, buying Black Canary enough time to find Sin and get her to safety, and Lady Shiva agrees to put their duel off until a later time. White Canary reluctantly concedes, but promises that Black Canary has not seen the last of her.''Birds of Prey'' (vol. 2) #6 (December 2010), DC Comics.

Powers and abilities

Each of the Twelve Brothers in Silk is considered almost

-level in skill. Given that they fight as a group, this makes them one of the most feared forces in the criminal world. They allow themselves no alcohol, women or other "vices" except for fighting. They value honor highly, and Black Canary both exploited this and was careful to respect it — they would do anything to avoid "losing face", but to dishonor them would mean making a powerful enemy for life. Although they fight side by side, their greatest weakness is supposedly that they do not really care about one another.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Twelve Brothers In Silk Black Canary characters Characters created by Gail Simone Comics characters introduced in 2005 DC Comics martial artists DC Comics supervillain teams Fictional families