Line #10 Comicbook/BlackLightning


1	[[quoteright:250:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/black_lighting_9577.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:250:[[Music/TheRamones Gimme gimme shock treatment.]]]]
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4	->''"Justice, like lightning, should ever appear\
5	to some men hope, and to other men, fear!"''
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7	Black Lightning was Creator/DCComics' first black superhero with his own series. He was created by Tony Isabella with Trevor von Eeden and debuted in ''Black Lightning'' #1 (April, 1977), although his series only lasted a year before falling victim to a mass cutback that resulted in twenty DC titles being cancelled. He continued to make guest appearances, was a founding member of ''ComicBook/{{The Outsiders\|DCComics}}'', and served with the ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica. He got another series of his own in the [[TheNineties 1990s]], again written by Tony Isabella (with Eddy Newell doing the art), which lasted slightly longer than the first one had. In 2009, Jen Van Meter wrote a modern retelling of the 70s series called ''Black Lightning: Year One.'' Isabella returned again in 2018 to write the miniseries ''Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands.''
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9	Black Lightning is Jefferson Pierce, who grew up in a slum in Metropolis, made good as an athlete, and returned to his old neighborhood to teach at the high school and help the next generation make something of themselves. (Some stories replace Metropolis with Cleveland, OH, the home of both Isabella and the creators of Metropolis, Siegel and Shuster). Finding the neighborhood in the grip of organized crime, he became a costumed superhero equipped with a belt that gave him [[ShockAndAwe electrical powers]]. Later in his career, as so often happens, he developed the ability to manifest the powers without the belt.
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11	Black Lightning did not appear in any other media for many years, with DC on several occasions choosing to create a new character where they might have used him (e.g. Black Vulcan in ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' and Soul Power in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock''). This changed when the Outsiders appeared in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold''. Since then he has also appeared in the animated movies ''WesternAnimation/SupermanBatmanPublicEnemies'' and ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueCrisisOnTwoEarths'', the ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'' video game, in a series of shorts for the WesternAnimation/DCNation block (alongside his two daughters, Thunder and Lightning), and in the second season of ''[[WesternAnimation/YoungJustice2010 Young Justice]]'' as a member of the Justice League who eventually offers to become the mentor of ComicBook/{{Static}} (who was ironically replacing Black Vulcan), and in the third season, titled ''Outsiders'', would become an AscendedExtra as a member of the titular Outsiders, going from a minor character to part of the main cast.
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13	A [[Series/BlackLightning2018 live-action television series]] featuring the character began airing on Creator/TheCW in 2018, where he's played by Creator/CressWilliams. Black Lightning appears as a premiere skin for [[Franchise/MortalKombat Raiden]] in ''[[VideoGame/Injustice2 Injustice 2]]''.
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15	----
16	!!''Black Lightning'' provides examples of:
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18	* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Tobias Whale, a four-hundred pound crime boss who maintains a death grip on Suicide Slum, is DC's answer to Marvel's Kingpin, a four-hundred pound crime boss who maintains a death grip on Hell's Kitchen.
19	* {{Archenemy}}: Tobias Whale.
20	* BadassTeacher: A school teacher, Olympic athlete and overall badass with or without his powers.
21	* BewareTheNiceOnes: You won't find many people [[NiceGuy nicer than him]] in the DCU. Piss him off, however, and you'll find out exactly why getting on the bad side of one of the most powerful metahumans on earth is a bad idea. For some reason, Franchise/{{Batman}} regularly does just this.
22	* ClothesMakeTheSuperman: Black Lightning's powers were initially a property of his costume. More recent stories just make him a metahuman.
23	* ColorCharacter: ''Black'' Lightning. Officially the name comes from the fact that the lightning he generates is literally black. Hinted to be somehow related to the Black Lanterns, since he got powered up after ''ComicBook/BlackestNight''.
24	* ElectricBlackGuy: He [[TropeMaker started the trend]] of black men with electrical powers.
25	* MirrorCharacter: Black Lightning and the Tattooed Man have a bit of a row in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', having similar origins, being family men born in the ghetto yet ending up being Justice League and AntiVillain respectively. It ends with a HeroicSacrifice.
26	* KnockingTheKnockoff: The tenth issue of the original series had Black Lightning confront a clueless impersonator of himself named Jocko who was hired by a woman named Barbara Hanna and pointedly telling Jocko that he has the potential to be a genuine hero once he stops copying Black Lightning, which was a blatant dig at Creator/HannaBarbera creating Black Vulcan as an {{Expy}} on ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}'' to get around licensing issues with Black Lightning's creator Tony Isabella. Isabella attributed DC Comics letting the story through to not noticing what he was doing.
27	* TheOneWhoMadeItOut: Jefferson Pierce got out of the ghetto and then came back to help the next generation.
28	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Used for horror at the end of his book in ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', where he is [[spoiler: taken by the Anti-Life equation and shouts the praise of ignorance and Darkseid]].
29	* RememberTheNewGuy: He has recently acquired two never-before-mentioned teenage daughters. It's worse: one daughter was introduced in a semi-believable way, and at the time you could see him being a real father to her because he was retired at the time. But years later ''another'' daughter surfaces out of nowhere.
30	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Real-world problems have a tendency to show in Jefferson's solo books, from the 1970s series dealing with a gang in an impoverished part of the city to ''Cold Dead Hands'' involving TheNewTens concerns about gun violence and the sometimes-troubled relationship between the police and the public.
31	* ShockAndAwe: The basis of his powers.
32	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: He started out on the cynicism side as an AntiHero, but evolved into TheCape decades later.
33	* StarterVillain: Joey Toledo, an agent of the 100 who pushes drugs at the hogh school Jefferson Pierce works at. He lasts all of two issues before getting killed.
34	* StealthHiBye: In his 1990s series, Black Lightning demonstrates that he acquired this trick from Franchise/{{Batman}}.
35	* SuperPowerClothier: Peter Gambi was introduced in ''BlackLightning #1'' in 1971, a former mob hit-man he reformed and became a tailor working out of Metropolis' Suicide Slum and he designed Jefferson Pierce / Black Lightning's super suit and force field belt. [[spoiler:He is the person responsible for Jefferson's father's death, and he reformed due to the guilt]] his brother Paul who creates super costumes and accessories for villains had be previously introduced in ''ComicBook/TheFlash'' in 1963.
36	* TechnicalPacifist: BL retired from superheroing for awhile when an innocent bystander was killed as he was stopping a villain. He also [[ThouShaltNotKill swiftly objected to Outsiders teammate Katana's willingness to kill.]]
37	* TakeThat: ''Cold Dead Hands'' contains a number of these directed at the NRA.
38	* UpbringingMakesTheHero: Jefferson Pierce's strong moral foundation and community spirit are a big part of his character.

Context Comicbook / BlackLightning