Black Lightning

Greg Berlanti producer of Arrow, The Flash and Supergirl tv shows has reportedly teamed with Mara Brock Akil (creator of The Game and Being Mary Jane) and her husband Salim Akil to develop a tv series starring DC Comics character Black Lightning.

http://deadline.com/2016/09/black-lightning-dc-superhero-series-greg-berlanti-mara-brock-akil-salim-akil-1201811892/

Sounds interesting. Hope it becomes a reality.

I wonder if they will have his daughters be superheroes.

His daughters are the Superheroes Thunder and Lightning.

Thunder joined Batman's team the Outsiders.

Lightning joined the JSA.

I'm interested in this series. If CW pick it up they need to change their name to the DC Network.

Are his daughters still canon?

I suspect they'll go with a younger, childless Jefferson Pierce, though it could be interesting to do a superhero tv series about a hero who has kids.

I hope they include his daughters - I don't think we've had any superheroes who are single dads (Black Lightning is a single dad, right?) yet...

edited 1st Sep '16 10:06:02 PM by KarkatTheDalek

I'm definitely interested in this concept. It'll be interesting to see if the CW pick it up - Berlanti's involvement would seem to hint towards that being the case, but didn't they also say they weren't going to be picking up any more superhero shows for the time being? So we'll see. Either way - they'd be fools to not make it a part of the Arrowverse.

I kinda hope they do have Jefferson already have kids for the show, although I also wouldn't bet on it. We've seen plenty of the young, single rookie superhero - but a middle-aged single parent superhero is something we haven't really seen before. If they go that route, it could really give the show its own identity, distinct from the current cascade of live-action superhero stuff. I don't think we see enough decent portrayals of single fathers in media these days - to say nothing of lead superheroes of color.

http://comicbook.com/2016/09/08/black-lightning-tv-series-lands-at-fox/

There should be an episode where he fights Black Vulcan.

And another episode where he teams up with Soul Power.

And another episode where Static shows up.

Sounds like Nightshade.

There haven't been any serious attempts to adapt the whole "superhero family" concept, even though it's such an interesting concept. Hope this does right by the characters.

I suppose that depends on if you count The Incredibles as a serious attempt or not, being a comedy.

But yeah, it is something that I'd like to see explored more.

This has potential. Just keep Arrow characters away from it.

Actually most people consider some Arrow characters to be better written when on other shows.

Incredibles was a good example (though in the end it's more of a spy movie with superheroes than a superhero movie), but at the same time it was intended to be more of a one off.

"What if a superhero went through a midlife crisis?" and all. The oddness of it was part of the premise.

edited 15th Sep '16 12:26:22 AM by KnownUnknown

I thought I'd read a synopsis mentioning a daughter.

EDIT: Yeah. It was Variety.

edited 16th Sep '16 7:57:53 AM by comicwriter

Sounds cool. Usually in these things we're always getting the young, idealistic rookie hero, complete with overdramatic origin story. If this is indeed the story of an older, more weathered hero who finds himself forced to return to the ol' tights, then that sounds like a much more interesting and unusual thing to see in a superhero TV series.

It is an interesting topic left unexplored in the C Wverse so far. I didn't really notice how young everyone is until someone mentioned it.

There's Earth 3 Jay Garrick, but he's still active.

Heh. Actually, it could be cool if they made Black Lightning a single dad, and made one of his kids Static (weren't Static and his sister's mom dead?). Still, they might run into ownership problems if they did that, as DC does not in fact own Static. As it is, one reason I'm glad they're doing this show is that it'll be good for Tony Isabella, who created the character. He gets royalties whenever Black Lightning is used (which is actually why Hanna-Barbera made their character Black Vulcan rather than Black Lightning) and he's had financial difficulties in recent years.

Static's mom is killed in a gang war. I'm against making Virgil Hawkins Jefferson Pierce's son because it would make his power hereditary instead of the Big Bang.

I think DC does own Static.

edited 19th Sep '16 1:42:46 AM by flameboy21th

They're bringing back Static and others soon, so yeah.

I have to note that almost all of the healthiest families in the Berlantiverse either have black people (the Wests, Curtis & Paul) or migrants (the Danvers) in them.

edited 19th Sep '16 3:10:55 AM by Julep

Papa Danvers was black ops and got himself killed and/or imprisoned for like 10 years.

To be honest that stereotype has kind of been run through the mill on television, particularly comic book shows. It'd be irritating if I didn't like those shows.

edited 23rd Sep '16 6:42:45 PM by Soble

Static's mom is killed in a gang war.

Only in the cartoon. She was alive in the comics

Fox dropped the series and it's moving to CW.

I hope they still intend to keep him middle-aged and with kids.