Dark Stars: Black Lightning
I’ve said before that DC is woefully non-brutha-friendly, but with the help of Tony Isabella, they came correct with his creation of DC’s first Black superhero — Black Lightning.
Jefferson Pierce, (a.k.a. Black Lightning), is an accomplished olympic athlete, scholar, and teacher. Burdened by the death of a student, Pierce sets out to bring down the 100’s — a crime syndicate operating in Metropolis. Disguised as Black Lightning, Pierce delves out justice and lets every cat on the street know that lightning can strike twice!
Tony Isabella was right on time with his writing on Black Lightning, delivering a solid vibe that didn’t jive 100% with the normal blaxploitation hustle & flow of the 70’s. Pierce is educated, but fronts with a street demeanor so that his enemies can’t get down with his true identity. He works in the streets, but, he’s not of the streets.
There is some legitimacy to the format behind Black Lightning that I can get down with on a personal level — sometimes you have to rock the mask in order to deal with the man. Just as true today as it was back then. Isabella didn’t choke you on the notion, however, his awareness is evident. There are 13 issues to this run of Black Lightning, and you better believe I’ll play it like Pokemon and catch ‘em all!!!
April 12th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
A couple weeks ago I stumbled across issue 2 of Black Lightning at a thrift store. I thought it was a great read. Mr. Pierce effectively used his body and brains to ‘Batman himself up’, but the character is much cooler than simply being a black Batman. And his heartfelt connection to people he is helping gives the story a different grounding than Batman’s generalized war on criminals. Great stuff. If I see more issues I intend to snatch them up.
April 12th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Jeff, Thanks for stoppin’ through, bruh. I enjoyed this first issue of BL (and I’m actually getting all 13 issues to add to the Dark Stars collection I’m building. They are all worth havin’!
April 12th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Rock the Mask to get deal with the man….. definitely cool
Rock the Mask with an Afro attachment ……. not so much!
That being said, I still love the character, despite his initial hokey looking costume….. not that his current one is that much better. Someone needs to do a bit of a costume intervention for him!
April 13th, 2007 at 5:42 am
I’ve been lurking on this blog for a bit , but I just have to post since you dedicated a post to Black Lightning.
Did you peep the early 90’s version of the comic that Isabella did with Eddy Newell? It’s worth browsing for. Sadly, forces behind the scenes at DC drove Isabella off the book. Eddy Newell’s art work is tight even in pencil form. I have the whole 90’s run and I plan to get that original one, too. There’s a Wizard interview with Isabella that pretty much sums up what happened with all of it, including the what would’ve been DC’s first black character if Isabella hadn’t shown up:
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/wizard/003717774.cfm
Anyways, keep up the good work on this Darkstars series and just the whole joint in general.!
April 13th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
PrimeOp, I’m not familiar with that one, but, I’ll get down with it. Thanks for the recommendation, bruh!
April 14th, 2007 at 10:56 am
You should also check out BL in the classic Outsiders series (2 of them) that ran from 1983 to 1988. Interesting stories filled with gorgeous art by Jim Aparo.