Black Lightning

Black Lightning (Jefferson Michael Pierce) is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character, created by writer Jenny Blake Isabella with artist Trevor Von Eeden, first appeared in Black Lightning #1 (April 1977), during the Bronze Age of Comic Books. Although his precise origin story has varied over the years, he is generally depicted as a metahuman superhero of Metropolis who uses the ability to generate and control electricity to defend his community – and the world – as Black Lightning. Although not the first black superhero to be featured in DC Comics stories, Black Lightning was DC's first African-American superhero to headline his own series. In his earliest stories, Black Lightning was depicted as a schoolteacher from the crime-ridden Suicide Slum area of Metropolis who acquires electrical superpowers from a technologically advanced power belt that he put to use to clean up crime in his neighborhood. Over time, Pierce establishes himself as a successful superhero in the DC Universe, and later stories depict him as having "internalized" the belt's powers as a result of his latent metagene. Later retellings of Black Lightning's origins simplified his story by depicting him as a metahuman with the inborn ability to manipulate and generate electricity. The character later went on to father two superhero daughters, Thunder and Lightning, and as a founding member and the leader of the Outsiders superhero team. DC originally commissioned Isabella to create its first black character following on from Isabella's successful work for Marvel Comics with Luke Cage. However, only 11 issues of the series were published before DC ran into financial trouble in 1978 which led them to cut back the majority of their titles. The character went on instead to be featured prominently in books like Justice League of America...