Black Lightning (Comics Series)

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Black Lightning (dt. Black Lightning ) is the title of a series of comic publications that the US publisher DC Comics publishes since 1977.

The Black Lightning Comics are genre-wise in the area of ​​the so-called "superhero comics", a special American version of science fiction comics.

Release dates

The concept for the Black Lightning Comics goes back to the author Tony Isabella , who developed the main character and the plot scenario for the series in the mid-1970s. The original visual designs for the characters and locations used were developed by the draftsman Trevor Von Eeden , who was entrusted with the artistic design of the first series under the Black Lightning title.

The first ongoing Black Lightning series was finally launched in 1977. However, the series, whose first issue appeared in April 1977, only reached eleven issues - of which Isabella wrote ten and Dennis O'Neil wrote the last - before it was discontinued in 1978.

In the 1980s, Black Lightning was also one of the main characters in the team series Batman and the Outsiders , in which the author Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo from 1983 to 1988 in over forty editions of Black Lightning's joint adventures with the "dark avenger" Batman , the shapeshifter Metamorpho , the samurai warrior Katana and a few other characters.

A second Black Lightning series was released by DC between 1995 and 1996. That series reached thirteen editions, of which Isabella wrote the first eight. Eddie Newell was employed as a draftsman. A miniseries planned for 2007 - Black Lightning: Year One - by the writer Jen Van Meter has been postponed to 2008, the publication is still pending.

action

The plot of the Black Lightning stories begins with the introduction of Jefferson Pierce, an idealistic former Olympic decathlete , who returns to the Suicide Slum, an evil district of the dazzling east coast metropolis Metropolis . He had once spent his youth there. Pierce tries as a high school teacher there to help young people develop a better life. So he wants to give something back, who was able to escape the slum through his athletic talent.

While trying to protect some of his wards from contact with the criminal milieu, Pierce comes into conflict with the criminal syndicate of the "100" in volume 1 of the first Black Lightning series: In order to be able to do something against this powerful mob, asks he asked his friend, the tailor Peter Gambi, to provide him with equipment. Gambi is also a brilliant inventor and engineer. The equipment should enable him to beat the "100": Gambi finally comes up with a special belt that gives Pierce electromagnetic "superpowers" (he can now surround his body with an electromagnetic field as a protective cover and "fire" electromagnetic shocks from his hands) ). To hide his identity, Pierce is also given a dynamic blue, black and yellow suit, a mask and an Afro wig.

As a self-proclaimed protector of the poor and the weak, Pierce begins a "career" as a superhero: First, he smashes the "100" in the first issues of his series. Later he becomes a member of the "superhero teams" of the Outsiders and the Justice League , discovers that the forces of his special belt have "passed" into his body and he no longer needs the belt to be able to control the electromagnetic energy his outdated Afro wig off. He later becomes Minister of Education in the government of US President Lex Luthor and also raises his daughter Anissa.

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