The 70's were a rollicking time in the comic book sphere. After decades of relative security the big publishers saw the entire industry disappearing sooner than later despite lots of publicity. Veterans who had been at the helm since the beginning were retiring and new talents were stepping aboard what seemed to many a sinking ship.
A boy from Cleveland named Tony Isabella was one such youngster come to New York City to make good in the business he loved. At first he worked at Marvel doing what needed doing but eventually he found his way to DC and there he found a company desperate to find relevance with an audience they scarcely understood and in many cases had a loathing for. Isabella was told he had control over the project but was not in on the choice of artist Trevor Von Eden, a sixteen year-old artist which immense promise who just happened to be African-American to boot. Inspiration struck on the cover of Wonder Woman.
The name "Black Lightning" was evocative for sure and for a writer who had left behind stints on Luke Cage Hero for Hire and Black Goliath a vehicle to bring some modernity to the house Superman built. Black Lightning wasn't an alien, a somewhat deranged knight, nor even a mutant. He was a man, a black man from the depths of Suicide Slum (first created as the home of the Newsboy Legion by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon decades before) in the heart of Metropolis. This was the "other side of the tracks" where Superman didn't necessarily spend most of his time, this was a place needing heroism of a smaller kind but a kind no less potent in their daily lives.
Jefferson Pierce was an Olympic decathalete, a man of skill and training who came back home to teach in the local high school, to try to do some good. But events led to the tragic and ignoble death of one of his students and a need for a more direct approach seemed all to evident. Getting help from his mentor Peter Gambi, a tailor who lived beneath him, he created an identity with an electrical pop. He donned an Afro wig, not all that different than blonde wig worn by Black Canary, a statement and to some extent a distraction. He quit being Pierce and became Black Lightning and the criminals of Suicide Slum were about to pay the price.
Black Lightning's central enemy is Tobias Whale, a crime boss who reminds me a bit too much perhaps of the Kingpin, but who is a pretty nasty customer nonetheless. He part of the One Hundred, an uber-gang of villains I first remember coming across in the Rose and Thorn stories.
Being in Metropolis he has to tangle with Superman of course. There's no practical way a small-timer like Lightning can hang and bang with a world shaker like Superman, but Isabella finds a way for them to clash and then work together.
The original eight issues have an arc to them as Pierce finds out more about the people around him. It makes his story all the more tragic in the end, but adds fuel to his sense of mission.
Tony Isabella dedicates the first eight issues of Black Lightning to his wife Barbara and they are I guess as close to the ideal for his hero as he could get at the time. Black Lightning will only last a hand full of issues beyond this story line.
After defeating the One Hundred (or at least the Metropolis branch) Black Lightning needs a mission and finds it in trying to save some school kids from a terrorist dubbed "The Annihilist". It's pretty good story that brings out all the strengths of Black Lightning's character.
Less impressive is his clash with The Trickster, a Flash rogue moved over to give him trouble as BL tries to protect a jewel or something like. There's also a bogus Black Lightning in this story, but that part of the yarn is pretty good.
Black Lightning's book comes to a close with the eleventh issue as the great "DC Implosion" takes him off the newsstands for the time being. Denny O'Neil had stepped in to write what became the last regular issue and the changes in tone are evident.
It's still O'Neil but this time with Mike Nasser on what was to be the final issue of Black Lightning, a comic never published save in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1, but now available in beautiful full color in the first Black Lightning collection.
Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo.
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