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JUSTICE, LIKE LIGHTNING.
. . . .........
Black Lightning
Strikes
(Part One)
It's one
of the anomalies of serial adventure fiction (i.e., "mainstream super-hero
comics"): even though continuing characters are implicitly designed to
be equally "do"-able for any writer assigned to chronicle their exploits...
occasionally: one comes along who -- for one reason or another -- only
finds his (or her) true "voice" while being governed by one particular
scribe, and none other.
Steve Gerber's HOWARD THE DUCK is probably the best known example of this
phenomenon, of course: a character conceptualization so irretrievably
"wed" to his creator's own will and worldview, all other interpretations
since have seemed as awkward and awful as Rosanne Barr shrilling her way
through "The Star-Spangled Banner." 
Howard
Chaykin's AMERICAN FLAGG! is yet another instance, of course; as is Neil
Gaiman's SANDMAN.
Add Tony Isabella's BLACK LIGHTNING to that "short list."
Black Lightning was, in reality, inner-city Metropolis high school teacher
(and ex-Olympian decathlon star) "Jefferson Pierce" -- a man who (as the telling
of the tale begins, in the eponymous first issue) has no more innate a desire
to ponce about the 'hood in his Underoos than would, say, your aged and arthritic
Uncle Morrie. (Admittedly, I'm making certain baseline assumptions about
your family which may not hold up in a court of law, push comes to shove).
In any event: after giving one of the local pushers
a good, old- fashioned pimp-slapping for attempting to open up a "franchise"
on the school grounds proper, Mr. Pierce elicits the manifestly unwanted
attentions of one of those pesky super-secret, tentacles-into-everything Underworld
Empire-type organizations which DC Comics, in particular, loves the way some
people love butter.
Said criminal organization -- known, hereafter, as "The 100" -- decides to
send a few of their more accomplished leg-breakers (led by the decidedly unsavory
"Joey Toledo") over to the school for a little tete-a-tete with Mr. Pierce
[Note, if you will, what a well-dressed
lot they are, too. These guys aren't from "The 100"; they're working for
the Fortune 500!].
However: the combined pugilistic might of Our Hero and one of his students -- the
brash and brassy basketball whiz "Earl Clifford" -- sends the evil entrepreneurs
yowling back to lair, tails tucked between their legs. This pleases
their erstwhile employer -- the albino gargantua known as "Tobias Whale"
-- not one little bit.
(In actuality, very little "pleases" the brontosaurian
Mr. Whale, who -- it should be noted -- has to purchase all of his suits "off
the rack" over at the local Big, Ugly Fat Guy's clothing outlet. I'm just
sayin', is all.)
Lovingly admonishing his men to Work Smarter, Not Harder by threatening to have them and anyone who looks like them mauled and eaten by large rats, Tobias sends Toledo and Company out to try, try again... this time, by "making an example" of the basketball player, sans teacher.
The gunsels
thoroughly intend to do nothing more than leave Mr. Clifford with
nothing more than a fractured tibia or two... but: one thing
leads to another, and the would-be future Moses Malone gets slam- dunked
one time too many [see picture, below].
What little
remains of him is left behind in the high school gymnasium, there to be
duly discovered by a stunned and horrified Jefferson Pierce.
Sick with grief, a reeling Jeff seeks out the counsel of his closest friend: neighborhood tailor (and surrogate father figure) "Peter Gambi." The genial geriatric gently lays out the facts of life for his friend: "the 100" have -- in the years since Jeff went away to take the Olympiad by storm -- pretty much assumed Complete and Total Control over every aspect of life in Metropolis worth the effort... up to and including the city's own vaunted police department.
(Which -- when you get right down to it -- doesn't say one whole heck of a lot for hometown boy Superman's overall effectiveness, does it? You don't see Batman putting up with this sort of nonsense, over Gotham City way, is all I'm sayin'.)
(The preceding editorial aside has been brought to you courtesy of the "Batman
For El Presidente For Life" Committee; Cheeks the Toy Wonder, Treasurer.)
Peter Gambi then shows Jeff a li'l something he's been working on, in his spare time: a nifty, lightning-motif'd set of longjohns, and a special belt apparatus which -- when activated -- enabled Jeff to utilize an array of electro-magnetic abilities. (The good Mr. Gambi, apparently, had been taking mail correspondence courses in Advanced Comic Book Pseudo-Science on the sly.)
Thus armed and loaded for big city bear, Jefferson Pierce -- now (self-)christened "Black Lightning," in reference to a poem he'd penned in his youth ("Justice, like Lightning/Should ever appear/To some men, Hope/And other men, Fear") -- went out to whittle the big, bad "1000" down to a more manageable numeric.
(One intriguing
sub-plot, introduced early on -- and, sadly, under-utilized -- was the
notion that Black Lightning's one-man jihad versus "the 100" actually
served the long-range machinations of [and was even covertly encouraged
by] long-time Batman nemesis "Ra's al Guhl." This astonishing
revelation -- as offered by no less informed a source than the master villain's
own daughter, "Talia" -- was Jefferson Pierce's
first rude introduction to one of the basal realities of the super-hero
trade: "you get promoted from Pawn to Knight... and some King,
somewhere, is gonna find a way to work that to his advantage."
Of course,
yet another cardinal rule of the saviors-in-spandex game is this:
"you keep runnin' around town in your undies, long enough... and, sure
as shootin': some other similarly deluded nutjob is gonna
wanna wrassle, somewhere down the line."
That much being granted, however: I daresay even the normally valorous
Mr. Pierce would have opted for the opponent with whom he eventually ended up,
when the time came to honor that particular super-hero tradition [See cover, below]
Black Lightning
had become somewhat obsessed, by this juncture, with the notion that "the
100's" aforementioned infiltration and corruption of various of Metropolis'
public institutions -- its police force; its print and broadcast news services;
etc. -- had extended, you see, to include one James "Mr. Action" Olsen
(a.k.a. "Superman's Pal").
A series of not-terribly-friendly confrontations between the two men had culminated,
finally, with Lightning standing over the body of an unconscious Jimmy; all
the more unfortunate for Our Hero, then, that the legendary Man of Steel chose
that particularly inopportune moment to take it upon himself to check
out what all of this "Black Lightning" folderol was all about, anyway.
Given the incredible disparity between their respective power levels, Lightning
didn't give too terrible an accounting for himself, in the course of
the resultant melee (i.e. he was still breathing, by the
time it ended, and ambulatory).
The two
heroes even managed to patch things up long enough to join forces against
a common foeman (the radioactive "Cyclotronic Man." Hey: I
didn't name him.), by the time all the shouting and hoopla was over
and done with.
In point
of fact: many of the most interesting (and pivotal) Black Lightning
stories in the canon have dealt with the character's interactions with
various and sundry members of the DC Universe. It is this aspect
of the Lightning chronicles we'll be examing more closely, on the following
page.
Black Lightning
Black Lightning: PAGE TWO
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