Black Lightning may be the next DC Comics character to get his own television series. Deadline today reports that a Black Lightning TV series is in the planning stages and is currently looking for a small screen home. DC’s Greg Berlanti (producer on The CW‘s Arrow, Flash, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow) is working alongside The Game and Being Mary Jane‘s Mara Brock and Salim Akil to develop the series.
Black Lightning, created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden, made his first appearance in 1977’s “Black Lightning” #1. The story follows Jefferson Pierce, a former Olympian, who was secretly born with the ability to create and manipulate electromagnetic fields. Although he had abandoned his hometown in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum after the murder of his father, Pierce returns there with his wife and daughter, taking a job as a high school principal. It is after losing one of his students to the gang violence that threatens the city that Pierce decides to take advantage of his powers. Adopting the identity Black Lightning, he becomes a costumed superhero who goes on to serve as team member of both the Outsiders and the Justice League.
Black Lightning has never before appeared in any live-action DC Comics adaptations. He has appeared in a number of animated projects, however, voiced by the likes of Levar Burton and Blair Underwood.
