List of Characters Seemingly Based On Or Influenced By Black Lightning

[SecretWarrior]

11. Brown Bomber
Name: Unknown
Profession: Unknown
Powers and Abilities: He is a powerless Caucasian, but when he screams "Black Power!," he transforms into a stereotypical African-American with superpowers similar to that of Captain Marvel. His powers only last for one hour after he says "the magic words", but it can be assumed that he can say the words more then once. When he is not "The Brown Bomber", he is an obese Caucasian male.
EDIT - Notes: Created by Dwayne McDuffie, according to internet lore, his appearance may be based on Brian Michael Bendis. The Brown Bomber was the original concept for Black Lightning.

[SecretWarrior]

12. Aqualad/Aquaman
Name: Kaldur'ahm; Jackson Hyde
Profession: Student; Professional Superhero
Powers and Abilities: Superhuman strength; Adapted to underwater environments; Can swim at superhuman speed levels; Mystical Hydrokinesis; Bio-Electric Energy Blasts; Hydro Swords That Can Shift Into a Shield and Various Weapons; Natural-Born Leader and Planner; Master Strategist; Master of Deception and Duplicity
Notes: While the Aquaman family hasn't had electricity generation associated with them, Kaldur joins a tradition of Black Electricity Users.



13. Spider-Man
Name: Miles Morales
Profession: Student
Powers and Abilities: Superhuman strength, speed and agility; Ability to cling to solid surfaces; Camouflage (invisibility); Venom strike; Venom blast; Precognitive Spider-Sense; Wrist-mounted web-shooters to shoot webbing from wrists; Bio-electric energy threads produced from fingers
Notes: While the Spider-Man family hasn't had electricity generation associated with them, Miles joins a tradition of Black Electricity Users.

[lemonpeace]

11. Brown Bomber
Name: Unknown
Profession: Unknown
Powers and Abilities: He is a powerless Caucasian, but when he screams "Black Power!," he transforms into a stereotypical African-American with superpowers similar to that of Captain Marvel. His powers only last for one hour after he says "the magic words", but it can be assumed that he can say the words more then once. When he is not "The Brown Bomber", he is an obese Caucasian male.
Notes: Created by Dwayne McDuffie, his appearance is based on Brian Michael Bendis. The Brown Bomber was the original concept for Black Lightning.

I've never heard this part before, you have a source on that? because this just looks like a generic bald white guy.

[SecretWarrior]

14. Black Power
Name: Unknown
Profession: Professional Villain
Powers and Abilities:
Notes: Black Power was the evil counterpart of Black Lightning and appears in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths.

[SecretWarrior]

15. Lightning
Name: Jennifer Pierce
Profession: Student; Adventurer
Powers and Abilities: Electric generation and manipulation; Flight
Notes: Originally she was created as Black Lightning's daughter (and she appears as his daughter in outside media), however, she has been retconned into being his cousin. See Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands.

[SecretWarrior]

I don't know any others, so if other folks do, then feel free to add to the list.

[SecretWarrior]

16. Baal Hadad from The Wicked and the Divine



17. Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2



18. Electro from Marvel's Spider-Man

[SecretWarrior]

19. Thunder Fall



20. Volt from Irredeemable

[SecretWarrior]

Now I really can't come up with any more.

Stand up comedian: White people do super powers like this--



Stand up comedian: While Black people do super powers like this--

i see. I think the connection is a bit of revisionism on the part of fans based on Bendis being a big proponent of racial diversity in comics nowadays, because I don't think Bendis was making those kinds of waves back in 2008 (nearest I can tell) when McDuffie revived the character, nor do I think he and Bendis had any bad blood for him to be taking a shot at Bendis on the page.

I've edited the original post now. Thanks for calling this out.

[Agent Z]

Thunder Fall



Volt from Irredeemable

Where is Thunderfall from?

[Agent Z]

8. Third Raikage
Name: A
Profession: Ninja; Raikage
Powers and Abilities: Master of the Black Lightning technique.
Notes: Black Lightning is a unique form of Lightning Release utilised by the Third Raikage, who passed it on to Darui alone.



9. Darui
Name: Darui
Profession: Ninja; Raikage
Powers and Abilities: Darui was once a student of the Third Raikage. During his training, Darui learned, among other things, the Raikage's unique black lightning technique.
Notes: Also appears to have been influenced by Marvel's Black Panther, since his Black Lightning takes the shape of a Black Panther.

I assumed these guys were based on Storm because of their blonde hair.

[SecretWarrior]

I assumed these guys were based on Storm because of their blonde hair.

I'm guessing they're based off Storm, Black Panther, and Black Lightning. They literally have a technique called Black Lightning. They really did their wiki reading, lol

[SecretWarrior]

Where is Thunderfall from?

He was a side character in the David Zavimbe Batwing book.

--

And these are just the Black heroes linked to Black Lightning.

There are others out there with electric powers who are linked to Storm in some way, like her son in the Next Avengers movie or Rapture from Savage Dragon.

Darla from the Shazam family is also unrelated but has Lightning powers.

[iron chimp]

Interesting posts secretwarrior.

Is there any reason black lightning inspired so many characters?

[Jim Kelly]

It seems to me there's a bunch of other characters that might not have been influenced by Black Lightning--although some might have influenced him--but which could be called fellow travellers.

The original lightning powered super-hero--well one of them (several got their powers from lightning or weather events)--is Blue Bolt created by Joe Simon. You can see the similarity in name. And that probably later inspired Jack Kirby and Stan Lee to create Black Bolt.

The Forever People have Vykin the Black, who has mastery of electricity. In the Amalgam Universe, Black Bolt and Vykin the Black are amalgamated as Vykin the Black Bolt.

You have Storm, who predates Black Lightning, yet seems to be part of this strange impulse to have electrical storms associated with black super-heroes.

The Marvel Family were all created by the magic lightning. And the first villain they faced in their own comic book was Black Adam. He looked very white back then. And he didn't return until after D.C. revived the Marvels in the 1970s. And he was still white in appearance. And for a long time after that. But in the last few decades, Black Adam has become more like the person of colour he ought to be, given his origins.

Jakeem Thunder started out as J.J. Thunder--who was much more of a black stereotype--who controls the Thunderbolt. An interesting side note is that the second Johnny Thunder--the Western hero--had a horse named Black Lightning. The original Johnny Thunder had a mixed-race son out of wedlock named Will Twotrees, codename Will Power, who had electro-magnetic powers and joined Primal Force.

There's the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents which includes electric super-heroes like Dynamo and Lightning. Before Black Lightning had his Thunder and Lightning, there was already a pair of siblings that were Thunder and Lightning in THE NEW TEEN TITANS 32 (June 1983).

There's also characters like the villainess Livewire who battled Superman. And there's electric Superman himself.

I'm sure there's even more shocking characters that might not be influenced by Black Lightning but have electrifying similarities.