List of Characters Seemingly Based On Or Influenced By Black Lightning

[SecretWarrior]

Interesting posts secretwarrior.

Is there any reason black lightning inspired so many characters?

I think there are a number of reasons--

1. Rights Issues: Black Vulcan; Juice; Soul Power/Sparky

2. Public Consciousness: Black Vulcan is the first Black superhero a lot of Boomers saw, which later influenced their work. With regards to the anime/manga characters, the creators likely looked up black superheroes, though the idea of a Lightning Ninja was hinted at way before these characters showed up... Maybe it was a generic idea until they caught on to the commonality, which generated ideas for real characters. Naruto is one of the first big anime Ive seen go out of their way to show black characters, even though there are tons of Black anime fans.

3. Running Gag: At some point someone noticed, and like Hollywood's Wilhelm scream it has become a running gag. See Volt. Now we're seeing white electric heroes race bent into black ones to keep the gag going. Running gag characters are also likely influenced by Storm.

[Side note: There are also lots of Black speedsters who started off as parody characters. I guess someone thought the Fastest Man Alive title should be a black guy or maybe it's a comment on black celebrity athletes or both. Keep an eye out for a trend in Black mer-people with Disney's racebending of Ariel in The Little Mermaid.]

4. Design/Homage: Static

5. Possibly Accidental: Miles Morale's sting may not have originally been electric-based, but artists like Sara Pichelli used abstract bolt imagery to convey the idea of stinging pain. Somewhere along the way, someone saw the bolts and thought "electric." Now it is, as indicated by the Spider-verse film. Or maybe this was Bendis's intention all along, since his Miles could break out of ropes with some sort of energy blast. Aqualad's electric abilities were influenced by electric eels, so he may not have been intentional... The blond hair reminiscent of Storm's white hair may mean the creators saw the connection or it may mean they wanted to give his face an eye-catching gimmick.

[Güicho]

Did anyone mention Isabella's actual meta commentary character he snuck into the Black Lightning comics, on this. - https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post1228893
https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post4407437

Similarly with the Hanna Barbera Super Friends rights to Black Lightning / Vulcan situation.
I often see Hanna Barbera are the ones vilified and accused of ripping off/stealing the character and just changing the name.
HB had already licensed DC characters for their cartoon.
They unlike DC at the time, wanted to diversify what was essentially the Justice League, to better represent their audience.

As far as diversity Black Lightning was pretty much all DC had, the rest HB had to create themselves on the fly.
Hanna Barbera was ready to use Black Lightning, and pay DC to use him like any other DC character, which they did.
Then they were told, they had to pay extra to Tony Isabella who owned royalties on the character use.
HB like all the other characters they licenced had already payed to use him. That "extra" to Isabella should have come from DC's cut of what HB payed.
But it's DC who was unwilling to pay Isabella, so they told HB to just reinvent and call him something else, so DC did not have to pay Isabella.

All this was incredibly parodied by Isabella himself in the story "The Other Black Lightning"

Where Barbara Hanna and her "Circus" hire a guy to be the Other Black Lightning.



In the end, Jefferson Pierce (through the words of Tony Isabella) is the bigger man, doesn't blame him(the character), and instead embraces the "new" hero.

[SecretWarrior]

Did anyone mention Isabella's actual meta commentary character on this. - https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post1228893

Thanks for sharing, I forgot about this.

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.

At some point, after acquiring the IP, DC considered making Billy Batson Black and calling him Captain Thunder.



With this one, I think someone was looking for a way to diversify the DC universe. I read somewhere that DC later toyed with the idea of officially linking Black Vulcan to the Marvel family.

[iron chimp]

I think there are a number of reasons--

1. Rights Issues: Black Vulcan; Juice; Soul Power/Sparky

2. Public Consciousness: Black Vulcan is the first Black superhero a lot of Boomers saw, which later influenced their work. With regards to the anime/manga characters, the creators likely looked up black superheroes, though the idea of a Lightning Ninja was hinted at way before these characters showed up... Maybe it was a generic idea until they caught on to the commonality, which generated ideas for real characters. Naruto is one of the first big anime Ive seen go out of their way to show black characters, even though there are tons of Black anime fans.

3. Running Gag: At some point someone noticed, and like Hollywood's Wilhelm scream it has become a running gag. See Volt. Now we're seeing white electric heroes race bent into black ones to keep the gag going. Running gag characters are also likely influenced by Storm.

[Side note: There are also lots of Black speedsters who started off as parody characters. I guess someone thought the Fastest Man Alive title should be a black guy or maybe it's a comment on black celebrity athletes or both. Keep an eye out for a trend in Black mer-people with Disney's racebending of Ariel in The Little Mermaid.]

4. Design/Homage: Static

5. Possibly Accidental: Miles Morale's sting may not have originally been electric-based, but artists like Sara Pichelli used abstract bolt imagery to convey the idea of stinging pain. Somewhere along the way, someone saw the bolts and thought "electric." Now it is, as indicated by the Spider-verse film. Or maybe this was Bendis's intention all along, since his Miles could break out of ropes with some sort of energy blast. Aqualad's electric abilities were influenced by electric eels, so he may not have been intentional... The blond hair reminiscent of Storm's white hair may mean the creators saw the connection or it may mean they wanted to give his face an eye-catching gimmick.

Very educational. Thank you.

All of that would make a good meta comic story arc in itself.

[DragonKent17]

Doesn't Coldcast of The Elite, villains of Superman counts. Because he have Electromagnetism abilities.

Add Wallace West II to the list because like most speedsters in the Flash family have Electromagnetism abilities and Darla Dudley of the Marvel / Shazam Family also counts.

[iron chimp]

Does Tempest / Joshua Clay count?

[skyvolt2000]

5. Possibly Accidental: Miles Morale's sting may not have originally been electric-based, but artists like Sara Pichelli used abstract bolt imagery to convey the idea of stinging pain. Somewhere along the way, someone saw the bolts and thought "electric." Now it is, as indicated by the Spider-verse film. Or maybe this was Bendis's intention all along, since his Miles could break out of ropes with some sort of energy blast. Aqualad's electric abilities were influenced by electric eels, so he may not have been intentional... The blond hair reminiscent of Storm's white hair may mean the creators saw the connection or it may mean they wanted to give his face an eye-catching gimmick.

TO be fair there are spiders that can generate electricity just not the way Miles does. They just do it via their webs.