I personally like the name "Black Lightning." I think you could get away with the character being influenced by blaxploitation movies when he was a kid and not have it be that big a thing. (is it that much stranger than how rap artists rename themselves?) Batman was influenced by Zorro, you can have BL be influenced by (what is now) the past rather DC trying to jump on a trend at the time.
I also think a great way to re-introduce him (has he been re-established in the DC52?) would be to have him head up the Outsiders as *his* team. And maybe keep Batman in the mix by having Bruce Wayne (not Batman) be their money guy. It gives Batman a different way to be a part of a super-team, gives Bruce Wayne the man an added dimension, and the Outsiders and BL can form their own identity rather than it just being "Batman's other team."
This is good news! I've been following this for a long time! I'm glad they settle things with Tony instead of waiting until he croaks. Hopefully there are plans for a Black Lightning ongoing as well as appearances in ARROW.
His name is Black Lightning. End of. Just give him a new costume (even his new52 costume was trash)
Give him a black costume, a solid black costume. Maybe some yellow. But please change the all blue and yellow costume that he is currently wearing as of the new52.
And change his lightning back to blue/white. There would be no need to make his lightning black if having an all black costume is simply embraced by creative teams. The name controversy becomes less controversy, if he is indeed wearing all black.
Last edited by Maverick; 07-26-2015 at 07:01 PM.
I don't mind keeping Cyborg as a league founder if we can retcon Black Lightning in, may actually be better because it solves the "tokenism" problem.
Black Lightning being influenced by blaxplotation movies is a nice idea.
And I would say no on anything involving Black Lightning and the Outsiders. Black Lightning should be a League Founder in a equal standing to the others, and in no way connected to the Outsiders. His own man, as he was conceived in the beginning. Considering how many "Electric Black Super-Heroes" are around, its time the original came back.
This cheered me up, hearing it. Tony Isabella's struggle to get back with Black Lightning always got a frown out of me.
And yes, I think Black Lightning could easily be the "Seventh Man" in the Justice League over Cyborg. Now I just need to reconcile it with BL heading up Outsiders with Batman, because that history is still pretty cool to me. Maybe as a post-League founding, with Batman and BL founding the unit together...
http://ohdannyboy.blogspot.com/2011/...-of-black.html
Just read this old blog post about what happened with Black Lightning. It really cleared up what happened.
How is black lightning so bad, but black panther, a name of a militant group and current hate group, is fine?