Why doesnt black lightning have a series?

[SmokeMonster]

As someone who knows nothing about Black Lightning, can someone sell me on him?

[ed2962]

To answer the OP's question: It's because Cyborg is getting a series, and "there can only be one."

I dunno...I'm not sure if that's fair to DC. When the nu52 started, the had Mr Terrific, Static, Batwing, and Voodoo. Now, those comics weren't all great, but it's not like they're afraid to publish more than PoC title at a time.

[CagedLeo730]

It would help if people read books that he was featured in. The DC Universe Presents book had an arc featuring Black Lightning and Blue Devil. It's issues didn't have a spike in sales.

[Nipower888]

As far as the rights, it's complicated. As far as the quality, well... why didn't you read the '90s Isabella/Newell series? Some of the best art going around, and meaningful stories. If that series-- which is as good as comes-- didn't suceed, why expect a new one? (Unless you want to subvert creator rights... which I don't think you do, but that's what we're talking about.)

I was born in the 90s so I couldn't read the series.

[Sandy Hausler]

Two reasons come to mind. One is that whatever the contractual situation is with his creator Tony Isabella might lead to DC not making 100% of the profit from a Black Lightning book, so they would rather focus on characters where they have full ownership.

It's also possible that DC has not been given indication that there is sufficient demand for a book about Black Lightning to be financially feasible, relative to other projects they can put their limited resources towards.

I don't think Tony Isabella has any rights to the character. I think your second answer is the correct one. Of course, this has little to do with the quality of Black Lightening as a character. Very few characters created outside of the 1960s (especially the early 1960s) can carry a solo book these days.

Sandy Hausler

[Güicho]

I don't think Tony Isabella has any rights to the character.

http://tonyisabella.blogspot.com/201...ing-facts.html

Blog post is more about sharing "creator" rights with artist Trevor Von Eeden , but he confirms that DC does(is supposed) to pay him royalties when the character is used.

Meaning he was not a work-for-hire creation.

Black Lightning was not a work-for-hire creation. I entered into
a partnership agreement with DC Comics to produce comic books with
my creation. It was supposed to be an equal partnership with both
sides making all decisions jointly to our mutual benefit. As part
of this deal, I was to receive 20% of all monies earned from Black
Lightning except for the profits from the traditional comic books
we would be creating. I would receive my cut from merchandising,
from other media use, and, though it was a very small part of the
industry at the time, any hardcover, paperback, or trade paperback
reprints of material featuring Black Lightning. This was a simple
straightforward agreement which DC immediately violated.

Not just back issue reprint royalties, but anything new done with the character(whether he is involved with it or not).
So yes as a non-work-for hire-creation he has "rights" to the character.

As far as the blog and the Trevor Von Eeden -who "created" what- situation, I'm all for artist getting created by credit too, I have no idea who suggested what, I wasn't there.
But I agree with Isabella, if DC is going to give Von Eeden credit (which is great), they should take it out of THEIR cut, not Isabella's.

[Güicho]

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.

[Arnoldoaad]

As someone who knows nothing about Black Lightning, can someone sell me on him?

He is pretty much the first black modern DC hero
Im pretty sure he came before Marvel´s Black Panther too

he was a professor, one of the founders of the Outsiders and then he was secretary of something working on lex luthor´s cabinet when he was president.
personally
I always thought that his own daughters were way more interesting than him, on top of being his most interesting aspect.







funny enough, googling ¨black lighting daughters¨ comes up with a picture of Obama and his daughters

[Ropeburn]

I agree, he is a cool character. Would love to see him in a new Outsiders book at least.

Yes! Jeff was great in the Outsiders series when Barr wrote him. From gang fights to dimensional/space peril, BL was pretty darn awesome.

[J. D. Guy]

Also his stint with Blue Devil was an odd pairing?

It was fun for me, but they didn't do as much with it as I would have liked, partly due to an overall lack of time. Blue Devil was more the protag of their stories, too.

[skyvolt2000]

It would help if people read books that he was featured in. The DC Universe Presents book had an arc featuring Black Lightning and Blue Devil. It's issues didn't have a spike in sales.

Because nobody knew what to expect after seeing how bad others came out in the new 52.

Also did every person have an opportunity to buy or even read the book?

Remember not every book is sold in a comic book store-no matter how well reviewed, sells out or whatever. I have seen this happen with Archie books-all those good reviews and folks constantly asking for Afterlife, Sabrina and others-some stores won't sell them.

Reorders? There are books that can't be reordered for some reason and I saw that happen to Xombi, Titans & Supergirl.

People talking about the book? Hard to get support for your book when no one recommends it. I have seen store owners recommend female lead books and not ONE recommendation was a female lead DC book or Storm. And this was before Spider-Gwen & Lady Thor.

So you got a ton of other factors that can make a book struggle before you even open it.

I dunno...I'm not sure if that's fair to DC. When the nu52 started, the had Mr Terrific, Static, Batwing, and Voodoo. Now, those comics weren't all great, but it's not like they're afraid to publish more than PoC title at a time.

It is fair to DC because we didn't see another solo minority lead book after that. You can't use that excuse when your competition is not. Even if there were just minis-IDW, Dynamite, Valiant & Marvel have had more than one book with a POC in the lead.

You can't keep tossing out one because you are scared. And that has been Dc's issue for the last few years. I don't need a BL solo series. 2 issue shot will be fine.

[mace11]

Black Lightning (Character) - Comic Vine
http://www.comicvine.com/black-lightning/4005-10994/


Black Lightning - DC Comics Database
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Lightning


Black Lightning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Lightning

[Claude]

Let's address this head-on. I think one of the reasons DC might be less willing to put a "Black Lightning" title on the stands is because he's a black hero with "Black" in his superhero name.

Now, a "Black Panther" is an actual thing. Someone sees that title and costume and they think "Oh, that guy named himself after a Black Panther."

"Cyborg" is called "Cyborg" because he's a Cyborg. And John Stewart is just straight-up "Green Lantern".

If Sam Wilson was called "Black Falcon", I think Marvel would have thought twice about pushing him so much.


Jefferson Pierce's superhero name is "Black Lightning" because he's a black guy with lightning powers. And there's potentially a lot of bad PR involved with launching a series like that.

[colonyofcells]

Maybe shorten Black Lightning to Lightning.

[bretmaverick2]

Here is my take on this - Tony created the Jefferson Pierce / Black Lightning persona, not as a work for hire, but created the character himself and then offered it to DC. Trevor is not a co-creator at all, just the artist for the first series.
There is personal animosity between Tony and DC higher ups due to Tony's pushing on his rights for Black Lightning. That, I believe, is one reason that BL doesn't get a shot at a new series.

Now to the character. Jeff was intro'd ORIGINALLY as a former Olympic athlete, now a high school teacher. Jeff was divorced (NO kids) but still in love with former wife Lynn. His main focus was protecting his area of Metropolis known as Suicide Slum.

All of the best material featuring Black Lightning was definately the material written by Tony. Period. After that, Mike Barr did a fine job with the character in the various incarnations of the Outsiders that he wrote. But I will note that Tony has often said that Mike had talked to Tony about Jeff Pierce / Black Lightning because Mike wanted to keep the character true to Tony's intentions.

Black Lightning deserves a new series with a top artist and written by either Tony Isabella or Mike Barr.