BJB Breakdown: Black Lightning Edition - Profiling Painkiller

Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to Sign Up today.
Sign up

Devante

Active Member
Dec 28, 2018
143
117


Three years ago the CW added a new property to their group of live action comic-based properties. That show was Black Lighting. Much like other CW properties (Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, etc), the show was focused on a titular superhero, Jefferson Pierce, and dealt with the protagonist's reintroduction to the world, how it affected the world, and the myriad of ways that it affected his family dynamic. It touched on issues with secret identities and battles with mob bosses, assassins, and supervillains, all while introducing thinly-veiled examples of a variety of socio-economic issues.
The difference, however, was this time this show was told from the perspective of a black man and a black family. It's not the CW-verse show to have a black star/co-star -- we had John Diggle, we had Joe and Iris West, we had (at one point) James Olsen. But the central story wasn't told from their perspectives, nor was it told from the perspective of a man with his experiences. And while those shows may have touched on issues, Black Lighting dove into them headfirst -- whether it was regular or superhuman crime it was a vehicle to explore the very real issue of race and its impact on perception, finance, education, and civil liberties. So in that regard the show was a game changer, a black story written, produced, and directed by black people, telling the black story in all the many ways that black lives and black culture was expressed; it's something we hadn't had the opportunity to get a real look into in this genre.