Black Lightning
Unlike many of the CW’s superhero shows set in its shared Arrowverse which have spent a fair amount of time following their titular heroes in the awkward, exploratory phases of their lives as vigilantes, Black Lighting and its take on Jefferson Pierce hit the ground running with a self-assured, distinct voice that was all its own. Black Lightning used the curious distance the CW kept between it and its other DC cape shows to its advantage—committing ample time to giving nuance and complexity to the inner lives of its characters, and building out a wider world outside of Freeland, the city where its heroes were based. Rather than treating race, police brutality, and the criminal justice system as things only meant to be touched upon in Very Special Episodes, Black Lightning treated those topics as important elements of reality necessary to tell a compelling story about people who dress up to fight crime.
