Well, it's official. DC's Black Lightning is coming to TV during the 2017-2018 television season. Now, of course, the question we all want answered is if whether or not this means that Jefferson Pierce and his crime-fighting alter ego will show up on other DC shows.
The news of a series pickup for Black Lightning came down today, according to Deadline. The superhero drama, which comes to us from superhero show mega producer Greg Berlanti, has been picked up by none other than The CW after originally being developed with the possibility of it having a home on Fox. The show will follow Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) as he once again picks up his superhero identity of Black Lightning after having given up the life years ago to become an educator and give his new born daughter a normal life. However, once she begins to show metahuman abilities and the desire to bring criminals to justice, Pierce decides to go back to his life as a hero. In the comics, Pierce is also a metahuman, who can generate, absorb, and direct electricity.
Of course, having this new super-powered series on the current main home for live-action DC television has us eager to see Black Lightning show up in some form on one of Berlanti's other superhero shows, Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl or Legends of Tomorrow. When the show was being set up at Fox, the idea was for it to stand on its own, which made complete sense, seeing as how difficult a cross-network crossover would be to organize (even though Supergirl was able to do it with The Flash while the former show was still airing on CBS). But, doesn't it seem like it would be a waste to have yet another DC show on The CW, coming from the same producer, and not have it end up in the connected universe that we've come to know and love as the Arrow-verse?
On one hand, it is possible that we might be nearing superhero crossover fatigue with the CW shows, and I can see the producers considering that as a valid reason to keep Black Lightning in its own world when it hits the air. As it is, there are four shows involved in the Arrow-verse, and while they've done a pretty good job making sure that crossovers don't require viewers to have watched every episode of each of those series, it's always better to have at least a working knowledge of each of the shows when crossovers happen, especially the smaller ones.
On the other hand...Wouldn't it be kind of weird to have a DC show on The CW that isn't in the Arrow-verse? I mean, really, what's the point of having Black Lightning on the same network as all of Greg Berlanti's other superhero shows only to have it be off in its own little world? Since The Flash introduced the concept of multiple Earths, it seems like there's really no good reason to keep this new series to itself for the duration of its existence.
Well, we obviously won't know if Black Lightning will end up taking place in the same universe as the other DC shows on The CW for a while yet. We'll be sure to keep you up to date on all Black Lightning news as it becomes available. In the meantime, be sure to check out our summer premiere schedule and Netflix premiere guide to see what you can catch on the small screen in the coming weeks.
