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Black Lightning #1.8 "The Book of Revelations"

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  • Black Lightning #1.8 "The Book of Revelations"

    Talk about the March 13 episode of Black Lightning here!


  • #2
    Another good one as usual. although at this point I think nobody was surprised when Jennifer ended up getting powers too.

    It starts with Jefferson Pierce. He is walking his daughter Anissa through some basic superhero training — teaching her both how to look out for threats and how to discount the ones that aren’t actually dangerous. I actually liked how he pointed out that just because somebody was a bigot, didn't make them a dangerous person. Sometimes a civilian bigot is just that, a bigot.

    Although I suspect that might be put to the test as it turns out that some highly racist organization was using Freeland for their own purposes. A suited guy from the ASA even says as much... he litterally says the following: “the only thing the people here are good for is experimentation” and “we’re doing God’s work.” Scientific racism, religious hatred, and state repression all bundled up into one nice man!

    The corrupt white police chief has announced his intention to use all available manpower to hunt the vigilante in the wake of Lady Eve’s death, but even Freeland citizens are starting to turn on their hero. Violence and murder don’t make many friends, even when you’re framed. Framing a community-beholden black activist for violence is nothing new for the U.S. government, of course. The Black Panther Party, for example, was consistently smeared by the actions of FBI informants and agents provocateur who infiltrated the organization and did their best to spur the Panthers toward violence that would discredit them in the public eye. And make no mistake, state repression is at work in Black Lightning’s framing as well.

    In this ep we also find out more about Gambi and his shady past. Needless to say it's not a very nice past. This show is being very smart in how it portrays black issues compared to real life events from the past. It has tied up the real-life history of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, the Flint water crisis, reporter Gary Webb’s stories about the CIA flooding inner cities with crack-cocaine, and police corruption into a meaty, evocative superhero narrative.

    It's another ep that really hits it out of the ballpark as usual. I like how they continue to keep on tackling those issues without getting too long-winded or preachy about it. Honestly, shows like Supergirl and the others could stand to learn a few things from Black Lighting on that front.

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