Black Lightning #2.2: "Black Jesus Blues"

[Aurora Moon]

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[Aurora Moon]

Synopsis:

I enjoyed this epidose, although I did feel that some things felt a little too "on the nose". For instance, The female pod escapee's name is Wendy Hernandez and she was a high school grad on track for nursing school before being scouted for the Freeland Experiment. She now has the power of aerokinesis and can control wind the way Jefferson can control electricity. (Wendy. Wind-y.) See what I mean about it being a little too on the nose, eh?

Remember Issa Williams, the boy killed by police who came back to life last week? Well, creepy ASA Agent Odell gives the “bodybag boy” to Lynn so he can be analyzed. Issa can’t be out on the street, and his family is scared of him, so Lynn becomes his caretaker. While he’s under observation, his girlfriend Tiffany comes to visit. After he looks at her, she has a sudden outburst expressing her fear and disgust with him. Lynn doesn’t have the heart to leave Issa alone, so she brings him to family dinner. Which of course doesn't go too well at all.

Lynn puts Issa back under observation and gives him his lab results: He has the meta gene, but since it was formed artificially from Green Light, his cells won’t restabilize and will eventually break down. His only choices are death, or being contained in a pod. Lynn assures him that she’s working on a cure, but he decides to reunite with his loved ones in the meantime.

As for Wendy, she eventually gets recaptured by Black Lighting and has everything explained to her by Lynn. She willingly goes back into the Pod, because there's nothing left for her anymore. All her friends and family are gone... but she also doesn't want to die.

And then on the super-villians' side, we have Tobias Whale burning all his bridges. Tobias plays a game of chess with Khalil, but berates him for leaving Syonide vulnerable and inadvertently causing her death. He slaps the boy into submission, and coldly reminds him that actions have consequences before winning the match.
Later, Tobias visits Marcellus, his former right hand man. Tobias talks about his plan to become the biggest arms dealer on the planet, and after they reminisce about killing Alvin Pierce, Marcellus realizes that his old boss isn’t there for pleasantries. Tobias kills him and kills Detective Sommers, another “friend” who gave him an evidence envelope from the Freeland Police Department.
No way that isn't going to bite him in the ass down the road, eh?

One of the best and sweetest scenes in this epidose is when the Pierce sisters bonded together and talked about the pros and cons of having superpowers. no more menstrual cramps! They also talk about their parents’ reunion, and about how complicated relationships can be.

The other one was at the high school, where all of the students showed that they had Jefferson Pirece's back by reciting the mantra that he has repeated to them on many occasions. But this time he is on the receiving end, and he tells them that he is going to live his life “by any means necessary.”

In a way it was like a "FOTW" epidose but it also focused on the plot instead of being a filler epidose.

[TheSecretVampire]

Tobias is stone cold evil, lol

They'rv definitely done a great job building him up to a villain that you want badly to see get defeated at the end.