Greg Berlanti hopes to spark interest with Black Lightning series

Hope you’re not remotely tired of superhero shows. Greg Belanti, the CW’s hit man when it comes to bringing DC heroes to the small screen, is reportedly working on a Black Lightning series.

The Wrap reports Berlanti is working on the project with husband and wife writing team Mara Brock Akil and Salim Akil.

Berlanti has strived to make an inclusive TV universe and hasn’t been afraid to make controversial choices like making Jimmy Olsen black or Mr. Terrific gay.

Black Lightning was created in 1977 by Tony Isabella. Isabella took an interesting approach with Black Lightning and didn’t just make him a straight up Blaxploitation character.  Jefferson Pierce was a gold medal decathlete before Ashton Eaton. As a high school principal in one of Metropolis’ crime-ridden areas, Pierce saw the evils in society and fought criminals as the lightning-charged Black Lighting.

Black Lightning was one of the first characters to turn down Justice League membership. He did eventually accept Batman’s offer to join his new team The Outsiders. Given how Berlanti likes to expand the universe within his shows, I wouldn’t be shocked to see some Outsiders characters debut on Black Lightning.

BL really should be a household name to mainstream audiences as he was under consideration to be part of the Super Friends team. Rather than pay Isabella royalties for the use of the character, Hanna-Barbera swapped him out for the similarly powered Black Vulcan.

The school administrator angle seems like an easy way to come up with fresh challenges for BL.

I’m completely down for this project. It’s pretty cool that a Black Lightning series could potentially follow a Luke Cage series given their creation in the 70s. We’ll see Cage make his debut in the Netflix series on Sept. 30. What do you think of a Black Lightning series? Can it work?