The character, created by writer Jenny Blake Isabella with artist Trevor Von Eeden, first appeared in Black Lightning #1 (April 1977), during the Bronze Age of Comic Books.

[1] Although his precise origin story has varied over the years, he is generally depicted as a metahuman superhero who uses the ability to generate and control electricity to defend his community – and the world – as Black Lightning.

[2] In his earliest stories, Black Lightning was depicted as a schoolteacher from the crime-ridden Suicide Slum area of Metropolis who acquires electrical superpowers from a technologically advanced power belt that he put to use to clean up crime in his neighborhood.

Over time, Pierce establishes himself as a successful superhero in the DC Universe, and later stories depict him as having "internalized" the belt's powers as a result of his latent metagene.

For example, in early stories, he wore an afro wig and spoke in an exaggerated Harlem jive vernacular to disguise that he was in fact the highly educated schoolteacher, Jefferson Pierce.

Only one issue scripted by O'Neil came out before the series was canceled in 1978 as part of a general large-scale pruning of the company's superhero titles known as the DC Implosion.

In 1995, a new Black Lightning series began with art by Eddy Newell and again written by Jenny Blake Isabella,[9] who was fired after the eighth issue and replaced with Australian writer Dave de Vries.

[10] A "Black Lightning: Year One" six-issue limited series, written by Jen Van Meter and illustrated by Cully Hamner[11] saw a bi-weekly release in 2009, and was nominated for two Glyph Awards[12] in 2010.

[13] A gold medal-winning Olympic decathlete, Jefferson Michael Pierce returned to his old neighborhood in the Southside (Suicide Slum) section of the city of Metropolis with his wife Lynn Stewart and his daughter Anissa to become the principal of Garfield High School.

A family friend and tailor, Peter Gambi, had taught a much younger Jefferson how to suppress his inborn metahuman abilities so that he would not accidentally hurt any of the people he cared about.

Appalled by the public murder of Earl Clifford, one of his more promising students, Pierce tried to intervene on behalf of the schoolchildren but quickly learned that the 100 objected violently to any interference.

[15][16] Years later, he would tell fellow African-American superhero Mister Terrific that he chose the name Black Lightning because he "was the only one of us around" at the time, and he "wanted to make sure everyone knew who they were dealing with.

The loss eventually turned out to be psychosomatic, a symptom of a crisis of confidence resulting from the accidental death of a female bystander named Trina Shelton during an altercation between Black Lightning and some gun-wielding thugs.

[19][15] During his time with the Outsiders, a group of villains called the Masters of Disaster captured Black Lightning at the behest of the parents of Trina Shelton to avenge the death of their daughter;[20] however, upon learning that he still regretted what happened and was willing to be executed by them, they risked their lives to save him.

[15] He resigned amidst controversy over his "worst-kept secret in Washington" identity as Black Lightning and his alleged inadvertent killing of a criminally-minded corporate CEO, for which President Pete Ross (who had since succeeded Luthor) then pardoned him.

At some point prior to his resignation, Pierce used his pull in Washington to deny the gangster Holocaust a permit to build a casino on Paris Island in Dakota.

[25] In issue #5 of the Infinite Crisis storyline, it was shown that Black Lightning was one of the eight people Batman had considered to aid him in destroying the Brother Eye satellite, which controlled the OMACs.

He then forged an uneasy yet effective alliance with Mister Terrific, combining their powers of electrical manipulation and invisibility technology to strike at the villainous AI from the inside.

After the third Secret Society of Super Villains was formed, Black Lightning (as a member of Brad Meltzer's new Justice League) began using his status as Lex Luthor's former Secretary of Education to gain information from supervillains.

Black Lightning was the focus of the one-shot issue Final Crisis: Submit, in which he helped Tattooed Man and his family escape at the cost of his own freedom.

[citation needed] Originally, Black Lightning had no innate powers, using a belt that allowed him to generate a force field and project electrical bolts.