Black Lightning
May. 21st, 2019 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethToday I have been watching Black Lightning season one. I am on disc three of three and I'd love to watch the whole thing in one day but I also want to be awake enough to appreciate it.
It is excellent. Solid storytelling, with a mix of superhero origin story and superhero getting back in the costume after years away. Gives a lot of angles on the whole thing. Also you often get the story of a superhero with his girlfriend telling him to quit, but this time you get the guy who did it, and the consequences of that. World keeps being the same world as needed a hero, and then it's a whole new generation's turn. That's a new to tv angle as far as I know. Solid take.
I like how he runs the school and everything about him trying to foster black excellence as a long term solution to the problems he previously approached with punching and superpowers.
I am not, lately, a fan of vigilantes who approach the work as something they can do quicker without warrants and more effectively without worrying about the whole hitting people for information thing. That's... that's exhausting. But here it's a part of a whole conversatiom about law enforcement and how a hero stands within this community. So it's an interesting angle.
And the community is black. At first I was a bit hesitant because if he's a black superhero who only gets to save black people then that seems to be ducking some kind of fragility. Black people can save the whole world. But there's a whole story being told, one I haven't seen on TV before, about why a black community needs superheroes, and how law enforcement isn't working for them. But there's also a black cop who starts out seeming ineffectual but by the episode I stopped on just got a promotion from investgsating the corruption in the police department, and if he manages to sort out the police that'll do more long term good than one dude in a fancy suit.
... it's a very fancy suit. Distinctive aesthetic going on here, can see how it brings the comic stuff to life but it's also doing its own distinctive thing.
And Black Lightning himself isn't the only superhero around here. Thunder, his daughter, gets her origin story, and she's awesome. Med student, part time health teacher, activist, gets arrested doing protests a bunch. Finds a way to do more when her powers start working. And she's a lesbian. ... and she's so young, I fancy her mom a lot more, which is a weird change of perspective since comics. But she is awesome and learning and saving the day and getting into trouble and it's great.
There are so many good female characters in this. The two daughters and their mother are central every episode, it's as much their story as Jefferson's. And they have friends and girlfriends, and random people they meet are women sometimes. ... which ought to be obvious but I've watched stories that clearly didn't do that, so. Women, a lot of them. And some of team evil are women, including an excellent disturbing funeral lady. And some police, people at the paper, people at the school. Just a whole diverse world.
And the diversity means that when people die they're going to be black or women or black women, pretty much. That part is less awesome. But doesn't feel creepy, i think.
A lot of creepy is going on but it's the bad guys doing bad things kind not the writer level unfortunate implications kind, it seems to me.
... the bad guys are proper creepy, with a tip of the iceberg feel no matter how much more we've uncovered on disc three than in the beginning. Plenty of scope in this story.
I'm not quite clear on how this 'verse connects up to the multiverse. Like it could be just a different city, or a different universe. They have Outsiders comics, and cosplay nights of superheroes, and references to Supergirl and Vixen. At one point a kid asks her mom if she's secretly Vixen. But I am still not clear if that's because their universe has Vixen or if she's a story there.
But it's fine either or any way, because the story makes sense in its scope and isolation.
And I like it.
I don't like to recommend things before I've watched the whole thing, because you never know what they'll do with the ending, but I very much like what I've seen so far. It is in several ways a story I haven't seen before, with excitement, daring, high stakes, and so much going on. I like the characters, and I want to see more of it.
So that's great.
It is excellent. Solid storytelling, with a mix of superhero origin story and superhero getting back in the costume after years away. Gives a lot of angles on the whole thing. Also you often get the story of a superhero with his girlfriend telling him to quit, but this time you get the guy who did it, and the consequences of that. World keeps being the same world as needed a hero, and then it's a whole new generation's turn. That's a new to tv angle as far as I know. Solid take.
I like how he runs the school and everything about him trying to foster black excellence as a long term solution to the problems he previously approached with punching and superpowers.
I am not, lately, a fan of vigilantes who approach the work as something they can do quicker without warrants and more effectively without worrying about the whole hitting people for information thing. That's... that's exhausting. But here it's a part of a whole conversatiom about law enforcement and how a hero stands within this community. So it's an interesting angle.
And the community is black. At first I was a bit hesitant because if he's a black superhero who only gets to save black people then that seems to be ducking some kind of fragility. Black people can save the whole world. But there's a whole story being told, one I haven't seen on TV before, about why a black community needs superheroes, and how law enforcement isn't working for them. But there's also a black cop who starts out seeming ineffectual but by the episode I stopped on just got a promotion from investgsating the corruption in the police department, and if he manages to sort out the police that'll do more long term good than one dude in a fancy suit.
... it's a very fancy suit. Distinctive aesthetic going on here, can see how it brings the comic stuff to life but it's also doing its own distinctive thing.
And Black Lightning himself isn't the only superhero around here. Thunder, his daughter, gets her origin story, and she's awesome. Med student, part time health teacher, activist, gets arrested doing protests a bunch. Finds a way to do more when her powers start working. And she's a lesbian. ... and she's so young, I fancy her mom a lot more, which is a weird change of perspective since comics. But she is awesome and learning and saving the day and getting into trouble and it's great.
There are so many good female characters in this. The two daughters and their mother are central every episode, it's as much their story as Jefferson's. And they have friends and girlfriends, and random people they meet are women sometimes. ... which ought to be obvious but I've watched stories that clearly didn't do that, so. Women, a lot of them. And some of team evil are women, including an excellent disturbing funeral lady. And some police, people at the paper, people at the school. Just a whole diverse world.
And the diversity means that when people die they're going to be black or women or black women, pretty much. That part is less awesome. But doesn't feel creepy, i think.
A lot of creepy is going on but it's the bad guys doing bad things kind not the writer level unfortunate implications kind, it seems to me.
... the bad guys are proper creepy, with a tip of the iceberg feel no matter how much more we've uncovered on disc three than in the beginning. Plenty of scope in this story.
I'm not quite clear on how this 'verse connects up to the multiverse. Like it could be just a different city, or a different universe. They have Outsiders comics, and cosplay nights of superheroes, and references to Supergirl and Vixen. At one point a kid asks her mom if she's secretly Vixen. But I am still not clear if that's because their universe has Vixen or if she's a story there.
But it's fine either or any way, because the story makes sense in its scope and isolation.
And I like it.
I don't like to recommend things before I've watched the whole thing, because you never know what they'll do with the ending, but I very much like what I've seen so far. It is in several ways a story I haven't seen before, with excitement, daring, high stakes, and so much going on. I like the characters, and I want to see more of it.
So that's great.