Black Lightning showrunner Salim Akil reflected on its four-season run on The CW, saying it was about more than battles between heroes and villains.
“It’s interesting. I really never thought it was a show about superheroes. I always saw it as a family show,” Akil told ComicBook.com. “I always saw it as a way to communicate people, having fun by having great music, by having great stories, but ultimately what it’s about for me is to help others in their community, and an interesting family dynamic. And it’s [a] very odd thing for a family to go through the things that they went through together and come out alive whole and healthy.”
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Akil continued, “So in terms of the itch, the itch is always about telling great stories. If it’s a Western, if it’s sci-fi, or whatever, for me, the itch is always, ‘Can I tell a story that people can identify with?’ Hopefully they can say, ‘Oh, I know a person like that,’ or, ‘Oh, that’s a problem that I have,’ or ‘I’m like that.’ I always want them to be able to identify with something or someone. So the itch is about telling stories, not necessarily the genre.”
Based on the DC comic, Black Lightning debuted in 2018 and starred Cress Williams in the title role of Jefferson Pierce, a high school principal and retired superhero. Pierce if forced to return to the Black Lightning guise after the The 100 criminal organization and its leader Tobias Whale start terrorizing the city of Freeland. The drama just concluded its fourth and final season on May 24.
Black Lightning stars Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce/Black Lightning, Nafessa Williams as Anissa Pierce/Thunder, Christine Adams as Lynn Stewart, Laura Kariuki as Jennifer Pierce, Marvin “Krondon” Jones III as Tobias Whale and James Remar as Peter Gambi.
Source: ComicBook.com
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