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It looks as if the TV series is hewing closer to the comics than we even realized.  Of course, there was the possibility that on ‘Black Lightning’ the lead character’s teenage daughters Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain) could assume their comic book super identities as Thunder and Lightning, but it wasn’t expected to come so soon!  But the latest trailer reveals that the girls will demonstrate their superpowers pretty early on in the series, possibly even in the pilot episode.

“The Family Fights Back” in this newest clip.  Check it out below:

 

‘Black Lightning’ is just weeks away from its premiere on The CW.  It arrives on January 16, at 9pm EST.

In the comics, Anissa operates as Thunder and has the power to manipulate gravity, creating seismic shock waves.  She is/was romantically involved with the Amazon Grace Choi, a character that will appear on the show, portrayed by Chantal Thuy.  The pair met while serving on a short-lived revival of the team The Outsiders.

Jennifer was first glimpsed in the landmark miniseries ‘Kingdom Come’.  Like her father, she has electrical powers, only cranked up to eleven.  She seems to be made out of electricity.  She is later shown in a younger form in Geoff Johns’ ‘Justice Society of America’ comic book, where she doesn’t quite have full control of her powers and shorts out various electrical appliances.  Perhaps not coincidentally, Johns is an executive producer of ‘Black Lightning’.

Both sisters appeared in a ‘Black Lightning’ short that aired on the Cartoon Network and are part of the ‘DC Super Hero Girls’ animated shorts, although neither has gotten a doll as part of the toy line.

‘Black Lightning’ stars Cress Williams as the lead character, Jefferson Pierce, a once-retired superhero who must resume his heroic guise when danger threatens those close to him.  Christine Adams plays his ex-wife and the girls’ mother Lynn and Marvin ‘Krondon’ Jones III portrays the main villain, Tobias Whale.

Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is a man wrestling with a secret. As the father of two daughters and principal of a charter high school that also serves as a safe haven for young people in a New Orleans neighborhood overrun by gang violence, he is a hero to his community. Nine years ago, Pierce was a hero of a different sort. Gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, he used those powers to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning. However, after too many nights with his life on the line, and seeing the effects of the damage and loss that his alter ego was inflicting on his family, he left his Super Hero days behind and settled into being a principal and a dad. Choosing to help his city without using his superpowers, he watched his daughters Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain) grow into strong young women, even though his marriage to their mother, Lynn (Christine Adams), suffered. Almost a decade later, Pierce’s crime-fighting days are long behind him…or so he thought. But with crime and corruption spreading like wildfire, and those he cares about in the crosshairs of the menacing local gang The One Hundred, Black Lightning returns — to save not only his family, but also the soul of his community.

The other DC TV heroes are surrounded by superpowered allies.  Why not ‘Black Lightning’ especially if those allies are his daughters?

Source: The CW