Black Lightning - "so happy..." - The Something Awful Forums

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Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Alter Ego posted:

One thing I don't get--how did Pierce become Black Lightning in the first place? We never quite got the origin story explanation other than "he used to be a superhero, then hung up the costume".

Does it matter? Is it relevant to the story they're trying to tell?

irlZaphod posted:

I'd imagine we'll get a flashback origin episode at some point.

I really hope we don't. Origin stories are poo poo.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2018 04:44

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 16:00

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Alter Ego posted:

Uh, yes? Black Lightning isn't exactly a DC A-lister, so a lot of people watching are going to have no idea how he came to be.

So what? What do you need to know that wasn't already covered?

# ¿ Jan 19, 2018 01:56

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Avalerion posted:

Don�t mind the lack of a proper origin story per see, would like to know more about how his powers work though. At first I thought he was straight up frying people and that�s why he�s seen as a vigilante - but now it seems more like force bolts/telekinesis than electricity.

I don't think we really need to know how his powers work. Chances are he doesn't even know. He can shoot this "lighting" stuff that's obviously not actually electricity but looks like it, and you can tell by the way he uses it basically what its effects are, so what would some technobabble explanation add? The less they spell it out the less likely they are to contradict themselves.

Gluten Freeman posted:

I really hope they don't ever explain why that random tailor has a massive batcave under his shop and somehow has super hacking skills. I just want the Cisco/Felicity of the show to be a 50 year old white man who works as a tailor with absolutely zero backstory ever.

Same.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2018 12:45

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Klungar posted:

Getting shot in a bulletproof vest just prevents the bullet from going through you, you still suffer from impact forces and bruises and what not. It's not Mythril.

Isn't that exactly how mithril armour worked?

# ¿ Jan 26, 2018 09:03

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Bruceski posted:

Supergirl too. She doesn't even wear her glasses half the time and nobody's put 2 and 2 together.

I liked the justification of it at the start, that people never looked at Kara because she's so meek and self-effacing, and people are too awed by Supergirl to pay too much attention to what her face looks like in the brief time they see her. And then Kara started acting more confident and assertive and Supergirl started hanging around and chatting with people who know Kara and that whole premise just stopped making any kind of sense.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2018 08:41

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

hangedman1984 posted:

I'm pretty sure that is perfectly within the CS superhero codes, seeing as Barry Allen literally imediately tells every one he the flash, and villains routinely and constantly just walk right into both Star Labs and the Arrowcave.

I think that was Rocksicles point. There are people who don't know Kara is Supergirl and her base of operations is mostly pretty secure.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 17:28

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

TwoPair posted:

I liked the episode but Anissa blowing up the statue was kinda silly. Like here goes her power stomp which blows up this statue but not the base it's on and it doesn't damage the ground. But I guess a few people very poorly pretended to fall over so her power can be visibly dangerous.

Like the "lightning" power that doesn't behave anything like actual electricity it works if you assume it's not actually just her stomping so hard that the statue broke. She used the act of stomping to direct whatever force her power actually controls into the statue - maybe the people didn't even feel it, they just reacted like that because they expected to feel it.

That could all go out the window if they make the mistake of having someone actually do tests on them to find out how their powers work, but as long as they either don't explain it or only have characters making guesses or assumptions about it then we're free to assume that it makes sense.

Avalerion posted:

It is "slow" in the sense that not much has really happened in terms of the main plot moving forward. Or like...what is even the main plot?

The main plot is Jefferson trying to work out what good he can actually do, because he's been Black Lightning and he's been Principal Pierce and neither one was doing anything in the long term - so now he's trying both together, while also dealing with the incompatible goals of seeking vengeance and taking care of his family. And that plot's moved at a pretty decent pace.

Unlike the Marvel Netflix shows where it starts out with something similar (eg. Matt trying to balance being Daredevil with running a law firm) but then starts floundering, loses its way and tries to recover by just throwing ninjas everywhere. Hopefully this show will actually stick to its central thesis - that societal problems are incredibly complex and can't be solved overnight or by one person, no matter how many ninjas he punches.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2018 14:41

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Aleph Null posted:

This family talks and trusts and it is awesome.

TwoPair posted:

I'm surprised/very relieved that we finally get the Gambi reveal now instead of making it some season ending cliffhanger.

Those two things along with skipping the origin story has earned this show a lot of credit with me. They're just avoiding almost every mistake this genre makes over and over again and it's such a nice change.

muscles like this! posted:

My problem with Gambi is that it is really hard to know what he really feels about anything seeing as he has been shown lying to literally every character on the show.

That's not really a problem as far as I can see. No one really knows him, and that includes the audience. He's lying to everyone all the time and it would feel really artificial to signal to the audience that actually this is the real him. There probably is no real him. He is the lies.

Rocksicles posted:

Motherfucker didn't do anything. He was there, had a job, didn't like it and bailed, went full whistleblower and helped raise him into who he is. Sure he kept a secret, but WHo's Jefferson to stomp on someone keeping secrets.

Well, he's pretty clearly been involved in some pretty shady stuff, and I wouldn't say he went full whistleblower because he never came forward publicly or even made a second attempt to get the information out.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2018 13:48

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

nine-gear crow posted:

It could also be that the show really is set on Earth-1 after all and that Freeland is just really insulated from the other wackiness of Central and Star City due it its geographical proximity farther south or something. Jennifer was talking about Vixen like she was a real person to her, and Supergirl has been involved in at least two high-profile super hero battles to save the world from aliens and Nazis, it would not surprise me if a lot of folks on Earth-1 know the name �Supergirl� and have some concept of who she is, even if she doesn�t show up all that often.

I think in the previous episode someone mentioned "metahumans" in the context of Black Lightning being one of many from years ago, whereas on Earth 1 all metahumans originated with the Star Labs particle accelerator. I think it's safe to assume that Black Lightning takes place on an Earth other than 1, 2 or 38. It could still be Jay's world though.

Phenotype posted:

This would actually be a neat way for a superhero to support himself instead of having a day job, and I'd be willing to bet it's been done before.

I think it's in Spider-Man and the X-Men where Spidey's explaining that he can't make money from his merchandise because it would reveal his identity and someone points out that he could have set up a shell company and he's just like "Oh, I didn't think of that. Well, too late now!"

Xelkelvos posted:

The odd thing is that Supergirl is from a different Earth from Vixen so this one might still be a different one with all of the heroes in one universe.

Or it could be just a different subset than we've previously seen. Supergirl, Vixen, Black Lightning, Green Lantern and Aquaman, for example.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2018 15:40

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Burning_Monk posted:

Pretty sure the same guy who planted it "found" it 10 seconds later.

Yeah, he opened up a compartment, threw it in there, closed the compartment and moved some other stuff around then reopened the same compartment and "found" the bag he'd just put there. Some of the other cops would have seen it very clearly, but I don't know how much of that the people watching from the windows would be able to see.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2018 04:55

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# ¿ May 15, 2024 16:00

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Well, that was an absolutely terrible end to the season. It's like they only just realised they were on the last episode and had to suddenly wrap everything up. The early episodes were really good, but the season as a whole was just a lot of wasted potential. Most of what happened ended up being irrelevant, and after holding off on explaining the bad guys' powers all season they just suddenly go "it's super-expensive cutting edge technology - yes, even the guy who died and came back to life with magic hallucination tattoos". And it ends with a big fight between all the good guys and all the bad guys, and somehow rescuing the metahuman kids off-screen and without explanation.

And the main bad guy they beat wasn't even the one they spent most of the season building up. I know they want Tobias to still be around in season two, but the guy they actually ended up beating was just some ridiculous caricature that seemed more like one of the lackeys the Green Arrow defeats in a single mid-season episode before he figures out who the real bad guy is.

And what was the point of Black Lightning losing his powers if he was just going to get them back again as soon as he needed them? What was the point of him being in a coma for half the episode when it didn't actually change anyone's plans? Was it just so they could shoehorn the flashbacks in? What did the flashbacks even tell us that we didn't already know? This episode was both rushed and padded.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2018 14:52

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Black Lightning - "so happy..."