Black Lightning’s abilities are almost limitless, in the comics at least. While it seems the character may be a little bit more grounded in the series, he has a variety of abilities that make him potentially one of the most powerful DC heroes out there. He can turn into energy rendering him bulletproof, create force fields, travel at the speed of lightning, and obviously throw electricity itself. Naturally, fans want to know whether or not the series will adapt one of the coolest powers for a hero of his skillset: flight.
While Black Lightning can’t exactly fly, he can hover and float over the ground harnessing the electromagnetic fields around him to boost him up into the air. Series star Cress Williams spoke on whether or not we will see this ability in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly.
“We haven’t gotten into flight, which I’m really excited about eventually getting to that. He has the ability to have limited flight, and that’s the superpower I would love to have. He controls all things electrically based, along with martial arts and the hand-to-hand combat thing. Without getting into too much, there are things that the new suit provides that the old suit didn’t. It’ll be very fun, let’s put it that way.”
We saw Black Lightning hurt and bleeding in a bathtub in the first trailer, so it’s clear he won’t have all of these powers as he did in the comics, such as rapid healing. Williams did give an interesting hint in his statement: his upgraded suit may give him a few abilities he may not have had during that flashback to 2005 that we saw in the trailer.
Jefferson Pierce is an older hero now, so his suit from back in the day is definitely due for a serious upgrade. There’s proof his new suit may have some additional tricks in the exclusive photo from Entertainment Weekly. Pierce has some sort of Iron Man-like program on the screen where you can see he’s coded and designed certain aspects of the suit himself. His work area is full of gadgets and his chest piece looks to contain some serious tech.
To learn more about the character, check out our exclusive interview with creator Tony Isabella, who developed Black Lightning with Trevor Von Eeden.
