FOX Picks Up DC’s Black Lightning TV Series

Greg Berlanti is working alongside The Game and Being Mary Jane‘s Mara Brock and Salim Akil to develop a TV series for the superhero Black Lightning.

Now, FOX has announced it has given the series a pilot production commitment. This marks the third collaboration between DC Entertainment and FOX with both Gotham and Lucifer preceding it.

Black Lightning, created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eeden, made his first appearance in 1977’s “Black Lightning” #1. The story follows Jefferson Pierce, a former Olympian, who was secretly born with the ability to create and manipulate electromagnetic fields. Although he had abandoned his hometown in Metropolis’ Suicide Slum after the murder of his father, Pierce returns there with his wife and daughter, taking a job as a high school principal. It is after losing one of his students to the gang violence that threatens the city that Pierce decides to take advantage of his powers. Adopting the identity Black Lightning, he becomes a costumed superhero who goes on to serve as team member of both the Outsiders and the Justice League.