Monday, October 1, 2012

Spider-Man and the Kingpin--No, Wait

"Spider-Man and the Kingpin--No, Wait" from Black Lightning vol.1 #8 (DC, 1978) by Tony Isabella, Trevor von Eeden and Vince Colletta

You gotta admit. Black Lightning is in an odd pose (for him), and Tobias Whale is the Kingpin type! Easy mistake to make!

As the story goes, DC's first African-American headliner was going to be the Black Bomber, a white racist only posing as a black man, and offensive on about every level. When the editor responsible left the company, writer Tony Isabella jumped in and convinced the powers that be that his creation, Black Lightning, was a much better way to go. They paired him up with a 16-year-old African-American artist called Trevor von Eeden and a legend was born. And then was cancelled 11 issues in, though the 12th issue did eventually see print in a couple of anthology comics. Even so, Black Lightning would live on, first in World's Finest and Detective back-ups, then after refusing the join the Justice League, in the Outsiders (yeah I know, not much of a life, but he was definitely one of the better characters in there) and eventually get enough traction for another solo book... but that's tomorrow's tale.

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