Black Lightning is breaking ground for teen-friendly channel The CW, and not just because it stars a middle-aged man. In a year when Black Panther has broken as many cultural barriers as box office records, Black Lightning is playing its own part in bringing black issues to the screen.It&rsquo;s far from the first TV show to boast an African-American superhero as its lead character (MANTIS did that way back in 1995) but it&rsquo;s the first&nbsp;superhero&nbsp;show&nbsp;to get to grips with what it means to be black in modern America. Sure, Luke Cage has hip-hop credibility, but with its lone hero versus outlandishly named gangsters it felt more like a self-aware reinvention of&nbsp;blaxploitation&nbsp;&ndash; Shaft with super-strength. Black Lightning is as much a show about family and community as it is superpowers.Cress Williams plays&nbsp;ex-superhero&nbsp;Jefferson Pierce, who gave up vigilantism years ago to become a headteacher, determined to rescue his &rsquo;hood through education rather than force. He now has two teenage daughters, who are unaware of dad&rsquo;s past, but they&rsquo;re soon developing powers &ndash; and, in one case, an alter-ego &ndash; of their own. And one of Black Lightning&rsquo;s old adversaries &ndash; albino crime lord Tobias Whale &ndash; is back on the scene, forcing Jefferson to don the suit again.All of this is played out against a backdrop of civil unrest, in a town,&nbsp;Freeland, that feels like a powder keg. Racist police, drugs, gangs and sensationalist media coverage try to drag down the kids whom Jefferson is trying to build up. Add to this an arc plot that feeds into paranoia about how some of the more radical elements&nbsp;within&nbsp;government&nbsp;might have ideas about tackling the black &ldquo;problem&rdquo; and you&rsquo;ve got a superhero show that truly feels like it&rsquo;s trying to reflect black America now. Jefferson&rsquo;s not so much fighting for truth, justice and the American way, as for an America that&rsquo;s safe for his daughters to grow up in.For the first few episodes, this all works well. The social issues, family soap and&nbsp;superheroics&nbsp;mesh effortlessly (even if Black Lightning&rsquo;s illuminated costume seems to have been designed for the Joel Schumacher Batman films, and makes stealth missions near impossible). It&rsquo;s helped by a witty script, some excellent fight scenes and powerful, convincing performances. Cress Williams is magnificent as Jefferson, who can be just a little bit Clark Kentish as the well-meaning, naively idealistic and occasionally goofy headteacher, but who cuts a fine figure of a superhero when called upon.&nbsp;Nafessa&nbsp;Williams and China Anne McClain are also brilliant as his daughters; kick-ass and spunky when necessary but fragile too. Their ongoing origin stories, as&nbsp;they learn to deal with powers, feel refreshingly different to the usual teen superhero tropes.However, the social issues are sidelined as the show grows more like its&nbsp;Arrowverse&nbsp;stablemates in tone. It&rsquo;s still a fine show with exciting twists, but it&rsquo;s a shame that more nuanced storytelling is overtaken by broad-strokes conspiracy plotting. The finale also feels a little soft after a magnificent set-up in the penultimate episode, with far too many easy fixes and anticlimactic resolutions.Despite these minor wobbles, however, Black Lightning proves that there are still exciting new avenues to explore with the superhero genre.

Black Lightning

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