CoC Week: Black Lightning vs the Slime Killer

[alicemacher]

Black Lightning (Jefferson Pierce), created in 1977 by writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor Von Eeden (who is Guyanese-American), was DC's first superhero of colour to get his own title. He also subsequently appeared in such titles as Detective Comics, from which this tale comes.


From "Explosion of the Soul!", Detective Comics vol.1 #494 (Sept. 1980). Writer: J.M. DeMatteis, artist: Gérald Forton.



Black Lightning collars a pair of robbers, who are relieved it's he who caught them and not the Slime Killer, a hooded vigilante who's recently been culling crooks in Suicide Slum, and scaring the shit out of the rest. Meanwhile, in his day job as an English teacher, Jefferson tries reaching out to his bright but defeatist student Jonathan Davis.







Back on patrol, still anguished over Jonathan's apathy and resignation, Black Lightning has his first run-in with the Slime Killer, who's just claimed another couple of victims.







Slime Killer spray-paints his opponent in the eyes and escapes.







Jefferson, feeling compassion for the disturbed Mr. Davis, costumes up and slips back into his home to try talking things over, but he's not there. A cry of agony from outside clues him in that the father too has costumed up, to claim more lives, so off goes Black Lightning to stop him.

Comments

[silverhammerman]

A catchy name, Slime-Killer is not. Still, there's definitely something interesting here, though the ideas are done a disservice both by the styles of the time and the fact that neither creator seems to really be at the top of their game.

I expected that Slime-Killer would turn out to be a white supremacist or something, but the truth is potentially more complex and provocative. As, seemingly, a take on the Punisher it makes sense that this is just a single issue story, but I feel like there's actually a lot more that could be gotten out of this.

[alicemacher]

The notion of a mind divided between nihilistic passivism and absolutist vigilantism, between not caring at all and caring to the point of violent fanaticism, is a fascinating one. Moore explored this idea, more expansively and effectively, with the character of Rorschach. Like Mr. Davis here, Walter Kovacs underwent a mental breakdown in the face of cruel tragedy and dealt with his inner conflict by adopting separate personae for each side.

The main difference is that Davis, unlike Rorschach, seems to understand in the end that there is a way out of such a destructive existential conflict. That way is accepting, and extending, compassion.

[kamino_neko]

Davis also had someone with motivation to help him who wasn't also in a similarly unhealthy mindspace. (Granted, Dan wasn't quite as far gone as Rorschach, and certainly broke in a different direction, but...still not quite healthy.)

[alicemacher]

I think it helps that Jonathan, unlike Dan, is still quite young and therefore has neither seen as much nor had the time to really internalize the despair he professes. Note the pauses in his dialogue in his first scene: "It doesn't... bother me," "I just... accept things..." and his morose facial expression and posture in that panel. Jon doesn't really feel that way deep down. It's a defensive front, which crumbles in the climax as we see he really does care.

In contrast, Dan Dreiberg, while far from uncaring (or claiming to be) as such, has lived long enough, has witnessed enough evil -- and the toll it took on his only friend -- that even apart from the Keene Act cutting short his crimefighting career, he's come to feel genuine despair, or at best ambivalence, about whether there was any point to his adventuring. So yes, although he does his best to reach out and renew his friendship with Rorschach (and Rorschach, in his own, even more halting way, does so in turn), Dan isn't in a position to help his friend change his outlook and his ways.

[silverhammerman]

Another contrast between the two; no one could mistake Slime Killer for being cool, unlike Alan Moore's longstanding peeve about fan reaction to Rorschach and the whole history of the Punisher. The quiet way in which he's ultimately defeated, the fact that his scuffles with Black Lightning aren't exactly glamorous, even his dumb name, all scream that this dude isn't cool. Who knows whether that was deliberate or just the result of the formal constraints and the narrative style of the time, but the effect actually works quite well to make this story feel small and sad.

It's interesting that the contrast you point out, between completely given up and destructive rage, is the one we see here. Usually these kinds of plots (Daredevil vs Punisher, Batman vs Redhood, etc) contrast the hero with the unhinged villain and rarely get at anything deeper than "killing is bad". This story hints (thought it does only hint) at issues of familial trauma, marginalization, and hopelessness.

There's so much which could be unpacked here, but it just isn't. I mean, it's a 10-pager and who knows how much thought DeMatteis was putting into it, but there's so much more which could be done with this. For example the only white faces we see in the pages you posted are on the cops hauling Mr. Davis away, which feels rife with implication, but isn't exactly unpacked. I'm left genuinely fascinated by this comic, both half wanting to read a more thoughtful version of it and half wanting to see someone smarter than me dig into it critically, and I'm really glad you shared it.

[alicemacher]

You're welcome, and I in turn appreciate your and kamino_neko's thoughtful observations.