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.