Broken Frontier

Oni Press’ Hopeless Savages from writer Jen Van Meter, consists of three different minis, all dealing with the adventures of ageing punks Dirk Hopeless and Nikki Savage along with their four oddly named children. Van Meter’s skills in dealing with a diverse cast of characters with realism brought her to DC’s attention, landing her short runs on both Outsiders and JSA Classified. Now, she turns her attention to Jefferson Pierce, AKA Black Lightning, the former teacher and Secretary of Education, and current Justice Leaguer in January’s Black Lightning: Year One. The six issue mini-series highlights the beginnings of this intriguing character with over 30 years of history.

BROKEN FRONTIER: How familiar were you with the character before this series?

JEN VAN METER: I had read Batman and the Outsiders when he was appearing in it, and most of his more recent appearances in the DCU; when I was asked to pitch for the project I went back and read all the earlier material.  What I couldn't lay hands on DC copied for me from their archives.  I liked the character from the outset, but the more I got to know him, the more I loved him.

BF: Black Lightning is one of the most underappreciated characters in comics. How do you hope to bring a new appreciation to the classic hero?

JVM: Are you referring to readers or creative talent not appreciating him?  I think his fans are deeply devoted, but maybe our numbers are fewer than we'd like for him.  And of course, that reflects on sales and translates to talent/editorial interest in some cases, I'd assume.  For a lot of readers, his background is unfamiliar; folks who've met him in the last few years may not have a strong sense of "knowing" the guy, since we don't absorb his central story through our collective pop-culture pores the way we do Batman's or Superman's.  I'm hoping this project gives more readers a more complete picture of the character.  For those readers who have been following him all along, I just hope they like our take on his early days and enjoy our efforts to cleave to and flesh out the spirit of the character.

I think he's been hard for some creators to use because his continuity had gotten muddy and there was perhaps a sense of not being sure who the guy is at his core--what his archetypal role is, if you like.  I'll be very glad if what I've done makes him seem more clearly defined for other writers, and even more glad if that leads to him being used more. 

BF: Will there be any elements introduced in Year One that will have a direct bearing on his status in today’s DCU?

JVM: I made a number of choices in the Year One that connect to his current continuity.  If he has extended family and young adult daughters now and his "first year in costume" is the requisite DCU always-about-twelvish-years-ago, then where were they and who were they at that time?  If we find that he's recently been the Secretary of Education in someone's Presidential cabinet, he can start as a classroom teacher but it seemed to me he should be on a career trajectory that makes that future role make sense, right?

The goal of the project was always to make his early material and his current appearances seem more seamlessly connected, so where we introduce wholly new things, it's in service of answering lingering questions or tidying loose ends.  Or are you asking if there's anything in this that anticipates the events of Final Crisis?  I can't say.  

BF: Most of the comics you’ve written have involved some sort of family. How will you focus on the supporting cast in Year One?

JVM: I like families and family-like groups because I think it's in those relationships that we really see who people are and how they came to be who they are.   When I realized I was going to need to explore Jeff's family relationships for this, I felt like I had an opportunity to try something I'd rarely seen in comics; Black Lightning's story is in many ways his entire family's story and who he is reflects the mutual commitments between them.

Each issue of the Year One has a different narrator; Jeff's wife, Peter Gambi and Lt. Henderson, Jeff himself and a couple other people each get a turn to comment on who he is, what he's doing and what it all means.  That leads inevitably, for me, to raising the profile of the supporting cast, because even people who get relatively little time on the page are understood, like the narrators, to have a point of view on the action -- we felt it was very important to do everything we could to make the people around Jeff people, not placeholders or plot points.  It's nearly impossible, in my view, to see a character as a complete and well-developed individual if he or she is surrounded by cardboard cutouts. 

BF: What elements are you most pleased about introducing to Black Lightning’s character?

JVM: It's a funny question because I don't know that I feel like I "introduced" a lot -- I hope I did a good job of revealing things that, to my mind, were always there: his dignity, his integrity, his sense of humor, his tenacity.  

There's an event in the original material that didn't get a lot of time spent on it but that broke my heart and spoke profoundly about who Jeff/Black Lightning must be.  I'm very pleased with how we executed our presentation of it because I think we've been able to really show what's so moving about it and how important it is.  Moments like that probably please me the most.

BF: Cully Hamner seems like an obvious choice for this series. Was your working relationship with him an easy one?

JVM: More than easy.  It's been heaven.  Cully is a phenomenal storyteller and a terrific actor; he's made these people live on the page and been committed to them every step of the way.  I don't think I've ever been in such close touch with an artist while the work was in progress, and I think readers will really feel it; there's a wonderful harmony to these pages.   

Black Lightning: Year One #1 goes on sale January 7th from DC Comics priced $2.99