Was Black Lightning Blocked From Being on Justice League Unlimited?

In the latest Comic Book Legends Revealed, find out whether Black Lightning was blocked from appearing on Justice League Unlimited.

Welcome to Comic Book Legends Revealed! This is the eight hundred and twelfth installment where we examine three comic book legends and determine whether they are true or false. As usual, there will be three posts, one for each of the three legends. Click here for the first part of this installment's legends.

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COMIC LEGEND:

Black Lightning was blocked from appearing on Justice League Unlimited because of his creator's royalty deal with DC.

STATUS:

Appears to be True

Just repeating myself from the first part of this week's installment (which was ALSO about why a character didn't appear on the show), Justice League Unlimited was a sequel/revamp of the Justice League cartoon series that ran from 2004-2006 that worked under the idea of taking the original Justice League concept and expanding the group membership dramatically (one could say to an almost "unlimited" degree)...

The series introduced a whole pile of new characters to the League, a bunch of whom never really got a chance to get a spotlight on the series as they were SO many new additions (although there were a number of new Leaguers who DID get spotlights and became fan favorites as a result of their spotlight, like the interesting new approach to the Question as a conspiracy theorist that became a beloved version of the character by many fans) and yet, in the midst of all of these various characters, a notable character who was absent was Black Lightning.

Another interesting aspect of Black Lightning is that he actually DID appear in the comic book adaptation of Justice League Unlimited published by DC Comics, so he was part of the Justice League in a tie-in comic book TO the cartoon, but the cartoon itself.

Black Lightning in the Justice League Unlimited comic book

We saw that happen with Blue Beetle, as well, and Justice League Unlimited director and longtime DC Animated Universe artist, Dan Riba explained, "Blue Beetle had a...complicated legal issue. Charlton's claim to the character were a little iffy. So DC needed to tighten things before letting anyone adapt him. The comics were deemed okay as they were pretty under the radar...but a TV show or a toy was too high profile for something that might require some kind of payout. But they did the legal legwork and either paid off any heirs or found there were none and Charlton's claim to the character was legally binding."

So that's why Blue Beetle could appear in the comic book tie-in but not the comics, but was that the same deal for Black Lightning?

Nope, that's not why he wasn't on the cartoon.

Could it be like Plastic Man, who had a separate cartoon deal that barred him from appearing on this series?

Nope, that's not why, either.

Instead, it comes down to the same reason why Black Vulcan was created for the Super Friends all those years ago (something I discussed in my book, Was Superman a Spy? And Other Comic Book Legends Revealed). You see, In 1977, Tony Isabella, who had already gained some experience at Marvel Comics working on both Luke Cage, Hero for Hire and the short-lived Black Goliath series, was given the chance at DC Comics to come work on a new black hero that they were planning on launching. Isabella had been working on ideas for a black superhero of his own, so he soon convinced DC to drop their idea and instead do the new character that he had come up with.

The new hero (which was created by Isabella with artist Trevor Von Eeden, that credit is the specific way to credit the creation "Black Lightning was created by Tony Isabella with Trevor Von Eeden") debuted in Black Lightning #1 in very early 1977...

Soon after that, the Super Friends TV show added some new, diverse characters to the show. Naturally, Black Lightning would be a PERFECT addition to the team. Except, here was the "problem" - if Black Lightning was used on the show, Isabella would get paid a fee from him appearing on TV. DC was supposed to pay it, but they decided to pass the fee along to Hanna-Barbera. Hanna-Barbera, for their part, did not want to do that, so they instead just invented a Black Lightning KNOCK-OFF called Black Vulcan...

Isabella was naturally displeased, and in his last issue of Black Lightning he noted that he left the series because “I quit due to my dissatisfaction with DC’s failure to live up to the spirit of their agreements with me on a number of occasions." His final issue had an amusing shot at Hanna-Barbera in the person of a character named Barbara Hanna who created a knock-off version of Black Lightning. Very funny stuff. I'm sort of impressed DC published such a biting shot at one of their business partners!

In any event, after I did the Comic Book Legends Revealed about Blue Beetle not being allowed to be on Justice League Unlimited, Tony dropped me a line to note that the same was true for Black Lightning. He said that Justice League Unlimited's head writer, the late, great Dwayne McDuffie, told him personally that McDuffie had asked to use Black Lightning and was told no.

Eventually, Black Lightning made his cartoon debut on the Brave and the Bold cartoon series...