WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the story "Outsiders" by Brandon Thomas, Sumit Kumar, Raul Fernandez, Jordie Bellaire, and Steve Wands from Future State: The Next Batman #1, available now.
Not everyone realizes it but Jefferson Pierce, aka Black Lightning, is one of the DC Universe's most powerful heroes, and his first appearance in the "Future State" timeline suggests that this power is going to lead him to evolve into a new, unusual form. In the Outsiders backup story from Future State: The Next Batman #1 Katana comes across Duke Thomas helping a group of protesters escape from Gotham City.
Although Katana helps them against the Magistrate's forces she is angry at Duke for breaking an agreement between the two of them and ignores his offer of support when she leaves to infiltrate a facility on the outskirts of the city. But while she may not have asked for it Katana winds up receiving backup anyway, although not from Duke.
A thunderstorm is raging throughout the story and when Katana gets in over her head in a battle with Magistrate forces and one of the lightning bolts, which is black, strikes her adversary Kaliber directly, forcing him and his men to retreat. Jefferson Pierce's voice calls to Katana from one of the bolts before a roughly human shape is formed from it. This is apparently Jefferson, who seems to have transformed into some kind of electrical being. Katana is at first frightened by her friend's new form and attacks him but after he easily takes her sword from her she calms down. Katana is convinced that Jefferson is cursed somehow and that "Only a dark magic could have done this." Jefferson brushes off her concern, warning Katana that the Magistrate has planted a spy in Duke's group, which has made it to "the outside," and telling her to focus on that.
This is not the first time Jefferson's powers have dramatically increased. Throughout the character's history, the nature and extent of his abilities have often fluctuated. When the character was first introduced he was shown to only have powers when wearing a belt designed by Peter Gambi, but he later absorbed this power into himself because of his metagene. Later iterations of the character have simply been metahumans, although the live-action TV version played by Cress Williams still usually uses a super-suit to regulate his abilities and prevent harmful side effects. In pre-Flashpoint continuity, Jefferson was shown to have the ability to transform into an electrical form and move through electrical currents, which allowed him to travel at extremely fast speeds.
This is also not the first time Black Lightning has been shown to have abilities that go beyond science fiction into the realm of magic. In addition to demonstrating pride in his race, the comics version shows that Jefferson's code name also has a more literal meaning as he has the ability to fire special black lightning bolts which are mystical in origin. As they are a form of magic, rather than normal lightning these bolts are not limited by laws of nature, making them one of Jefferson's most useful powers.
His Future State form definitely represents a massive increase in Jefferson's abilities but recent events in DC's main continuity suggest that the present Jeff is not so far from reaching his potential. In Batman and the Outsiders, he was able to access previously unseen levels of power after finding a degree of inner peace.
This allowed him to single-handedly defeat Ra's al Ghul with relative ease, even while the villain was using alien technology to enhance his own power. Given that Katana, Duke, and Caliber were all important parts of Batman and the Outsiders it seems possible that the Outsiders "Future State" stories are meant to continue ideas from that series, and increasing Jefferson's powers could be one of the ways they are doing so.