Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Black Lightning, season 3, episode 12, “The Book of Markovia: Chapter Three: Motherless ID.”
The latest episode of Black Lightning saw Jefferson Pierce take the first steps in forming a team that may become the the Outsiders of the Arrowverse. This move comes hot on the heels of Black Lightning helping to establish the Arrowverse’s Justice League during Crisis on Infinite Earths.
First appearing in The Brave and the Bold #200 in 1983, the Outsiders have been a frequent presence in the DC Comics’ universe ever since. The first Outsiders was formed by Batman, who had grown tired of the bureaucracy the Justice League required as it became larger. Another incarnation of the team was formed by Nightwing and Arsenal with the intention of hunting down supervillains before they could cause trouble. Black Lightning was a member of the first Outsiders and led several incarnations of the team, with his daughter Anissa Pierce (aka Thunder) joining the Outsiders team established by Nightwing and Arsenal. The Outsiders also lay at the center of the storyline of the third season of Young Justice.
The third season of Black Lightning has introduced a number of teen metahumans into its supporting cast. Chief among them was Brandon; a classmate of Jennifer Pierce who moved to Freeland in order to kill the scientist who used his mother as a guinea pig while she was pregnant. The experiments left Brandon with the power to manipulate the earth around him, turning coal into diamonds and creating localized earthquakes. More recently, the show introduced TC; a young metahuman with the power to talk to computers like they were people and hack electronics from the inside.
Both young men sought shelter in the superhero headquarters maintained by Black Lightning’s partner Peter Gambi. This led Jefferson to question his foster father as to why he allowed “two outsiders in the sanctum,” in Black Lightning, season 3, episode 12, “The Book of Markovia: Chapter Three: Motherless ID.” However, by the episode’s end, Jefferson was glad to have the young men’s help, as he was approached by the ASA for assistance in rescuing his estranged wife, Lynn Stewart, who had been abducted by the rogue nation of Markovia in the hopes that her knowledge of metahuman genetics could create an army of super-powered soldiers.
While Jefferson was reluctant to work with the ASA, he also knew he had no chance of getting to Markovia to rescue his wife alone. To that end Black Lightning agreed to help on two conditions; that he got to bring whoever he wanted with him on the mission and they would all have any records regarding their criminal histories or status as metahumans erased by the ASA. This enabled Jefferson to get a full pardon for Gambi (who was a rogue ASA agent) as well as himself, his daughters Anissa and Jennifer, Anissa’s shape-shifting girlfriend Grace Choi, Brandon and TC.
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