So, last week on What Were They Thinking? (the place where we look at all of the stupidest, most ill-advised things in all of comic book history) we took a look at an example of DC’s fascination with transformations. However, there was another storyline that I mentioned in the introduction to that edition that is also quite interesting, and segues quite nicely into this weeks topic. Back in 1970, DC thought it was a good idea to explore social issue such as racial inequality and racism by having one of their white characters (Lois Lane) black up and join an African-American community (read: Ghetto) called, and I’m not kidding, Little Africa. Of course, the storyline is only remembered today for the fact that you had Lois Lane using a machine to change her race and it would certainly not get published now. However, at the time, DC didn’t have a major black character. It would take them 2 more years to debut John Stewart, with Marvel already having debuted Black Panther and Falcon at this point. So, DC took a white character and made them black, because why not. And that, rather neatly, leads on to the stubject of this weeks discussion, the newest member of the Arrowverse, Mr Jefferson Pierce aka Black Lightning
