Thunder
15 years ago - 7-year-old Anissa's father Jefferson Pierce moves the family back to Southside Metropolis. He becomes Black Lightning. Anissa, her mother Lynn Stewart, and her newborn sister Jennifer Pierce have to move back to Cleveland.
8 years ago - 14-year-old Anissa manifests her own powers. She makes a deal with her father Jefferson Pierce that she won't become a superhero until she finishes high school, and only if she goes to college.
4 years ago - 18-year-old Anissa starts studying pre-med at Tulane University. She starts using her powers as Thunder. Her father Jefferson Pierce tries to discourage her, but she loves it.
3 years ago - 19-year-old Anissa's sister Jennifer Pierce's metagene activates.
now - 22-year-old Anissa & Grace Choi move in together. She begins med school.
At this point, creating a new character out of the blue and just saying that they are the child of an existing, well-remembered hero is almost a trope unto itself, but it very rarely works as well as it did when Judd Winick invented Anissa Pierce, the daughter of Black Lightning. Winick has a really strong ability to introduce potentially problematic story ideas in a way that grows them organically out of what has come before, and in this case he gave us a great new character that was just loaded with potential.
Anissa Pierce's Comic HistoryAnissa appeared for the first time in Outsiders #1, the first issue of the new 2003 series by Judd Winick that revitalized the team with new characters and concepts. Anissa was a brilliant way to build on the idea of Black Lightning, one of the original members of the Outsiders, because at this point he was being used primarily as a former veteran hero that was now working for the government as the Secretary of Education. It had never been established before that he was a parent, but it immediately made so much sense that the mainstream continuity immediately absorbed the idea as gospel truth, which is almost unheard of when a writer imposes a major change to existing continuity.
Anissa's main characterization during those early stories centered around the fact that she'd spent her entire life looking forward to the day she got to be a superhero like her dad, and she loved every second of it. She was the new hero on the team, and we often got to know other characters based on how they interacted with her. Also, we got lots of dramatic mileage from the fact that her dad didn't want her doing this, and even though she loved him, It was just something she had to do. |
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The Outsiders series was interrupted by the one-year-later crossover that happened across all of DC in 2006, leading to the team lineup and overall series construction being substantially shaken up. While all the characters underwent some degree of change, Thunder's was perhaps the most drastic. She was no longer being depicted as the team's newbie, but was now one of their most dedicated and proactive members. her costume changed completely to represent her new characterization, which we'll get into in a bit. The biggest change, however, was the reveal that she was actually in a romantic relationship with fellow teammate Grace Choi.
Once Jud Winick's run on the Outsiders concluded, the team continued in other books, but the lineup changed pretty drastically. Thunder and Grace made appearances in these series, but it became clear pretty quickly that without Winick to write them, the only thing that anyone seemed to be interested in was the fact that they were a lesbian couple. What's worse, no one seemed to be able to draw them with a full set of clothes on. While her role in the DC universe seemed to be over, Anissa has of course been regularly depicted in the CW Black Lightning series, where they finally seem to have grasped just how great a character she can be if given the space to shine. |
Our Anissa StoryThere are some very core story ideas that need to be put in place to tell Anissa's story correctly. She needs to be the daughter of Black Lightning, she needs to have developed her powers when she is younger but made an agreement with her dad to wait until she's older to use them. She of course needs to be an Outsider, and she needs to be in a relationship with Grace.
When putting all that in place, most of the challenges came from making sure the ages and timelines of all the relevant characters fit together. We decided that rather than making her agree to wait until after college, the agreement is to wait until after high school, and only if she stays in college. Otherwise the ages of the associated characters all started to get a little unweildy. Similarly, we found that all the various timelines just fit together a little better if Anissa doesn't join the Outsiders right away on her first day as a superhero, but instead spends a little time doing low-level heroics on her own. This means that she has a small amount of experience already, but also that she's a later recruit rather than a founding member. |
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Thunder's CostumeThere was a very distinct change that happened in Thunder's costume very early on. She started out in a bright, multicolored costume with an almost ridiculously plunging neckline and sporting long blonde hair. By issue 34 she had changed to a much more practical outfit, and was now just wearing her natural hair.
Back when Black Lightning first debuted, he had a very short traditional hairstyle in his civilian identity, but had a full afro in his superhero costume, and a deeply plunging neckline. What's more, that afro was actually a wig. His superhero costume was meant to be a manifestation of the character's blackness expressed as a superpower. and it's no coincidence that his hair played a part in that. So when we meet Thunder, that blonde hair and that outfit were actually direct homages to her father's costume. I am absolutely not the correct person to write about the role that hair plays in the lives of people of color in general, and women of color in particular, so I'll just link to a few articles on the subject. Ultimately I think it's fair to say that this original costume was a really bold expression of this character's blackness as a superpower, and while the costumes she wore later might have been more practical, or easier for a white audience to digest... my preference is for this original costume. |
Anissa & GraceWhen we started this project, our major focus was on simplifying everything and keeping out characters that felt redundant, so originally, Black Lightning's kids were still too young to go out and be superheroes. At some point, however, it became very clear that Thunder was far from redundant, and a huge part of that is the relationship that grew over time between her and Grace.
What started out as a really wonderful friendship, with Grace the seasoned pro taking brand-new hero Thunder under her wing, grew organically over time into one of the most devoted romantic relationships in comics, and that by itself was incredibly sweet and worth including. Given that this was also a queer relationship between two women of color, however, I'm actually kind of embarrassed that we didn't include this from the beginning. We'd structured the timelines in such a way that Anissa was actually a little too young to be in the Outsiders or in a relationship with Grace... but this became such a priority for us that we went back and rewrote the timelines of SEVERAL characters, Black Lightning included, to make sure these two could be together. |
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Thunder's FutureAs we leave our timeline, Thunder has been a superhero for a few years, she's a member of the Outsiders, and she's recently moved in with her girlfriend Grace.
It's kind of hard to wrap your head around just how much potential Thunder actually has. She's so young, and so powerful, and has such a great support system around her, that she can really go absolutely anywhere. While I imagine she'll always consider the Outsiders as her home team, pretty much any major team-up of heroes moving forward would benefit from including her. Notably, she's also doing all of this while attending college, and has only just started Med School. Just because we all know how stories work, with everything seemingly going her way, it feels like something dramatic is about to happen in her life. Because she's one half of one of the best relationships in comics, we know that anything that happens to her is going to happen to Grace as well, and honestly, I really like knowing that the two of them together can take on anything a story can throw at them. I want more of these two. |
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