List of Black Lightning characters


Black Lightning is an American superhero television series developed by Salim Akil, airing on The CW. It is based on the DC Comics character of the same name, created by Tony Isabella. It stars Cress Williams as the titular character alongside China Anne McClain, Nafessa Williams, Christine Adams, Marvin Jones III, Damon Gupton, James Remar, and Jordan Calloway. Initially set in an unnamed alternative Earth separate from the other Arrowverse media, the show was later merged with Earth-1 and Earth-38 into Earth-Prime during Crisis on Infinite Earths.
The series sees the retired Black Lightning, who as Jefferson Pierce is a high school principal and loving father, return to the hero life after his daughters are kidnapped by the 100 Gang, which is later revealed to be led by Tobias Whale, who apparently killed Jefferson's father years before the onset.
Jefferson's elder daughter Anissa later discovers she has inherited her father's metahuman genes, although she is initially unaware that he is Black Lightning and begins investigating her grandfather's articles concerning a group of young metahumans who disappeared years ago. She later discovers her father is Black Lightning and joins him using her powers as a vigilante. Jefferson's ex-wife Lynn Stewart, is the main inspiration of Jefferson's initial retirement as she feared him dying on the streets, but she begrudgingly realizes she cannot stop him after discovering Anissa's abilities.

Main characters

Jefferson Pierce / Black Lightning

Jefferson "Jeff" Pierce is the main protagonist of the series.
At the beginning of season one, Jefferson has retired crime-fighting as Black Lightning due to the urges of his ex-wife Lynn and the safety of his two daughters and is the benevolent school principal of Garfield High who is loved by his students and his daughters. His foster father, Peter Gambi, urges him to return to the streets and use his metahuman abilities to give hope to the inhabitants of Freeland, their city, which is under duress by the 100 Street Gang. Jefferson adamantly refuses to return and resists using his powers even against a group of racists police officers who pull him and his daughters over unjustified suspicions, but after his daughter Jennifer is captured by the 100, he uses his metahuman abilities to fight off the gangsters holding them captive as Black Lightning, adorning a new suit built for him by Gambi.
Initially, Jefferson only returns to being Black Lightning to save his daughters and promises his ex-wife Lynn that it was a never to be repeated occasion and Black Lightning is gone and the two begin to explore reuniting, with Jefferson believing he can do more as Jefferson than Black Lightning could ever do as the community believes in his ability to get things done as a school principal and elder. As the series progresses, it revealed that Jefferson's ability to stand up for the community is so effective that he has come to be affectionately known as "Black Jesus" as revealed by his former student LaWanda White. Members of Freeland's community complain to Jefferson about the looming threat of the 100 taking young girls, including LaWanda's own daughter and having them forcibly work for them, but Jefferson continues to resist Black Lightning and promises to help find another way. He speaks to Latavius, one of Jeff's former students and a high-ranking member of the 100 gang, and asks him to back off to no avail, forcing LaWanda to confront Lala only for him to shoot and instantly kill her. Unbeknown to Latavius, she has recorded the event and it is found by the police, who use this as evidence to imprison Latavius. LaWanda's death forms the catalyst to convince Jeff that he is not doing better as Jefferson Pierce but must fully return and act as Black Lightning, much to Lynn's chagrin. As Black Lightning once more, Jeff attacks and hands Lala over to the police, who apprehend him, although is soon murdered by Tobias Whale, the secret true leader of the 100 gang.
Jeff continues to act as Black Lightning during the night and principal and parent during the day, dealing with the stress of Jennifer's adolescence and Anissa's incessant cry for action against the 100. Gambi helps him by watching through a camera in his glasses and a com and has surveillance watching most parts of the city. It is later revealed that Jefferson's father was a journalist who was killed by Tobias after he wrote an article about him. Jefferson retired shortly after a confrontation with Tobias that left the gangster believing he'd killed Black Lightning, making a name for himself on the streets for the past decade. Upon discovering he is alive, Tobias attempts to have Black Lightning killed while citizens of Freeland pay tribute to his return, but the bullet instead hits Jennifer's boyfriend Khalil, severing his spinal cord and crippling the track star. After discovering Tobias's resurgence, Jefferson attempts to kill him to avenge his father, but is convinced he's better by Lynn, who reminds him he is a hero and not a murderer shortly before she is attacked by some 100 gangsters for biological research into the drug Greenlight. The gangsters are chased off by Anissa, who is revealed to have inherited her father's metahuman genes, has powers and has started to act as a vigilante as well. Upon arrival, Black Lightning fights a masked Anissa, believing her to be the one attacking a gagged and tied-up Lynn. After a heated confrontation, Jefferson knocks Anissa out only to realize who she is. Lynn laments that she is also a metahuman and that she has followed in Jeff's footsteps but the two are forced to accept her need to fight for good just like Black Lightning and Lynn has Gambi make her suit. Jefferson though is displeased with Lynn's apparent hypocrisy and briefly voices his outrage on the matter.
In Season 3, Agent Odell gives Jefferson a special watch. When this watch is charged to a specific point, Jefferson gains a new costume through nano-technology. This enabled Odell to win Black Lightning into assisting against the Markovian invaders. After returning to Garfield High, he learns from Principal Mike Lowry that the A.S.A. had him reassign Jefferson to the occupation of guidance counselor. Due to the A.S.A.'s oppression, Black Lightning starts to work alongside the rebels.
In part three of Crisis on Infinite Earths, he is recruited by the Flash and his team in an effort to stop an anti-matter wave from annihilating the entire multiverse after he was teleported away while his world was erased. In the final part, Jefferson is restored when his Earth is merged with Earth-1 and Earth-38 to form Earth-Prime. He later become the founding members of a "league of heroes" alongside Barry and several other heroes. Black Lightning returns to Freeland and continues assisting the resistance. When Lynn is taken to Markovia, Jefferson has a parley with Major Sara Grey when it comes to a plan for a rescue mission. Jefferson agrees to help the A.S.A. rescue Lynn under the condition that the metahumans that assist them are off limits afterwards. When it came to the raid on a Markovian facility, Jefferson came up with an idea to have Thunder strike Erica Moran until she has absorbed enough kinetic energy to break down the strong door. Despite being hit by a laser gun wielded by Gravedigger, Black Lightning catches up to the group and shocks Gravedigger into submission. Then he and Lynn retreat to Freeland. When the Markovians attack Freeland, Black Lightning assists in defeating the ones that were attacking the Perdi. Lynn later informs Jefferson that his DNA and Gravedigger's DNA are a match meaning that they are both related. When Gravedigger defeats Lightning, Black Lightning begins to fight him. After Black Lightning tries to reason with him while mentioning that they are related, Gravedigger uses a microwave move to cause some burns to Black Lightning. When some Markovian soldiers make off with Lightning, Black Lightning makes a tactical retreat. He receives help from Brandon to rescue Lightning. After Henderson dies in his arms after shooting the soldiers that were planning to attack him, Black Lightning fights Gravedigger in the Pit. With help from Lynn using an anti-boost serum on Gravedigger, Black Lightning defeats him and gets everybody out of the Pit before it self-destructs. Following Odell being wounded by Khalil, Black Lightning is accompanied by Lynn, Thunder, and Lightning where they present the briefcase to a congressional committee that exposes the A.S.A.'s experiments as well as Markovia's own experiments.
Jennifer "Jen" Pierce is Jefferson Pierce's younger daughter and a metahuman, like her father and sister. She is based on the DC Comics character of the same name.
Jennifer is portrayed a carefree, rebellious teenager who is prone to challenging the "good girl" appearance imposed on her by her respected father, who is the principal of her high school Garfield High, as well her sister Anissa, who is teacher at the same school. Initially, Jennifer is very careless and even at times reckless with her own life such in the series premiere when getting drunk in a well-known 100 club and almost being forced to work for them. Jennifer is subsequently rescued by her father, who is unbeknownst to her, the crime-fighting vigilante known as Black Lightning. After being kidnapped by the 100 with her sister Anissa, she is rescued by Black Lightning and begins drinking and smoking to mask her fear.
Jefferson has extensively taught Jennifer and Anissa martial arts and she is a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant, having once even efficiently severed a girl's wrist. She and her sister Anissa share a very close relationship, although Jennifer often does not support Anissa's more confrontational approach to doing the right thing, though. Jennifer begins to show maturity after her long-time friend Khalil asks her to be his girlfriend and becomes a stable influence on her life. Jennifer deeply cares for Khalil and after they agree to lose their virginity together, she is responsible enough to inform her parents she will be having sex, although Khalil is shot and crippled before this can happen while marching against the 100's gang violence with Jennifer, ending his ambitions of becoming an Olympic star and transcending the limitations usually imposed on teenagers of color. This puts a strain on their relationship and Khalil lashes out at Jennifer, on an occasion even supporting a girl cyberbullying her. After confronting him on the matter, Khalil reveals he blames her for his new status due to her encouraging him to join him on the march that got him shot, seemingly ending their relationship. Jennifer is currently unaware that she has also inherited her father's metahuman genes and that, like her sister, may one day gain her own abilities, a fact that is presently being kept from her by her sister, mother and father.
After she quits running track, Jennifer becomes an unpaid intern for her mother. Later, an encounter with her friend Kiesha startles Jennifer into awakening her own latent metahuman abilities, which become known to her after Kiesha almost falls off a ladder. Her abilities manifest as a very hot red lightning that comes from her hands and burns her smartphone. She keeps this a secret from Kiesha and later consciously attempts to recreate the earlier conditions and confirms she has abilities, further destroying her phone. Terrified, Jennifer immediately tells her sister and shows her the deconstructed smartphone.
The next morning, Anissa confesses the truth about her and their father being metahumans and that she is the crime fighting Thunder. As Jennifer initially does not believe her, Anissa uses her super strength to lift Jennifer's bed in a demonstration. Terrified, Jennifer flies and confronts their father, who begrudgingly admits Anissa is telling the truth. This makes Jennifer react angrily as she thinks they have all betrayed her trust as they have lied to her whole life. Later she laments to her mother that she will no longer have a happy and normal life and get to experience such things as prom, marriage and having children due to her new state as a "freak". She also confronts the fact that Lynn herself ended her marriage to Jefferson because he was the metahuman Black Lightning. Jennifer and Anissa later reconcile and she shows her older sister her online presence and following far exceeds even Black Lightning's. Jefferson later talks to Jennifer and the two watch a movie together after Jennifer reveals they have not done so in some time. Jefferson also later assures her that the only life she will live is the one she wishes to live and does not have to become a superheroine like her sister or himself. This helps Jennifer although she still admits difficulty to accepting or even exploring her new abilities.
When Anissa tries to push her to find out what her ability is and take up the mantle of becoming a hero, Jennifer's abilities manifest again and react violently due to the hurtful things Anissa said, having denounced Jennifer as a "disappointment". Her powers char a nearby couch and Anissa theorizes that her seemingly electric powers resemble their father's. Anissa has her sent to their mother's lab to take an MRI scan to insure Jennifer is okay. This leads to the discovery that Jennifer's cells are constantly producing "pure energy" in contrast to Jefferson's, whose electric powers are absorbed and conducted from an exterior source like a battery's while Jennifer's body acts as a powerful interior generator for a stronger kind of "lightning".
After the A.S.A. discovers Black Lightning's secret identity, Jennifer and her family are forced to go into hiding.
In Season 2, Jennifer starts to get control of her abilities. She manages to perfect them when she finally confronts Tobias Whale for what he did to Khalil and takes up the name of Lightning. Though Lightning chooses not to kill Tobias, she helps her father defeat him.
In Season 3, Jennifer works to gain control of her powers at the time when her parents are in A.S.A. custody. Odell used her to destroy a Markovian facility that was cleared out by Black Lightning and the A.S.A. commandos that he rescued after Odell claimed to her that the Markovians killed Nichelle. She soon starts to do secret missions for Odell as she is also advised to pick a side when it becomes a three-way struggle between Freeland, the A.S.A., and the Markovians. After being exposed to the anti-matter in the sky in a lead-up to Crisis on Infinite Earths, Jennifer met her two counterparts in a void and learned the flaws of having too little power and too much power. As Gambi worked to stabilize Jennifer, her body turned into a light as the anti-matter wave erases her Earth. Following the Crisis, Jennifer pulls herself together and declares that she is done with Odell. When the A.S.A. arrive to rescue Odell, Jennifer is shocked to see Painkiller alive and knocks him out. Jennifer helps to form a firewall to trap the Painkiller program. When Khalil regains control of his body and learns what the A.S.A. did to it, Jennifer is told that they can't be together. Jennifer later assists in the plans to rescue her mother from the Markovians. She found her mother who had turned the tide on Yuri Mosin and helped to evacuate her. Jennifer later helped Brandon get the information about Brandon's mother from Dr. Jace. When Gravedigger arrives in Freeland, Lightning takes out the Markovian soldiers with him before Gravedigger throws her into the perimeter enough for it to come down. Black Lightning rescues Lightning and resuscitates her as Gravedigger catches up to them. After being dragged off by Markovian soldiers, Lightning is kept their prisoner as she tries to reason with Gravedigger. She is rescued by Black Lightning and Brandon. When in the Pit, Lightning and Brandon do a combo attack on Gravedigger who knocks them down. Following the conflict in Freeland, Lightning accompanied Black Lightning, Lynn, and Thunder to a congressional committee where they present the briefcase that exposes the A.S.A.'s experiments as well as Markovia's own experiments.
Anissa Pierce is the older daughter of Jefferson Pierce and Lynn Stewart and a metahuman like her father and younger sister Jennifer. She is a medical student who works as a part-time teacher at Garfield High.
Anissa is an outspoken young woman who is described as "Harriet Tubman" by her sister Jennifer due to her avid support of the Black Lives Matter movement and Black Rights in general. At the start of the series, she is bailed out of jail by her sister and father due to her joining a protest against the 100 that turns violent. After provoking and publicly attacking Will in defense of Jennifer after he got Jennifer into trouble with the gang, Anissa and her sister are kidnapped by Will and small group of gangsters during the class she was teaching. Fortunately, Black Lightning resurfaces and rescues them. Later that night, Anissa begins to undergo a panic attack that awakens her latent metahuman abilities, which she inherited from her father, breaking her bathroom sink in half. Anissa does not immediately realize that she is a metahuman and continues to briefly go on with life, believing it to have been an "accident". Anissa, who is openly lesbian, breaks up with her girlfriend Chenoa due to losing interest in her and begins to investigate her new abilities after her powers awaken again during a store robbery she is able to stop using them. She determines that she has enhanced strength and density when taking deep breaths that she can activate and deactivate at will by controlling her breathing. This makes her virtually invincible so long as she can continue to control her inhalation. In addition, she has an accelerated healing factor that mends injuries of her body far beyond the capabilities of an ordinary human. Anissa begins to look into her family history while also making a friend and possible new love interest in bartender Grace Choi while also doing vigilante work. Anissa learns that her grandfather was a journalist who investigated a group of young metahumans who disappeared years ago. Anissa eventually finds his research and decides to share it with her mother, Lynn Stewart, a neuroscientist, although she does not immediately tell her why she is researching their history. Lynn is attacked by members of the 100 shortly after, who tie her up and tape her mouth shut in her office forcing Anissa to use her powers to help her mother. While she successfully scares them away, Black Lightning shows up, wrongly believing a masked Anissa to be the culprit of a still tied-up Lynn's kidnapping. The two metahumans confront one another, and after Black Lightning inevitably wins and injures Anissa, Lynn reveals the truth and laments that both her children are metahumans.
In Season 3, Anissa takes on the alias of Blackbird when liberating young metahumans from the A.S.A. buses as Gambi secretly assists her. She later reunited with Grace and accepts her metahuman abilities. Anissa is erased during the Crisis on Infinite Earths when a wave of anti-matter destroys the entire universe. She is restored when her Earth is merged with Earth-1 and Earth-38 to form Earth-Prime. Blackbird continues helping the resistance as Black Lightning allows her to make the calls. When Lynn is taken to Markovia, Anissa plans to take part in the rescue mission where she is persuaded by Grace to let her assist in it. When it comes to the raid on the Markovian facility, Thunder had to strike Erica Moran until she had absorbed enough kinetic energy enough to knock down a strong door. When the Markovians attacked South Freeland, Thunder and Grace assisted Black Lightning in fighting them. Anissa and Grace later invite everybody to their engagement party to get that out of the way before the Markovians begin their invasion on Freeland. When in the Pit, Thunder and Grace confront Gravedigger who controls Grace into attacking Thunder. She was forced to use her abilities to knock her out. Following the attack on Freeland, Lynn tells Thunder that Grace is in a coma where she is unsure when she'll come out of it as Lynn plans to make sure that Grace receives full care. Thunder accompanied Black Lightning, Lynn, and Lightning to a congressional committee where they present the briefcase that exposes the A.S.A.'s experiments as well as Markovia's own experiments.
Describing her character as a positive role model, Williams said "I'm just really grateful to tell the story for young lesbians – and black lesbians in particular... My hope is that when you watch Anissa, a young lesbian is inspired to walk boldly as who she is and to love herself and to love herself exactly how she looks."
Lynn Stewart is a highly learned doctor and neurologist as well as the ex-wife of Jefferson and the mother of Jennifer and Anissa Pierce.
Several years before the onset of the series, Lynn divorced and convinced Jefferson to retire as Black Lightning to protect their two daughters as his vigilante work often brought him home battered and wounded; on occasion even bleeding in front of Jennifer. Years later, Lynn and Jefferson begin to get close again, giving Jeff hope of reconciliation before their daughters are kidnapped and he is forced to use his powers for the first time in years to save them, although he promises Lynn that it would be a one-time deal. After the death of his former student LaWanda White, Jeff decides to return to being Black Lightning, much to Lynn's frustration as this pushes back their relationship, which had finally started to heal. Lynn attempts to convince Peter Gambi to tell him to stop, to no avail. Lynn begins to realize Anissa is acting strange and inquires into this unsuccessfully, although she assures her that she will support her no matter what. Despite not wanting to get involved with Black Lightning, Lynn is instrumental in convincing Jefferson to not kill Tobias Whale, leader of the 100 and the man who killed his father. Lynn later begins to investigate the effects of a new drug called "Green Light" and its effects on the brain, which are similar to what appears to happen to Jefferson when he uses his powers. She is also given a box by Anissa containing Jefferson's father's genetic research on the metagene due to the disappearance of a group of teenagers years prior to his eventual death. Anissa dismisses her curiosity as her simply doing an assignment on their family history. Shortly thereafter, Lynn is attacked by 100 gangsters. Fortunately, Anissa shows up dressed in disguise and uses her abilities to disarm and scare off the attackers. Before she can help a shocked Lynn, Black Lightning arrives and wrongfully believes a masked Anissa to be Lynn's attacker. The two metahumans get into a heated confrontation with Jefferson emerging as the victor, although he soon regrets this as he realizes who she is. Lynn and Jefferson lament that Anissa has gained powers and has followed in Black Lightning's dangerous footsteps. Lynn analyses Anissa's wounds and realizes she has very fast healing abilities like her father.
In Season 3, Lynn starts working for the A.S.A. as she works to find a way to stabilize the metahuman gene. While using a filtered version of Green Light, Lynn was able to come up with the vaccines which also involved some DNA samples taken from Tobias Whale. Whale starts to play with her mind where he wanted the info on the metahumans the A.S.A. had. She gives them to him, but leaves out the information on Wendy Hernandez and Erica Moran. She is erased during the Crisis on Infinite Earths when a wave of antimatter destroys the entire universe. Lynn is restored when her Earth is merged with Earth-1 and Earth-38 to form Earth-Prime. Both Jennifer and Jefferson find that she has become addicted to the modified Green Light. After receiving help from Sergeant Gardner Grayle into sneaking Tobias Whale out of the Pit, both of them were tasered by a Markovian operative who contacts Colonel Mosin to send Instant over. Lynn and Tobias are taken to Markovia where she is reunited with Jace. This led to a cat fight which Yuri Mosin broke up. He reveals to Lynn the knowledge of what Lynn has done to stabilize the metahuman gene from his double agent Nurse Michael Allen and leaves her a Green Light to help her out. As Jace works to gain Lynn's trust, she does tell Jace that she needs some medicine to deal with the Green Light withdrawal. Then she meets Gravedigger when he was given orders to take over the operation from Mosin. Lynn does a trick to get Gravedigger to give him his DNA sample which enabled her to make a 20-minute Green Light with a copy of his mind-control. While it worked on Mosin, it couldn't work on Gravedigger when he caught up to the group. As Lynn started to surrender to Gravedigger, Black Lightning arrived and shocked Gravedigger into submission. Then Black Lightning and Lynn got on the helicopter and retreated back to Freeland. Lynn continued to go through withdrawal symptoms as she has Jennifer fry the Green Light she hid in the bathroom. She was present when Gambi used the briefcase's information to explain the history of Gravedigger and the United States' collaboration with Markovia on a metahuman project. Lynn states that she left the meta-boost formula in Markovia. After working in the lab, Lynn informs Jefferson that his DNA and Gravedigger's DNA are a match meaning that they are related. As she works on the anti-boost serum to use on Gravedigger, Lynn is confronted by Commander Carson Williams who is on a mission to eliminate classified information where he mentions that he already did away with Dr. Jace. Briefly copying Erica's powers, Lynn kills Commander Williams in self-defense. With the anti-boost serum made, she uses them on Gravedigger enabling Black Lightning to defeat him as he then evacuates everyone from the Pit which has been set to self-destruct. After examining Grace, Lynn states to Anissa that she is in a coma where she is unsure when she'll come out of it while advising she gets full care. Lynn later accompanied Black Lightning, Thunder, and Lightning to a congressional committee where they present the briefcase that exposes the A.S.A.'s experiments as well as Markovia's own experiments.
Tobias Whale is a crime lord who leads the 100 Gang and the main antagonist of the series.
Tobias is an African-American albino who is portrayed as cruel and seemingly loathes his "Black" heritage as he casually but very often expresses that he prefers the company of "White people" and refers to "Black" individuals distastefully as "negroes". This expressed usually by his left and right-hand man and woman Joey Toledo and Syonide who are always with him. Though this is contradicted by his apparent great love for his sister, Tori, who is a Black African-American. Tobias is first shown scolding Latavius, one of his main subordinates, on the apparent return of Black Lightning, asking if he believes in the "Resurrection". Tobias built his "street cred" around his apparent murdering Black Lightning and was gifted the 100 gang by a group of unseen, powerful underworld gangsters for it. They assign a woman named Lady Eve to watch over their investment in him and he reports to her. After Latavius is incarcerated for the death of LaWanda White, Tobias, Toledo and Syonide infiltrate the jail with their connections at the police station and murder Lala as he is a liability. Tobias next attempts to assassinate Black Lightning after he appears before a mob of marchers against the 100. The bullet he fires misses and instead hits Jefferson's daughter's boyfriend, Khalil, whose spine is severed, but no one sees Tobias except Peter Gambi, who curiously erases the footage and keeps it from Jefferson. Tobias meets with Lady Eve, who expresses aversion with the uproar the 100 is receiving for paralyzing a potential "Olympic star", a fact Tobias mostly shrugs off. It is revealed that Tobias killed Jefferson Pierce's father years before the onset of the series when Jeff was a kid, but has maintained the same youthful appearance apparently due to an unnamed serum that sustains his youth and seemingly inhumane strength. Upon discovering that Tobias is in Freeland, Jefferson attempts to assassinate Tobias in return, but is convinced otherwise and Tobias escapes. Tobias next begins to release a drug called Greenlight that seems to temporarily enhance the user's strength while in a blind rage-filled frenzy but is highly unstable. Tobias's sister arrives in Freeland and suggests they turn the people of the city against Black Lightning. Together they decide to finally deal with their father, who was abusive towards them as children. Tobias breaks his back, mercilessly "letting him die" alone with no help. Later, Tobias and Syonide convince Khalil that they have a way to make him walk again. Sometime after this, Tobias and his sister are subsequently attacked by Black Lightning while attending a club. After Lady Eve and Peter Gambi murder Toledo, Tobias and Tori plot to kill Evelyn in revenge. Tobias's people are badly overpowered and he is injured while a stray bullet hits and kills Tori. His henchmen guide him out of the building. Using his contact with ASA operative Martin Proctor, Tobias Whale turns Khalil Payne into Painkiller. In the season finale, Tobias uses Lala as a bomb mule as he, Syonide, and Painkiller raid an A.S.A. building. Proctor escaped, but they got the briefcase he had.
In Season 2, Tobias Whale goes to visit the crypt of Tori to pay his respects where he is arrested by Deputy Chief Henderson and his fellow police officers for the murder of Alvin Pierce. Tobias is released from police custody when District Attorney Montez does not think that Jefferson's eyewitness testimony will stick. During "The Book of Rebellion" arc, Tobias Whale sends Painkiller to kill Reverend Jeremiah Holt, who wouldn't relocate his clinic as suggested by Councilman Kwame Parker. When Tobias got tired of waiting and Painkiller failed to get Reverend Holt to leave town, he placed a bounty on Painkiller, which gets fulfilled by Giselle Cutter and ends with Tobias ripping out his spinal implant and leaving him for dead. During these episodes, Tobias also gets a young prodigy named Todd Green on his side. The episode "The Book of Secrets: Chapter One: Prodigal Son" revealed that he was an old friend of Helga Jace, who made his anti-aging serum. After Todd orchestrates Jace's jailbreak in secret, she takes Tobias to where the remaining pod children are held, as he makes plans for them. In the season 2 finale, Tobias unleashes the Masters of Disaster on Freeland while also having the 100 cause riots. When Lightning confronts Tobias Whale after Cutter leaves him, she nearly kills him for what he did to Painkiller until Black Lightning shows up and talks her out of it. Lightning helps her father defeat Tobias who is then remanded to an off the books meta-human prison called the "Pit."
In Season 3, Tobias is looking older without his serum and his hair has grown in. Issa Williams uses his truth-extracting abilities on Tobias where he reveals that Proctor worked for Odell and that Odell works for the President of the United States. Odell later tries to get the location of the briefcase out of him to no avail even when he used ultraviolet lights on him. Tobias later has a hallucination of Black Lightning taunting him. When working on stabilizing the meta-gene, Lynn works on Tobias where she uses the same serum on him that restores his body. Tobias voices his knowledge that Black Lightning and Jefferson Pierce are one person and vows to deal with him when he gets out. Lynn then extracts a bone marrow sample from Tobias joking that she forgot the anesthetic. When Tobias is snuck out of the Pit and knocked out by Lynn, a Markovian operative tasered Lynn and Gardner Grayle while arranging for Instant to take Lynn and Tobias to Markovia. Once there, Yuri Mosin's double agent Nurse Michael Allen continued to extract the bone marrow from Tobias to further the Markovian's plans to stabilize the metahumans on their side. When Tobias is rescued by Black Lightning, he voices to Black Lightning that he knows his identity. This causes Black Lightning to knock him out. It was mentioned that Tobias got away as Mosin reports to Gravedigger that his men can't find him. Tobias makes his way to Nurse Michael Allen's house where he has killed his dad and spared his mom. He wants Nurse Allen to take him to where the metahumans in Markovia's custody are. Tobias later watches the news about Markovia's prime minister refusing to give restitution for Markovia's attack on Freeland as he plans to make his own return to Freeland.

Billy Henderson

Inspector William "Billy" Henderson is a police detective and Jefferson's best friend who is oblivious to his alter ego as Black Lightning and hunts him due to believing he is an outlaw and vigilante. After exposing the dirty Deputy Chief Zeke Cayman, he is appointed to replace him.
In Season 2, Henderson eventually learns that Jefferson is Black Lightning, fracturing their relationship. He later informed Jefferson that Detective Summers was killed and to use Black Lightning to track down one of the people who is known for setting fires to cars. Also, Henderson learned that Jefferson was replaced as principal in light of the 100's attack on Garfield High. Once that was done, Henderson is informed by Black Lightning that the person was hired by Tobias Whale. This leads Henderson and his police officers to track down Tobias Whale at his sister's crypt where Henderson led in his arrest. Then Henderson informed Jefferson that they finally caught Tobias Whale and wanted him to be the first to know about it. While he does place Helga Jace in his custody after Lynn Stewart subdues her, he finds Jace not in her cell due to the bounty hunter Instant having taken her to the Markovians while having killed some police officers in the process. After Tobias Whale is defeated, Henderson is seen driving through the streets as Black Lightning and Thunder put an end to the 100-established riots.
In Season 3, Henderson is now the chief of police and is intimidated by Commander Carson Williams to do a press conference about the A.S.A.'s enforced curfew or else he will make things miserable for his family. Henderson had no choice but to agree to the terms. Unbeknownst to the A.S.A., Henderson started a secret resistance movement against the A.S.A. with the help of Blackbird. During the Markovian invasion of Freeland, Henderson is assisted in protecting the suspected metahumans by Lala and the remnants of the 100. Stumbling on some Markovian soldiers planning to ambush Black Lightning, Henderson shoots them and ends up getting shot in the process. Before dying in Black Lightning's arms, Henderson advises him not to disappoint Freeland.

Peter Gambi

Peter Gambi is a tailor who is the main benefactor and surrogate father of Jefferson Pierce. He took him in after Alvin Pierce's death and is also shown to have some connection with Lady Eve. His real name is Peter Esposito and was a former member of the A.S.A. working under Martin Proctor until he turned against the organization and gave information to Alvin Pierce, resulting in his murder.
In Season 2, Gambi encounters Kara Fowdy who informs him that Proctor's briefcase is in Tobias Whale's possession. Gambi assists Anissa in obtaining money to save a clinic from being closed down and finds a badly-wounded Kara Fowdy. He tends to her injuries as he tries to get the info on where Tobias has the briefcase. When the clinic was nearly-bombed, Peter faces the female culprit until she gets away by hijacking a guy's motorcycle. Before Kara Fowdy dies, she gives her cell phone to Gambi with the information that he is looking for on it. Gambi is later ambushed during a drive and is presumed dead after being run off the road with his car exploding. He faked his death to find out who called the hit and later reunited with the Pierce family. Gambi later makes a special suit for Jennifer when she becomes Lightning.
In Season 3, Gambi helps Anissa out with her Blackbird operations where he event created the A.I. Shonda for her apartment. To get close to the A.S.A, Gambi uses the holographic cloaking technology to assume the appearance of a random soldier. He is erased during the Crisis on Infinite Earths when a wave of anti-matter destroys the entire universe. Gambi is restored when his Earth is merged with Earth-1 and Earth-38 to form Earth-Prime. When Black Lightning and Lightning's experiences with alternate realities was brought up, Gambi has no memories of that and had found traces of anti-matter energy explaining that they are the only ones who remember. While planning to check the failsafes in the suit that the A.S.A. provided Jennifer, Gambi finds that Baron was led into his lair as he learns his connections with Black Lightning, Thunder, and Lightning. While treating Baron, Gambi later finds him on the floor after his abilities enabled him to find info on his computer on who tried to have Gambi killed as the picture he found shows Lady Eve. At the time when Black Lightning and Thunder had briefly abducted Odell, it was revealed that Gambi was previously trained by Odell during Gambi's time with the A.S.A. When Lynn has been taken to Markovia by Instant, Gambi is among those who plan to rescue her as Gambi had some business that he did there. Gambi and TC coordinated the rescue of Lynn once they arrived. Gambi later spoke to Dr. Jace stating that he should've disobeyed orders and killed her when they first met. After Gambi ripped out an eye of one of the twins that worked for her, Lady Eve met with Gambi at a tailor shop. She gives him the briefcase that was previously in Tobias' possession that Lala gave her. After TC unlocks the briefcase, Gambi reveals the information about the United States' collaboration on the metahuman project to Jefferson and Lynn which turned Tyson Sykes into Gravedigger. Gambi later plans to officiate the engagement of Anissa and Grace. During the Markovian invasion, Gambi and TC coordinate Black Lightning in rescuing Lightning and warning them that Odell set the Pit to self-destruct. Afterwards, Gambi and TC get into a shootout with Major Sara Grey and the A.S.A. soldiers with her which ends with Gambi and TC emerging victorious.

Khalil Payne / Painkiller

Khalil Payne is a track star at Garfield High and Jennifer's ex-boyfriend. After a bullet from Syonide's gun paralyzes him from the waist down, he becomes involved with Tobias Whale where he undergoes an experimental treatment done by the A.S.A. involving a spinal implant that gives him enhanced abilities, becomes a cyborg in the process. Tobias Whale is the one who names Khalil's new form of Painkiller.
In light of Syonide's death in Season 2, Tobias has Painkiller do her duties as well where one of them resulted in the death of 100 member Rheon when collecting the protection money. After Tobias Whale rips out his spinal implant for being unable to kill Reverend Holt, Painkiller dies from his injuries in the hospital as Jennifer and Nichelle mourn his death. Though Khalil somehow appears alive in one of the pods in Agent Odell's possession.
In Season 3, Odell had a brain chip placed in Painkiller's head to make him obedient and uses him to kill his own mother with a poisonous touch that the A.S.A. placed in him after she was heard on a resistance transmission stating what Tobias Whale made the A.S.A. do to her son. After Lightning destroyed the Markovian facility that was just cleared out by Black Lightning and the A.S.A. commandos, Odell sends Painkiller to a house where some Markovians are hiding out and slays them. Painkiller is later assigned Black Lightning as a target. During the fight at Franklin Terrace, Painkiller engages Thunder and is knocked out of the window by him. Both Painkiller and Carson Williams were evacuated from the area. When it came to the A.S.A.'s mission to rescue Odell, Painkiller was knocked out by Lightning who was shocked to see him alive. TC later translated his technology to Jennifer stating that Painkiller still loves her. With help from TC and Gambi, Jennifer created a firewall to trap the Painkiller program enabling Khalil to regain control of his body. Due to what the A.S.A. did to his body, Khalil states to Jennifer that they can't be together. Jefferson arranged for Major Grey to remove Khalil from their system as part of the conditions for a collaboration to rescue Lynn. While reluctant to help in rescuing Lynn due to what the A.S.A. did to him, Khalil decided to help out. During the raid of the Markovian facility, Khalil faced off against Gravedigger and got overpowered. He managed to get out of the facility. After Painkiller briefly broke free from the firewall due to a glitch, Khalil fought him back and elected to keep his distance from Jennifer. When some Markovian soldiers attack, Painkiller breaks free and kills them. Then he traps Khalil behind the same firewall before resuming his mission to kill the Pierce family. When Painkiller tries to snipe Lightning, Khalil breaks free and ultimately defeats the Painkiller program. Then he confronts Odell in the backseat of his car. When Black Lightning advises Khalil not to kill Odell, he just shoots where his spleen and leaves him for Black Lightning as he walks off.

Recurring characters

This is a list of recurring actors and the characters they portrayed in multiple episodes, which were significant roles, sometimes across multiple seasons. The characters are listed by the season in which they first appeared.

Introduced in season one

Introduced in season one

Roland S. Martin and Nina Turner appeared as themselves in the pilot. Journalist Amanda Davis has a posthumous cameo appearance in two episodes.

Introduced in season two

Benjamin Crump and Angela Rye appears as themselves in the season two premiere talking about the Green Light incident.

Introduced in season three