Black Lightning Suits Up In New TV Show Image

A new image and details about the CW's Black Lightning highlight the hero's high-tech suit and expansive power-set. This October, the four shows of the Arrowverse will return and continue to adapt various heroes and villains from DC Comics. Not long after that, they'll once again be joining forces to stop a massive threat. Meanwhile, next year will see the rise of a new superhero from the comics who will be going on his own journey to protect his family and his community.

While Arrow remains the most grounded series in the universe bearing its name, the show still deals with some massive threats. Black Lightning, meanwhile, will focus on a more localized story about a father trying to protect his daughters and combat gang violence in his neighborhood. Luckily, he'll be aided by his mastery of electricity—which we saw on display in the show's teaser trailer recently. And though the series will be more mature than the other CW shows, it will still feature a colorful costume and lots of superpowers.

EW spoke with Black Lightning star Cress Willaims about what fans can expect in the new season, and the actor revealed quite a bit. Along with a new photo from the pilot for the series, Williams delved into who Black Lightning is, how his powers work, and what we can expect from his flashy suit.

"The bare bones details are that he’s a metahuman, meaning he was born with these abilities, and discovered them as a child. He created, with the help of a friend, Black Lightning, and was fighting crime in his community for quite a few years before he hung it up for his family. As we pick up the story, he has hung up his suit for about nine years, and then circumstances cause him to pick it back up again."

Despite the show existing separately from the rest of the Arrowverse, the concept of metahumans looks to be alive and well. The question will be how exactly did Black Lightning get his powers. Hopefully, we'll see how things came to be when the show premieres. And while the hero will have plenty of cool abilities when the series begins, Williams is hoping to dive into more stuff from the comics.

"We haven’t gotten into flight, which I’m really excited about eventually getting to that. He has the ability to have limited flight, and that’s the superpower I would love to have. He controls all things electrically based, along with martial arts and the hand-to-hand combat thing. Without getting into too much, there are things that the new suit provides that the old suit didn’t. It’ll be very fun, let’s put it that way."

As we can see from the new image, Black Lightning looks to be on his own when it comes to outfitting the second iteration of his suit. It's also seems clear that it's more than just a cool costume. Likely, the suit channels or amplifies Black Lightning's powers. And while the hero seems to be able to maintain it himself, he'll have his very own Cisco to help him out.

"We haven’t even touched on Gambi yet. Gambi is like a childhood friend who helps him design the suit and his mentor. We haven’t touched on him yet, so I’m excited to get into all of that."

With Black Lightning shooting next month in Atlanta, we'll probably learn a lot more about the series very soon. There's also a chance that more information about the cast and plot could arrive during Comic-Con. Though the show will stand on its own, Black Lightning looks like it will be another exciting addition to the Arrowverse.

Black Lightning premieres midseason 2018 on The CW.