WATCH: Blerd History Month lesson - Heroes and Comics

Ever wonder why so many Black comic book characters have lightning powers? In this week's #BlerdHistoryMonth segment, Angélique Roché of SYFY WIRE's Geekplain and Karama Horne of Who Won the Week highlight some of their favorite popular Black comic book heroes and introduce you to a few indie comics you might not know about.

For instance, Black Lightning, created by Tony Isabella and Trevor Von Eden over 40 years ago, has a whole new life onscreen on The CW show of the same name. Jefferson Pierce and his daughters Thunder and Lightning are some of the most popular superheroes on the channel. He even gets to team up with Static again for a bit on Young Justice: Outsiders (DC Universe).

There's a lot of great Black characters coming from the indie side as well. For instance, Livewire! One of Valiant comics oldest characters finally got a book of her own in 2018. Written by Vita Ayala and drawn by Khary Randolph, the character is a technopath who has the ability to control anything that has data or electricity running through it.

Then there’s E.X.O. the Legend of Wale Williams by Roye Okupe of Youneek Studios that blew up and got picked up by Diamond. The story of a wealthy Nigerian superhero set in a metropolitan city is a side of Africa that many people haven't seen before and we need to see more of.

What are some of your favorite comics that feature Black characters or are by Black creators?