Black Vulcan is a member of the Super Friends with the ability to control lightning.
History[]
Black Vulcan was created by Jeffrey Scott as a replacement for already-existing hero Black Lightning when he found out DC would have to pay BL's creator Tony Isabella royalties. Since DC was on bad terms with Isabella, they could not. So instead, Hanna-Barbera opted to create a new character they could use. This ended up being Black Vulcan. Isabella poked fun at this in Black Lightning Vol 1 #10, which had an imposter of Black Lightning employed by someone named Barbara Hanna!!
Black Vulcan first appeared in the final segment of the first episode of The All New Super Friends Hour, "The Whirlpool," where he and Aquaman prevented a sea captain from reaching his speed record in the middle of a whirlpool. These early appearances saw Black Vulcan shout his name in a similar manner to Hanna-Barbera superheroes Space Ghost and Birdman before using his powers, which was phased out after his second appearance.
Challenge of the Super Friends promoted Black Vulcan to starring status, making more appearances than he had previously made. He also developed a new catchphrase, "Great Lightning!" This series also revealed Black Vulcan was a founding member of the Super Friends.
The 1980-1983 Super Friends shorts kept Black Vulcan's starring role, also including him in the Health and Safety PSAs.
Black Vulcan would make his last appearance on the show during its Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show incarnation, where he only appeared in a two-parter. Despite this, he was still featured in the intro sequence.
In The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians, Black Vulcan was replaced with Cyborg, another black superhero who was well-established in DC Comics' continuity.
Black Vulcan was brought back in 2001 on the Adult Swim show Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, where he was parodied by being a stoner black rights advocate and fired Super Friend who went on a rant about how they were pairing him up with a white member and how Aquaman gave him the name "Black Vulcan." He continued to make appearances in the show; most of them being in season 2. His catchphrase here was "...in my pants," whenever somebody made a double entendre, he'd appear to make some variation on the catchphrase.
Trivia[]
- Static wears Black Vulcan's costume at one point in the first episode of Static Shock.
- In addition, Richie rejects it for making Static look like "a battery commercial." In Harvey Birdman, Black Vulcan's original name was said to be "Supervolt." "Supervolt" was the rival company in the 90s Energizer commercials.