BLACK VULCAN: THE PROBABLY LIKELY CLOSE TO 100% TRUE STORY OF THE WORLD’S MOST MISUNDERSTOOD SUPER FRIEND

 

There are certainties in life. If you are the creator of Black Lightning, one of those certainties is that you are going to be asked several times a year about Black Vulcan. At conventions. In emails. On Facebook and other social media. Even at my garage sales. It’s frustratingly inevitable and I deal with it as best I can. The questions boil down to these.

Is Black Vulcan a rip-off of Black Lightning? Yes.

Was Black Vulcan created to prevent Tony Isabella from getting the royalties I was due? Also, yes, but the real culprit in this theft was not Hanna-Barbera, but DC Comics circa 1977.

Before I proceed, let me clarify today’s very long blog title. I am confident I have the basic story correct. However, since some of the folks involved are no longer with us, I can’t verify what they told me at the time. I can speculate on some elements and my speculations are likely pretty accurate. But there are things I cannot state as absolute truths. They are hearsay, albeit from very trustworthy people, but hearsay none the less.

Let’s start with some inaccurate information on Wikipedia:

Black Vulcan debuted in The All-New Super Friends hour in September 1977. He was created to replace Black Lightning, who could not be used due to disputes between DC and the character's creator Tony Isabella. Vulcan was designed by cartoonist Alex Toth responsible for the look of most Hanna-Barbera superheroes.

Here’s the straight scoop:

I didn’t know Black Lightning was replaced by Black Vulcan on Super Friends until I watched the episode in September 1977. Up until that moment, I believed Black Lightning was going to be on the show. Any claim about a dispute between DC and myself prior to the launch of the series is patently false because I didn’t know about the switch prior to the launch.

When writers who want to get into comics ask me for my advice on that, I tell them two things:

1. Get any creator agreement with anyone in writing.

2. Get a good lawyer to enforce that agreement.

I pitched Black Lightning to Joe Orlando and Sol Harrison in the summer of 1976. Joe was very enthusiastic about my creation. Sol wanted to sell toys to “little black children.” Our agreement called for DC and I to be equal partners in the character. Any decisions would be made jointly by DC and myself. In addition to being paid to write the Black Lightning comic, I would receive 20% of whatever DC might make on the character outside of the comic book itself. Pretty straightforward, but not in writing. I should have known better.

DC began violating this agreement from pretty near the beginning of our “partnership.” I wasn’t consulted on the editor, which I’d assumed would be me. I didn’t object to Jack C. Harris because I thought he was a good editor and a good man. I held and still hold him in high regard.

I was not consulted on the artist for the book. My original plan was to poach one of the young artists I’d worked with at Marvel. I was thinking either Keith Pollard or Ron Wilson. Instead, the assignment went to teenager Trevor von Eeden. Again, I was fine with the choice. Trevor was enthusiastic and talented. It was an actual joy to throw him into the deep end of the script pool and see him swim like a champ.

Sidebar. Trevor was my first choice for my 1990s Black Lightning series and my 2018 Black Lightning: Cold Dead Hands. That he didn’t draw either of them was out of my hands. With the 1990s series, I was falsely told he was not available. With the 2018 series, I was told no one at DC would work with him. Having now heard much of what Trevor had to endure from DC prior to 2018, I’m absolutely 100% in his corner.

Getting back to the original Black Lightning series, I was quite happy with Frank Springer inking Trevor. I’d worked with Frank at Marvel and loved his inking. He added a gritty feel to Black Lightning. Replacing Frank with Vince Colletta was not my call. It was DC’s newly-minted “art director” Colletta grabbing all the freelance he could and working on it behind the closed door of his office. DC’s “open doors” policy didn’t apply to everyone on staff.

Hired as an editor, I was demoted to “story editor” when I moved from Cleveland back to New York to take the job. I wasn’t happy about the switch. It was insulting. I describe my six months on staff as my six months in Hell. The only good thing about it was the friends I made. But that’s another story for another bloggy thing.

I moved back to Cleveland. I continued to write Black Lightning for a time. I was told by Joe Orlando and maybe also Jack C. Harris that Black Lightning would be appearing on Super Friends. I wasn’t watching Saturday morning cartoons or really much TV, but I wasn’t going to miss that debut. I probably told my family about this, but, except for my dad, they would have greeted this news with their usual indifference.

Imagine my chagrin when I saw Black Lightning had been replaced by Black Vulcan. My calls to DC the following Monday brought no satisfactory answers. Just a few embarrassed mumbled words about Hanna-Barbera making the switch on its own.

I blamed Hanna-Barbera for this treachery. I even wrote a story, “The Other Black Lightning,” in which a con artist named Barbara Hanna was promoting a sham Black Lightning for her own devious purposes. That turned out to be my final Black Lightning story of the original run.

Here’s what I have managed to piece together since then:

Black Lightning was definitely supposed to appear in the series. That was confirmed for me by more than one Hanna-Barbera person who worked on the show. I was told Black Lightning character designs had been drawn, but I never saw them. I’ve come to doubt these designs were actually done. If they were drawn, they would have been drawn by the legendary Alex Toth. I can’t imagine such Toth art wouldn’t have surfaced in the nearly five decades since they would have been drawn.

My agreement with DC would’ve paid off something like this. Just to keep it simple, let’s say there were ten DC characters in the series and that Hanna-Barbera had paid $1000 per episode for the rights to use them. My cut on Black Lightning would’ve been 20% of 10% of what DC received. About $20 per episode.

DC Comics didn’t want to pay that meager sum out of their $1000. They told Hanna-Barbera they’d have to pay extra to use Black Lightning. The notoriously thrifty Hanna-Barbera responded saying they would just steal the character. Every indication is that DC was fine with that. This wasn’t the first time DC would screw me and it wouldn’t be the last.

Do not equate the DC Comics of 1977 with today’s DC. Back then, there were at least two DC executives who would have delighted in my disappointment. One is long dead, the other is still with us but not at DC. I don’t know if I am universally loved by everyone at the DC of 2025, but, with the firing or forced retirement of the worst of my haters, the venom that existed in 1977 and for many years afterward the venom toward me doesn’t exist. Which is something I’m happy about. I have a genuine fondness and regard for the DC people I have interacted with in recent years.

Hanna-Barbera and the DC Comics of 1977 were co-culprits in this Black Vulcan scheme. I put more of the blame on DC, but that’s a long time in the past and moot at this point. I’m only writing about it in today’s bloggy thing because it keeps coming up year after year, several times a year.

On that note, I’d love it if my wonderful readers tell Wikipedia to correct its Black Vulcan entry. In the meantime, if anyone has Black Vulcan questions, please direct them here. I would love never having to answer Black Vulcan questions again.

© 2025 Tony Isabella