Black Lightning Showrunner Thinks They Could Cross Over With The Arrowverse Eventually

Russ Burlingame

06/15/2017 07:31 pm EDT

During a recent interview with at the ATX Television Festival in Austin, Texas, Black Lightning showrunner Salim Akil -- who also wrote and directed the series' pilot -- told the International Business Times that the idea of an Arrowverse crossover isn't totally off the table, even though Black Lightning is not currently part of the shared DC Universe of Greg Berlanti's DC Universe.

While Black Lightning will not officially cross over as part of the big, four-show crossover in November, the series premieres in January and could plausibly be revealed as part of the larger DC multiverse by the time the 2018 crossover happens -- assuming Black Lightning gets renewed, and that the crossovers continue to be money generating machines.

"The storytelling is a little bit more political. It's topical, and it's a little grittier," Akil said of his own show, but "It doesn't mean that down the road there won't be visits."

Visits like those that happen between Supergirl -- a series set in-universe on Earth-38 -- and the Earth-1 shows? Maybe. We'll have to see in 2018 and beyond.

More Black Lightning news:

Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is a man wrestling with a secret. As the father of two daughters and principal of a charter high school that also serves as a safe haven for young people in a New Orleans neighborhood overrun by gang violence, he is a hero to his community. Nine years ago, Pierce was a hero of a different sort. Gifted with the superhuman power to harness and control electricity, he used those powers to keep his hometown streets safe as the masked vigilante Black Lightning. However, after too many nights with his life on the line, and seeing the effects of the damage and loss that his alter ego was inflicting on his family, he left his Super Hero days behind and settled into being a principal and a dad.

Choosing to help his city without using his superpowers, he watched his daughters Anissa (Nafessa Williams) and Jennifer (China Anne McClain) grow into strong young women, even though his marriage to their mother, Lynn (Christine Adams), suffered. Almost a decade later, Pierce's crime-fighting days are long behind him…or so he thought. But with crime and corruption spreading like wildfire, and those he cares about in the crosshairs of the menacing local gang The One Hundred, Black Lightning returns — to save not only his family, but also the soul of his community.

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(Photo: The CW/Warner Bros. TV)