‘Black Lightning’ Lands Jill Scott as Lady Eve

Black Lightning Cast
The cast and executive producers of ‘Black Lightning’ at the Warner Bros. booth at Comic Con (Photo © 2017 WBEI)

The CW announced Grammy Award winner Jill Scott has signed on to the cast of Black Lightning, based on DC Comics characters. Jill Scott will play Lady Eve, a “DC villain who can be traced back to the Kobra Cult in comic lore. In Black Lightning, Lady Eve will be the bridge between Tobias Whale (Marvin “Krondon” Jones III) and a secret group of corrupt leaders. Always a consummate professional, Lady Eve presents herself in Freeland as the owner of a funeral parlor but quickly becomes an adversary to Black Lightning.”

The CW will premiere Black Lightning in midseason 2018. The series is executive produced by Greg Berlanti (Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Supergirl), Salim Akil & Mara Brock Akil (Being Mary Jane, The Game, Jumping the Broom, Girlfriends), and Sarah Schechter (Arrow, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, Supergirl).

“Jill is an amazing artist who can embody any character and give them an authentic voice that is both nuanced and richly complex. I am excited to see her in the role of Lady Eve,” said showrunner and executive producer Salim Akil.

The Plot: Black Lightning stars Cress Williams as Jefferson Pierce, 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 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. 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.