Title pretty much sums it up. Watched a video recently where someone was asked to name a black superhero that didn’t have lightning based powers and while I could name a few it made me realize just how prevalent the trope is.
But why?
Edit: Y’all I’m not asking for examples of black heroes that don’t have lightning powers. I’m asking why it’s a trope to begin with 😮💨
This article does a pretty good job of explaining the history of black superheroes with electrical powers.
To summarize, the popularity of Black Lightning along with copyright issues lead to the creation of a few copycat heroes (ex: Black Vulcan in Super Friends, Juice from Justice League Unlimited). There’s also the possibility of electricity being a versatile power and the popularity of Storm from X-men and Static.
Someone in the comments section also noted that it could also be an artistic choice since the colors of electricity would contrast better with black characters than lighter skin characters. That seems like a stretch to me but that is another theory.