China Anne McClain of Black Lightning spoke at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con on what she wants to see in season 2.

Last season on the CW, we saw China Anne McClain wow audiences as Jennifer Pierce on Black Lightning. We witnessed Jennifer struggle in love, struggle as a daughter and ultimately come to accept her powers.

The cast of Black Lightning participated in a media session at San Diego Comic-Con. I participated and was able to speak with China Anne about what’s next for Jennifer. She sat down at our press table in a jovial mood. She playfully teased James Remar, who plays Gambi on the show, as he was concluding his interview. China Anne pointed to a reporter she recognized and said “You look gorgeous”, before saying “It’s a love fest”.

In the comics, Jennifer operates under the code named “Lightning”. We started to see the emergence of her powers at the end of season one, but she hasn’t suited up yet. When one reporter asked when she’d get her costume China laughed. “Oh they’ve definitely measured me for it”, she said. “I can’t say too much about it, but you guys are going to love it. It’s very different from Thunder and Black Lightning”, she continued.

One reporter asked China Anne about Jennifer coping with being in a superhero family. I added that it was a dark version of The Incredibles. She laughed and said, “Right. Really dark version”. She then elaborated on Jennifer’s acceptance of her powers.

“She’s struggling with it. I feel like she’ll always kind of struggle with it. Until she becomes more confident in who she is, because she’s still a teenager. She’s still just trying to get used to dealing with peer pressure and just simple things about being a teenager. So you add superhero, like if you had superpowers on top of that. It just makes everything more complicated for a kid. So I think she’s still going to struggle with it for a while but that’s not going to stop her from suiting up, don’t worry”, China Anne told us.

One reporter brought up Jennifer’s habit of accidentally destroying cell phones. “Bro, how many has she gone through on the show so far”, China Anne said, clearly amused that she wasn’t the only one who had noticed. “When they showed up with new phones like, ‘this is your new phone on set’ I’m like how do her parents keep buying her new phones. Like if this was me, I’d go without a phone”, she said.

I suggested Gambi build her a phone that wouldn’t be destroyed by her powers. China Anne told us she would never be as lucky as Jennifer was. “My parents would be like, you ain’t getting a new phone. We gonna get you little flip phone”, she said.

China Anne was then asked how Jennifer’s relationship with Khalil/Painkiller would be in season 2. “She acts like she doesn’t have time for him and like she hates him because of how we ended last season. He basically killed her father. You know but it’s complicated because he doesn’t know that Black Lightnng is her father and he doesn’t know that she has superpowers so all this is a very complicated situation but she acts like she doesn’t have time for him. But I think that deep in her heart she does”, she said.

One reporter brought up Jennifer screaming “Dad” when she saw Khalil kill Black Lightning. Was that enough to blow his secret identity? “It was bad though because I asked while we were filming it. I was like ‘should I not be calling him Dad y’all’. But I think that’s one thing that kind of slipped through the cracks in the take because I was seeing my father laying there after he got hit in the chest. So me yelling out dad was just instinctual for me. So I guess it would be instinctual for Jennifer as well. That’s a good question, China Anne said. “Cut that out of all the interviews“, she jokingly told us.

A few reporters said Jefferson’s secret could be hidden better with a strong disguise. I brought up the fake afro from the original Black Lightning comic. China Anne laughed and said, “Y’all would’ve killed Salim (Akil) if he had an afro”. One of the reporters was a die-hard Black Lightning fan, and said he wouldn’t have a problem. I offered up the idea of doing it in a dream sequence. “Ok, we’re going to try to do a dream sequence for y’all then”, China Anne responded.

China Anne was then asked about the reception fans have given her. “It was strange last year at Comic-Con because I had a lot of fans from Disney, from Descendants. So it’s kind of been the same weirdly enough. But now we have more fans of like the show as a whole. We had a full house sitting at our panel. It was crazy when we walked out, like 6000 people they had to bring in more seats, you know for people to file in. It was insane and that was something that we didn’t have last year because nobody knew. They hadn’t seen the show and they also didn’t know who Black Lightning was. I didn’t even know who Black Lightning was before I got the audition. So now that people are woke to it and they’re aware it’s been huge for the show this year”, she said.

China Anne McClain is also known as a talented singer. One reporter asked if Jennifer would be singing on season 2 of Black Lightning. “I never really thought of that to be honest”, China Anne answered. The idea clearly got her excited and she pondered it aloud. “If Salim (Akil) came to me and had written that and was like ‘I want you to do it’ then I probably would do it“, she continued. China Anne pointed to the reporter who had asked the question and said, “You just opened up a door”.

China Anne talked about how her Disney work is benefiting Black Lightning. “I just finished filming Descendants 3. Not even a month ago. So we had four weeks of fight rehearsals and dance rehearsals and all of that for Descendants. So I feel like that’s really going to help me in getting ready to play Lightning. And I’m really excited about that. I wonder how much Jennifer is going to fight and how much is just going to be her powers, because she’s pretty powerful y’know? So yeah I think that Descendants definitely helping me”, she said.

As our interview session with China Anne McClain wrapped up, she walked away from the table, pointed to us and said “This is a lit table”, before moving on to the next interview.

What do you think? Should Jennifer sing? Do Khalil and Jennifer have a chance at reconciliation? How many cell phones will she go through? Black Lightning season 2 premieres on Oct. 9 on the CW.