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re Black Lightning exists in the Arrowverse. Why is it not included in the cross-overs?Apparently, there are a number of instances where Black Lightning characters have referenced other superheroes (although I have totally missed those references). There are a few reasons for this related to jurisdiction.In the real world, we have different kinds of crime fighters aka law enforcers. The local police, for example, are restricted to the communities, cities, where they work. They are also limited by certain concerns. In the US, we also have the State Police. FBI agents have their assignments in different cities and states, but their concerns are limited in scope as well. In the DC Animated movie Justice League Dark, Batman points out the differences among the powered and talented vigilantes as well. He nastily pointed out the importance of working “close to the ground” and that a number of the powered heroes didn’t understand what went on at ground level.In the comic book world, there are the cosmic superheroes who deal with extraterrestrial attacks against the planet and are often powerful enough to take on godlike beings. The cosmics are often intervening in outer space and may make a few “pitstops” on Earth. Green Lanterns come to mind. They tend to have a number of abilities that protect them from the “rigors of space” but also allows them to withstand high-magnitudes of force and energy attacks and allows them to deal out high-magnitudes of force and/or energy attacks of their own. In rare cases are cosmic heroes weak but make up for this physical weakness with great wells of knowledge and luck. However, most cosmics have a means of self-propulsion.But the powered superheroes can also have “ground-level” superheroes. These superheroes have powers but can basically do “one thing.” These are people like Aquaman (okay, sea level), Animal/totem powered (drawing from the morphogenetic field) like Animal Man, vixen, etc. Some heroes draw power or manipulate energies from the electromagnetic spectrum but have very limited ability to release or manipulate these energies at high levels or at a sustained duration. They tend to guard the people of a city or region. That’s basically their jurisdiction. Usually, these heroes do not have self-propulsion, or if they do, they are limited to the Earth’s atmosphere or would not last in outer space. These heroes are like the beat cops and detectives.Inbetween the ground-based and the cosmics, there are the sky heroes. These are heroes who are a bit more versatile than the grounders. They can cover more ground and maintain a great deal of information. These heroes are like the Federal level law enforcement. They deal with threats that threaten the world but are more international, global, or the threats can act across state and national borders.There are the magical dimensional protectors who protect the human “plane” and dimension from various magical threats, but these are divided up in ways I can’t justify with any clear cut, distinct criteria. Dr. Fate, for example, works at a much higher power level and deals with more interdimensional threats than Constantine (who I would class as a magical-grounder) but they both have crossed into other dimensions and have taken on low-level threats as well as the angels, demons, and masters of certain dimensions (Lucifer, for example). These heroes are like the special forces of the military.When we look at each of these superheroes though they are distracted by their level of challenges. They attract certain kinds of threats just as much as they focus on certain kinds of threats. There are certain “jobs for Superman” that few other superheroes could take on just as there are certain Justice League challenges that are beyond the abilities and resources of any single superhero, especially when there are multi-front attacks involved. Meanwhile, the Justice League isn’t needed to intervene in a bank robbery.Getting back to Black Lightning.Black Lightning is dealing with ground-level issues: systemic and explicit racism and how it impacts him and the families in his city. He fights the organized criminals and the secret inhumane government agency (willing to experiment on and to exploit the homeless and minorities to develop powered assets) physically as Black Lightning, powered vigilante, but he also fights these expressions of racism with personal empowerment, role modeling, and education when he is a school principal and leader. Up to now, Jefferson/Black Lightning has no time or interest in dealing with racism at a national level. He’s not politically powerful enough nor can racism be fought with superpowers at that level since there is no “The Man” behind it all. Although there is an opportunity to reveal a high-level government official working off-books and surrounded by powered protectors, only then might Jefferson need the help of a Justice League, Doom Patrol, or some other team of superheroes.If or when this happens, there will be quite a few moments similar to the moment in Green Lantern where the white superheroes can be confronted for their lack of interventions against inequalities of power, social class, and race.In the Arrowverse, only Supergirl has dealt with racial inequalities and attacks against immigrants and the LGBT communities directly and indirectly through the conflicts against aliens and anti-alien organizations, not only locally, but at the Federal/national and interstellar levels.Imagine that conversation. What a powerful story-arc that would be? Of course, this would set-off a powder keg that Supergirl episodes alone would not. Making the Arrowverse more socially aware would require writers of the Supergirl caliber to hit much closer to home when the usual species-focused problems of alien immigration are more directly attacked in the actions of human beings.There is no reason Black Lightning should not be included in the crossover events, but keep in mind though that each of the shows have limited jurisdictions: Legends focus magic and time anomalies, they have dealt with race in the 50s and other times, they haven’t worked like the superhero team-ups and powered-vigilante intro facilitator I had hoped it would be. For all of their travels, they rarely teamed up with regional or local superheroes of the timespace where they had to intervene (or with any respect for the hero’s competence and power). Supergirl, as mentioned before, deals with mainly extraterrestrial attacks and assimilation issues although the show has done justice to racial issues with James Olsen as a vigilante and LGBTQ issues in terms of Kara’s sister as well as the anti=alien policies and laws at the government level. Supergirl is one of the few shows that deals with complex issues ranging from the domestic interpersonal to the complex issues created in business and personal efficacy in a world where alien technologies disrupt industries and lead to factory closings and the loss of jobs and leads to the general sense of disenfranchising of “regular” humans who aren’t powered or intellectually gifted. I haven’t watched much of the latest season of Supergirl but I love this series.Arrow, itself, has its own jurisdiction but it has encountered issues that I can’t understand. It is basically a superhero show dealing with street-level jurisdiction issues. It began with Oliver Queen fighting rich but corrupt powerful people who were doing terrible things to the City, essentially “failing the city”. But that focus led to dealing with organized crime attacks led by highly trained martial artists in addition to the moneyed corrupt. It also included the League of Assassins which is an international and multigenerational secret organization of highly trained martial artists who have access to some technologies (the Lazarus pit, for example, as well as some other chemical innovations in poisons/toxins). They then expanded the street jurisdiction to include some forays in the magic with Damian Dark and some limited encounters with Ragman (a magically suited vigilante) and Constantine, a fieldwork magician. Queen’s problems though are related to Argus, a government law enforcement agency that borders the CIA and FBI jurisdictions, but also relates to Queen’s Star (or is it Starling?) city which strangely attracts all of this criminal and magical attention.Each of their cities, except for Supergirl’s National City, are somewhat claustrophobic. Rarely does anything of importance happens outside of their city lines their jurisdictions limit the kinds of criminals actually enter the cities. Rarely do anything but aliens attack Supergirl’s National City. Rarely, if ever, do black matter/energy infected criminals and speedsters attack Flash’s Central City. As mentioned before, only international organizations of various kinds attack Green Arrow’s Star/Starling City. Black Lightning’s city Freeland highly local gang violence, local organized crime, but it also has GreenLight babies, powered criminals mutated by a mysterious drug called GreenLight. The show is similar to Supergirl though in that it deals with drug abuse, gangs, racial issues, police corruption, and poverty with a bit of sophistication and awareness of consequences of actions in inter-related systems of a city. However, you don’t see space aliens or magical being incursions or ARGUS agents.If I could influence the showrunners of the Arrowverse and Black Lightning, I would look to Jefferson Pierce reaching out to Superman or Supergirl or even Flash to request their superpowered help in dealing with a Big Bad that he and his daughters can’t handle. They could highlight the issues of his personal pride as being his main conflicting barrier against reaching out to white heroes, feeling perhaps Kryptonians would at least have some sensitivity to the issues he is encountering in Freeland. The problem with involving these Sky-Level powered heroes—if one or both would respond to his call—is that, once there in Freeland, seeing all of the corruption and systemic dysfunction, the writers would have to deal with the impotence of even the most powered heroes on the planet in fixing the problems of Freeland and cities like Freeland. Such a crossover would offer an opportunity to deal with the Watchman problem though.The Watchman problem is captured by the phrase “who watches the watchers?” What can a country of homo sapiens deal with supertalented geniuses or a superpowered minority? How would normals limit their power? What’s to stop the most powerful from ruling the world? The question is addressed in Marvel Avengers Civil War regarding oversight and registration. A few recent shows have explored the problem of powered people with a similar intervention as seen in the movies Glass, Jumper, and Push, to name a few. It is a question that Lex Luthor has asked in various incarnations as well. And even though Lex Luthor is considered a supervillain due to his superintelligence and access to resources, Bruce Wayne, as Batman, is reputed as having developed countermeasures against every known superhero including Superman, driven by the distrust of homo superior in its variety of powerful incarnations similar to the Lex Luthor’s.So, for any powered vigilante enlisted to help Black Lightning in Freeland, a great deal of drama can be explored in the personal conflicts of Superman and/or Supergirl or even, between the two of them, in addressing their beliefs and perceived roles as defenders of truth and justice and to fight against bullies and tyrants. Where do they draw their lines?