Static Shock

Static Shock is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation and based on the comic book series Static. It was animated at the Slightly Offbeat Productions Studios in Penrose, Auckland, New Zealand. The series premiered in September of 2000 on the Kids' WB! block and ran for four seasons, with a total of 52 half-hour episodes. The series is part of the DC animated universe and had crossovers with Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, & Justice League.

The series centers around the adventures of DC Comics superhero Virgil Ovid Hawkins/Static and is based on the original Milestone Media Static comics. After the show's initial run on The WB it was later picked up for rebroadcast by Cartoon Network, airing initially during the Miguzi block. The series also began airing in the UK on Toonami UK in 2003. Disney XD aired reruns of the series (starting with season 1) in February 2009 in the United States up until 2010. Currently, Warner Bros. has no plans to release the series on DVD. However in 2011, the first season was made available for download on iTunes.

Plot[]

In Dakota City, Virgil Hawkins is an ordinary 14-year-old kid who gets into big trouble, when he is pressured into joining a street gang. That night, Virgil's gang has a major rumble at a chemical storage yard that the police interrupt by tear gassing the lot. That gassing accidentally detonates a series of chemical explosions that creates the infamous "Big Bang" that exposes all the gangs and more to a mutagenic chemical. For instance, Virgil gains the ability to project and control electricity at will. With the help of his inventive friend, Richie (who would much later get his own powers to become Gear), Virgil decides to become the superhero, Static. As it happens, this new career is well timed considering many of the surviving rumblers also become superpowered themselves and become dangerous super villains known as Bang Babies.

Characters[]

The Hawkins Family[]

Virgil Hawkins / Static — Virgil Ovid Hawkins is an African-American high school student in Dakota City. As a result of accidental exposure to an experimental mutagen in an event known as the Big Bang, he gained the ability to control and manipulate electromagnetism, and uses these powers to become a superhero named "Static." Countless others who were also exposed gained a wide variety of mutations and abilities, and Static spends much of his time dealing with these "Bang Babies", many of whom use their abilities in selfish, harmful, and even criminal ways. Virgil is named after the first African-American to go to law school (who was himself named for the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid).

Robert Hawkins — A social worker who runs the Freeman Community Center as head counselor, he is a widower and the single father of his two teenage children. Robert is a caring, understanding, but strict parent. He dislikes gangs and the destructive attitudes of most Bang Babies, and his work at the community center is motivated by a desire to counteract their bad influence on young people.

Sharon Hawkins — Virgil's strong-willed, annoying, but caring, older sister. Sharon attends college, but still lives at home. She also volunteers at a hospital, and counsels young people at the Freeman Community Center, like her father. Sharon has always been a big fan of Static. Although deep down, she and her younger brother love each other, they frequently argue, challenge, and tease each other, mainly about things such as the household chores, Virgil's studying, and Sharon's cooking (which is usually barely edible).

Jean Hawkins — The late wife of Robert Hawkins, and mother of Sharon and Virgil. Jean is frequently mentioned throughout the series. In "Shock to the System", (the first episode of season 1), it was mentioned that she had died from gangfire; in "Flashback", in season 3, Jean Hawkins was shown to have been a paramedic, and that she had been fatally wounded by a stray gunshot during the Dakota Riots, which happened exactly five years prior to the events of the episode "Flashback". Her death is at the root of Virgil's intense dislike of guns. She was very important to all of her family, especially to Virgil, who was only 10-years-old when she died; in "Tantrum", in season 1, Hawkins family movies show that she really knew what made Virgil tick even when he was a baby; its also shown that Virgil visits his mother's grave and talks to her when he's troubled.

Trina Jessup — Robert's new romantic love interest, sweetheart, and girlfriend. Trina is a police officer at Dakota Police Department. She is like a second mother to Virgil and Sharon, even if the former has no initial affinity towards her. She never discovers that Virgil is Static, but indirectly she helps him and Gear solve crimes around Dakota.

Virgil's Allies[]

Richie Foley / Gear — Richard "Richie" Osgood Foley, is an ally of lead character Static, and Virgil Hawkins' best friend. Richie was not present for the Big Bang, but Static's clothes still carried some of the gas and passed it on to Richie, and his powers laid dormant until Season Three. His power is superhuman intelligence, having invented a number of weapons and devices for Static and himself to use. His superhuman intelligence allows for a very limited form of technopathy with his visor and Back-Pack. According to series creators, Richie's character was based on Rick Stone, Virgil's best friend in the comics, who is gay. However, since his sexual orientation could not be explored within the context of a children's television series, it was not addressed.

Adam Evans / Rubber-Band Man — Adam Evans is a meta-human whose body structure consists of living rubber, which he can shape into a wide variety of forms, even to the point of altering his physical appearance into that of another person. Adam is also a talented musician who is on the verge of a professional career. His greatest personal weakness is a reading disorder which he has to struggle through. He is the younger brother of Static's archenemy, Ebon. Prior to the Big Bang, Adam was part of his brother's gang before he took a stock-clerk job at a music store called Stonegas Records. Rubber-Band Man first appears as a tragic villain when he goes after an opportunistic record producer who had stolen one of his songs. He would subsequently breaks out of prison but deciding not to pursue a criminal career, uses his powers to take up a new identity, "Stringer", and becomes a musical rising star. He also started dating Virgil's sister Sharon, and although he initially clashes with Static, he does not carry on his grudge against him after meeting Sharon and even reforms and becomes one of his allies in crime-fighting. The name "Adam Evans" is derived from the names of former Milestone writers Adam Blaustein and Yves Fezzani, who created the character. The alias "Stringer" Rubber-Band Man uses in one episode is his real last name of his comic version, first used in Static #34.

Shanice Vale / She-Bang — Shanice Vale is a girl with superhuman strength, stamina, agility, reflexes, and endurance. Although she seems like a meta-human she actually was not exposed to the gas; she is really a science experiment made by her parents, Jonathon and Dolores, who made her chromosome by chromosome. They fell in love with her and went into hiding from a group of people who want to clone her, so she had to act like a shy, normal person till she moved to Dakota and discovered she could blend in with the other Bang-Babies.

Nina Crocker / Time-Zone — A Bang Baby with the ability to warp time, allowing her to travel into the past; during her time with her abilities, she was one of the strongest and most powerful metahumans on the planet. While looking for Static and Gear, she bumped into Ebon. He wanted to use her powers to avoid the cops. After being saved from Ebon, Gear ran tests on her and found out that she had no control over her powers. Since she wanted to become a hero, Gear made a remote that was linked to a belt around her costume. The remote helped her control her powers. Now named as the superhero Time-Zone, Nina became the third member of the Shock Pack, but her time as a member was brief: Due to an encounter with Ebon, Nina decided that her powers were too dangerous to keep, and went back in time to stop her past self from being present at the night of the Big Bang (by stealing her own bike, according to Richie.) Nina is now a happy, ordinary girl, and has no memory of her life in the original timeline as Time-Zone.)

Anansi the Spider — A superhero native to Ghana, and the greatest hero in West Africa. Named after the trickster spider of African folklore, Anansi has the power to create visible, realistic illusions. In his own words he explains it as: "people only see what I want them to see." He also has the ability to cling to surfaces, standing upside-down, and walking on vertical surfaces. He seems to inspire Virgil (Static) about what it truly means to be a superhero. The golden spider talisman is the source of Anansi's powers.

Frieda Goren — Virgil's friend at school and his initial crush. Though lively and popular in school, she tends to be short-tempered and impulsive, earning her the nickname "Hurricane Frieda". She is an active participant and the driving force of the school's newspaper. The animated Frieda is made as only a supporting character, as opposed to her comic counterpart, in which she plays Richie's role as Virgil's best friend/confidant/and unofficial sidekick to his Static persona.

Daisy Watkins — A girl that had attended an academy for the gifted (Vanmoor Institute) in which she met Virgil. After the events involving two of her fellow students as the culprits, she enrolls in the same school as Virgil, Richie and Frieda. Virgil has a crush on Daisy.

The Meta-Breed[]

Ivan Evans / Ebon — The head of a large group of Bang Babies including Shiv and Talon, Ebon is an unusually powerful and strong umbrakinetic trans-morph; a living shadow and inter-dimensional portal able to hide within, control and manipulate pure darkness and shadows, as well as transport others to various locations of his choice. Ebon's real name is Ivan Evans, and he is Rubberband Man's older brother. Ebon is always recruiting new and much stronger members to add to his crew and has come head-to-head with several other Bang Babies over the course of his life. With a rivalry with Static and Gear, Ebon also does not get along too well with Madelyn or Hot-Streak. Ebon had always held a grudge against Static for ruining so many of his plans.

Shiv — Getting his 'nom-de-crime' from a shiv (a kind of bladed weapon), Shiv is the immature jokester in the Meta-Breed; in fact, when he encountered the Joker, he tells the villain "Big fan, big fan...". He has been described as insane by both fans and creators of the show and comics. Shiv may be one of the many Bang Babies whose mental health was affected by the Big Bang, but this is never confirmed; he may simply just be an eccentric, childish jokester. Shiv's abilities enable him to generate pure whitish-pink "light energy", which he could blast at opponents, and fashion into numerous useful tools and weapons which he could hold, throw, or fashion around his arms and hands.

Talon — A teenage girl of Hispanic heritage, Talon is a metahuman whose exposure to the Big Bang transformed her into a humanoid bird, a fact which she was really bitter about throughout the series. As a metahuman, Talon had claw-like digits on her hands and talon-like digits on her feet; she was covered in wide orange feathers, but retained her red hair color. The most notable attribute of her transformation was a set of feathered patagia extending from her scapula to her forearms which enabled her to fly by flapping her arms. As an offensive aspect bestowed upon her by her exposure to the Big Bang, Talon could emit incredibly strong, large, visible lavender-colored hypersonic shrieks from her mouth and vocal cords; similar to the Marvel Comics superhero Banshee and DC's Black Canary.

Francis Stone / F-Stop / Hot-Streak — Hot-Streak was one of the gang members at the docks when the Big Bang occurred. After being exposed to the gas, Francis Stone became Hot-Streak. His powers added to his hotheadedness by giving him the ability to create and shoot blasts of fire. Hotstreak was one of Static's very first rivals, giving him a challenge nearly every time they meet. The fights would seem to be personal in some way since Static, and Hotstreak already had history with each other before The Big Bang as Virgil, and Francis.

Aquamaria — A Latina girl, who was transformed into a transmorph, in her case a being of living liquid water, by the Big Bang. Unlike other Bang Babies with transmorphic abilities like Rubber-Band Man, Aquamaria could not change to and from her true human form. The only known background information given about Aquamaria is that she has a mother and a younger sister, who she lived with before she was exposed to Big Bang gas, not returning home after becoming a Bang Baby. As a life-form composed of colloidal water, the Bang-Baby known now as Aquamaria is capable of hydrokinetic abilities, able to manipulate her own form, expanding or compressing her physical mass and 'shapeshifting' parts of her body. In a fight, Aquamaria can aim a pressurized water attack from her arms similar to a geyser, or become one herself. Able to merge with a larger body of water, Aquamaria can also overwhelm opponents by becoming a living flood.