Virgil Hawkins (Phil LaMarr) is a high schooler from Dakota City. Virgil lost has paramedic mother to stray gunfire from gang violence some years back and lives with his widowed father Robert (Kevin Michael Richardson) a social worker who runs the Freeman Community Center, and older sister Sharon (Michele Morgan) who attends college and volunteers at the community center. When Virgil stands up against bully Francis "F-Stop" Stone (Danny Cooksey), the fight goes poorly until a rival gang of F-Stop's protects Virgil but soon demands Virgil's loyalty in return. After being pressured to attend Virgil is brought to the docks where a fight among Dakota's gangs is happening, but the police firing tear gas causes a chain reaction that leads to an explosion of volatile chemicals and gasses, in what becomes known as the Big Bang, that start to mutate everyone at the docks into super powered beings known as "Bang Babies" including Virgil. When Virgil awakens the next morning, he discovers he has developed powers to manipulate electricity and magnetic fields and with his best friend and confidant Richie Foley (Jason Marsden) Virgil becomes the hero Static.
Created in 1993 by Milestone Media, a coalition of African-American writers and artists Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle, the character was the second longest running Milestone comic behind Hardware. Following the cancelled development of an X-Men esque series called The New Guard the team, which consisted of veterans involved in both Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series were assigned to work on adapting the Milestone character Static. While the comic's initial creative team had no direct involvement in the development of the series, series/character co-creator Dwayne McDuffie would be hired on eventually as a story editor and writer on the show in a capacity he'd serve to the series' conclusion. The show became a staple of Kids WB throughout the early '00s and reignited interest in both Static and associated Milestone Media characters. The show also lead Dwayne McDuffie to work on other animated series such as Justice League and Justice League Unlimited as well as the Teen Tians cartoon series and Ben 10: Alien Force. Static Shock has a few rough spots as you'd expect from a gritty early 90s comic retrofitted for Saturday Morning television, but in terms of creating a memorable hero and engaging world Static Shock succeeded.
As with the comic book upon which it was based, Static Shock takes a lot of influence from Stan Lee's Spider-Man. Much like Peter Parker, Virgil Hawkins is a typical teenager still finding his way in the world. There are some key differences such as the loss of a family member serving as a motivating force and despite Virgil's dead mother the show doesn't copy the "Uncle Ben" framework regarding it and its purpose is a more subtle motivation rather than the overt "With great power comes great responsibility" guiding phrase of the Spider-Man books. The show, especially during its first two seasons, tackles issues related to gang violence, bullying, racism/bigotry, mental illness and even homelessness. The strongest episodes of the show are where Virgil/Static comes across a supervillain or even a regular person who's tied to some real world societal failure with haunting episodes like bullying/school shooting episode "Jimmy", Homelessness/Mental Illness episode "Frozen Out", Racism/Bigotry episode "Sons of the Fathers", and even episodes about stalkers like "Now You See Him...". Static Shock when it addressed these issues did so in a way that was relatable and approachable to its target audience without ever feeling pandering or condescending. Yes episodes like Jimmy had a fourth wall breaking epilogue directly addressing the audience, but when you approach a topic like school shootings on a show aimed at children it kind of goes without saying you need something like that, even when adult shows like American Crime tackled this subject the episode was intercut with testimonials from survivors of the Columbine Massacre. Despite showing a willingness to tackle "real" subject matter, Static Shock still allows itself to be fun and enjoyable as well. With a varied assortment of rogues for Static to square off against, the show has plenty of opportunities for action and adventure, and even allows for some metanarratives to play in the background such as Rubberband Man's character arc from villain to hero, meta human She-Bang trying to escape her past, or billionaire Edwin Alva trying to rectify wrongs between him and his son. The show also features entertaining exchanges between Virgil/Static and his best friend and eventually partner Richie with Phil LaMarr and Jason Marsden exhibiting solid chemistry.
And then there's those "growing pains" I mentioned. Over the course of the show's run Static Shock had a tendency to do a large number of cross-overs and celebrity guest spots from seasons 2 through 4. While on occasion they were reasonably unintrusive with guest spots from AJ McLean or Lil Romeo working somewhat in context with the established music industry scene as it relates to Rubberband Man's career as musical artist Adam Evans, some of the cameos felt pretty forced such as the episode Static Shaq where Shaquille O'Neal comes to the Freeman Community Center for a charity event or the season four episode Hoop Squad which features NBA players Steve Nash, Yao Ming, Karl Malone, and Tracy McGrady as a superhero team taking down a mad scientist named Dr. Odium. Admittedly these episodes are corny and pretty harmless and from what I've heard the writing staff only did them because The WB forced these premises on the team and they had fun recording with the guest celebrities so I glad about that, but it is the type of thing the screams "executive notes". I also felt the show got a bit more crossover crazy with other DCAU shows with Static crossing over with Batman: TAS 3 times (technically 2 and a half), Justice League twice (three counting the Green Lantern episode), Superman: TAS once, and Batman Beyond once. While there is a novelty to seeing Static crossover with other DC Superhero shows you know and love, the seasons only being 11-15 episodes long felt like this was taking away from time that could've been spent building characters established in Static's universe rather than fighting the spillover from other series.
Static Shock stumbles a few times, but when you're trying to do a show like this without much of an established supporting framework you're not going to begin with the smoothest stride. The show features strong superhero action as well as addressing of real world topics in a way that feels well thought out. The show did have a tendency to get a bit bogged down in DC crossovers as well as celebrity appearances that didn't feel all that well integrated, but outside of those relatively minor hiccups Static Shock was and remains a good show and its late showrunner Dwayne McDuffie has left an endearing legacy and character behind that helped expand the superhero landscape.
