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Static Shock
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Static Shock is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It premiered in September 2000 on Kids' WB, and ran for four seasons, with a total of 52 half-hour episodes. It was later picked up for rebroadcast by Cartoon Network, airing initially during the Miguzi block, but later moved to Boomerang. Disney XD began airing reruns of the series (starting with season 1) in February 2009. Currently, Warner Bros. has no plans to release the series on DVD.
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Encyclopedia
Static Shock is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It premiered in September 2000 on Kids' WB, and ran for four seasons, with a total of 52 half-hour episodes. It was later picked up for rebroadcast by Cartoon Network, airing initially during the Miguzi block, but later moved to Boomerang. Disney XD began airing reruns of the series (starting with season 1) in February 2009. Currently, Warner Bros. has no plans to release the series on DVD. (So far only one DVD, titled "The New Kid Volume 1", was released in 2004).
Background
Dwayne McDuffie, the founder of Milestone and Static's co-creator, retained a substantial amount of control over the series' plot and characterization, and wrote several episodes.
Early in the series, similarly to the comics, the setting was explicitly not in the DC Animated Universe (DCAU), and DC superheroes such as Superman were treated as fictional characters, most notably when Virgil once remarked that "even Clark Kent had a day job." However, it later featured guest appearances by characters from other DC animated series, including The New Batman Adventures, Justice League, Batman Beyond establishing itself as part of the DCAU. An older version of Static was later featured in a two-part episode of Justice League Unlimited.
Other guest characters have included real-world individuals (voiced by themselves) such as basketball player Shaquille O'Neal, A.J. McLean of the Backstreet Boys, and recording artist Lil Romeo, who also performed the theme song used in the final two seasons of the show.
Characters
Hawkins family
- Virgil Ovid Hawkins/Static (voiced by Phil LaMarr) – The main character of the series, he is a high school student in the fictional city of Dakota. 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. He is named after the first African-American to go to law school (who was himself named for the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid). The name may also refer to Virgil Hawkins, the lead plaintiff in the fight to desegregate the University of Florida College of Law.
- Robert Hawkins (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) – A social worker who runs the Freeman Community Center as head counselor. A widower and the father of two teenagers (it should be noted that in the Static comics, Robert's wife, Jean, was alive and well; the idea to make Robert a widower was the idea of Kids' WB!, and creator Dwayne McDuffie fought to keep Jean alive on the show, to no avail), 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. In the episode "Static Shaq", it is mentioned that Robert has also been in the Marines and a camp counselor. In the episode "Blast from the Past", Robert states that when he was a kid, he was a fan of Soul Power, and still is a fan. In the episode "Linked", it is revealed that Robert played football in college, and he was nicknamed "Streak." At first, Robert disliked Static, believing that Static would one day go bad; his open opinion about Static in the episode "Aftershock" left Virgil worried that the Big Bang might have aftereffects. Robert remained unaware of his son's secret identity through most of the series, although part of him had suspicions about Virgil's behavior. In the episode "Kidnapped", Robert acknowledged the truth that had been right under his nose: his son, Virgil, was Static. In the end, Robert keeps his son's superhero identity along with Richie/Gear's secret, even from his daughter.
- Sharon Hawkins (voiced by Michelle Morgan) – Virgil's older sister, a strong-willed, annoying, but caring young woman. 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 brother love each other, they frequently argue, challenge, and tease each other, mainly about things such as the household chores, his studying, and her cooking. Sharon has been dating Adam Evans AKA The Rubber-Band Man since the episode "Bent Out of Shape." In the episode "Brother-Sister Act", Sharon notices how similar Static and Virgil are, and tries to pin him down with proof of her suspicions, but is later convinced/tricked into thinking that her suspicions were wrong. At the end of the fourth season, Sharon continues to be in the dark about her brother's superhero secret, though in the final episode "Power Outage" she nearly becomes suspicious again of Virgil's behavior until their father interrupts them.
- Trina Jessup (voiced by Sheryl Lee Ralph) - Robert's new girlfriend, Trina is a policewoman at Dakota Police Department, she is like a second mother for Virgil and Sharon, even if the former has no initial affinity towards her. She didn't discover that Virgil is Static, but indirectly she helps him and Gear solve the crimes around Dakota.
Other heroes
- Richard "Richie" Osgood Foley/Gear (voiced by Jason Marsden) – Virgil's best friend and confidant. The first person to be clued in on Virgil's powers and a fan of superhero comics, Richie persuades Virgil to become a superhero. At first, he merely provides support for his friend, making gadgets for him and helping to cover for Virgil to protect his secret identity. In the third season, it is revealed Richie's passive exposure to the Bang Gas (assumed through his contact with Virgil) had given him super powers. His power is super-intelligence, which enables him to invent rocket-powered boots and "Backpack", an intelligent multipurpose device he wears on his back capable of surveillance and other semi-independent activity. With this equipment, he adopts the superhero identity "Gear" and becomes Static's sidekick (though he prefers the term "partner"). Richie did not appear in the Static comics, but is an amalgam of two of Virgil's best friends in that series: Richard 'Rick' Stone (who was also blond and wore glasses) and Frieda Goren (with whom Virgil shared his secret identity as Static).
- Nina Crocker/Time-Zone (voiced by Rachael MacFarlane) – A Bang Baby with the ability to warp time, allowing her to travel into the past; during her time with her powers, she was one of the 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. 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. Time-Zone's powers were based on Flashback's from Blood Syndicate.
- Adam Evans/Rubber-Band Man (voiced by Kadeem Hardison) – A living and stretching mass, but retaining his human form, Adam can reshape himself into anything. The alias he uses in one episode, "Stringer", is his real last name of his comic version, first used in Static #34. He was defeated by Static, and in the cartoon, subsequently reformed, occasionally helping out Static and the police, after doing his time in jail for taking vindictive actions against a record producer who stole his music and denied Adam the money and credit he was owed. It is public knowledge that Adam is the Rubber-Band Man. Adam is also a talented musician, and is currently dating Virgil's sister, Sharon. Rubber-Band Man's brother is Ebon; before the Big Bang, Adam used to roll with his brother's crew before he took a stock-clerk job at a music store called Stonegas Records; Adam once described himself as "There's no mystery, I'm my music. That's all you need to know." In the episode "Where the Rubber Meets the Road," he is seen to have struggled through a reading disorder. In his school days he was put into a "special learning program," where they showed him techniques, "A lot of stuff. You change words into something you can feel instead of look at, but it takes patience," and Adam "could never sit still as a kid." Adam dropped out of the program because he "felt dumb," and ashamed that he couldn't read and never told anyone, (not even his girlfriend, Sharon.) While Adam can read, it takes effort on his part; in "Where the Rubber Meets the Road," Static confronts him on his disability after he had failed to detain Tarmack in Alva Industries; later in the same episode, Adam/Rubber-Band Man perseveres, doing the work he needs to do to disarm a nuclear fusion engine prototype that would have lain waste to the city of Dakota. It is unknown if Adam Evans was exposed to the cure for the Big-Bang that neutralized many of the Bang-Babies in Dakota.
The name "Adam Evans" is derived from the names of former Milestone writers Adam Blaustein and Yves Fezzani, who created the character.
- Shenice Vale/She-Bang (voiced by Rosslynn Taylor Jordan) – A girl who was genetically engineered in a lab to have enhanced strength and agility, able to jump up buildings and leap from rooftop to rooftop. The two brilliant scientists who created her, Drs. Jonathan and Dolores Vale, fell in love with her and took her home from the lab; although Dolores didn't give birth to her, she and her husband still considered her their baby. Throughout her life, Shenice has been pursued by agents from the lab who want to recapture her (her jaunts as Shebang having proved that she's worth reclaiming and cloning). In her first appearance in the episode "She-Bang", she hopes to fit in and be mistaken as a Bang Baby in Dakota because it was frustrating for her to pretend to be a quiet wallflower of a girl. In her three appearances, she shows up Static and Gear nearly every time they face-off against rogue Meta-Humans; personality-wise, Shenice is not very modest or humble, her showing off as She-Bang tends to get on Static's nerves to the point where it causes tension on their always-shaky friendship.
- Anansi the Spider (voiced by Carl Lumbly) – A superhero native to Ghana, and the greatest hero in West Africa. Anansi has the power to create visible, realistic illusions. (According to him, "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 was granted this power by an ancient small golden spider. He is named after the trickster spider of African folklore. In both his appearances, references to Marvel Comics' Spider-Man are subtly made, to which he good-naturedly replies, "I get that a lot." And when Virgil told him to hit a villain with a "web blast", he replies, "I'm not that kind of spider." He also seems to inspire Virgil (Static) about what it truly means to be a superhero.
- Morris Grant/Soul Power (voiced by Brock Peters) – An elderly superhero with powers similar to Static's; he now lives in a retirement home, but back in the 1960s, he protected Dakota from criminals. He gained his powers in an accident at Hoover Dam. He had a Batcave-like headquarters hidden underground in/near Dakota's rapid transit system called the Power Pad, and drove a car called the Soulmobile. Back then, he also had a sidekick, Sparky. He, Sparky, and Static teamed up in order to defeat Soul Power's greatest foe, Professor Menace. Soul Power was similar to the DC Comics superhero Black Lightning.
- Phillip Rollins/Sparky (voiced by Rodney Saulsberry) – He was Soul Power's sidekick back in the 1960s but he is now a meteorologist. Rollins took on the guise of Sparky one more time in order to help Static and Soul Power fight Professor Menace. His powers were derived from a suit he originally invented and wore so he could be like his idol, Soul Power, and fight alongside him. He too is like Black Lightning and like Batman's sidekick, Robin.
Villains
Other Bang Babies
- Tamara Lawrence/Monster (voiced by Ariyan A. Johnson (Tamara)/Dee Bradley Baker (the monster)) – A young woman who can turn into a large, super-strong beast, but her eyes and ears are sensitive to light and sound. Tamara is accidentally caught in the Big Bang while looking for her boyfriend, Marcus Reed. After the Big Bang, she attacks certain people as a monster to put Marcus under suspicion. Tamara's monstrous transformation is a possible reference to Icon/Shadow Cabinet character Kevin Franklin/Payback. She is one of the Bang Babies that returned to normal.
- Mirage (voiced by Gavin Turek) – A young girl with special photokinetic powers, which allowed her to generate visible, realistic illusions by manipulating light into anything she imagined or remembered. Her older brother was Byron (aka Boom), and they lived with their grandmother following their parents' death. Their powers came from stepping in a spill of the chemicals from the Big Bang. Mirage agreed to help Boom steal money to buy a new place for them to live (only because he's her brother, a relationship where he usually bosses her around), but after talking with Static, she sees how having powers has corrupted her brother and helps Static stop Boom. Mirage was then taken in by the Dakota City Department of Social Services, but not before she generated an illusion of Static flying into the distance, as a favor to Static (Static/Virgil needed to convince his sister that he wasn't Static).
- Derek Barnett/D-Struct (voiced by Bumper Robinson) – A track athlete who could generate ionic energy around himself, which could protect him from harm or be directed at targets. Derek was coerced by Ebon into joining the Meta-Breed, and was given the name "D-Struct." Static persuaded him to quit the gang, and he then volunteered himself as a research subject for Bang Baby research. He is based on a character who appeared in the Static and Hardware comics.
- Dwayne McCall (voiced by Blayne Barbosda) – A pre-teen-aged boy who possesses reality-manipulating powers after exposure to Big-Bang gas, which he described as "a big purple cloud, kinda glittery"; allowing him to change things into anything else he can clearly imagine (he has to know what they/it looks, smells, or sounds like, etc--when Aaron talked Dwayne into making him money, Dwayne only made play money simply because he didn't know what a real $100 bill looked like). Dwayne liked to conjure characters from his favorite comic books, computer games, and TV shows and commercials, bringing them to life with his powers. His stepbrother, Aaron Price, finds out about his powers and talks him into doing things for him, finally manipulating him into robbing a bank. Static stops this by showing Dwayne that his stepbrother is just taking advantage of him. It has been suggested that the character is an homage to Dwayne McDuffie, who co-created the characters out of his imagination, and who (at the time) lived in a different state from the show's producers, and thus communicated with them only by phone.
- Thomas Kim/Tantrum (voiced by John Cho) – A gifted student whose demanding father pushed him to over-achieve in school. After the Big Bang, Thomas' anger and pent-up stress caused him to transform into a large, purple-skinned, orange-haired creature with great strength and imperviousness to pain (similar to Marvel Comics'Incredible Hulk) and driven by anger and stress, causing him to seek out the object of his ire. His rampages were stopped by Static, who let one of these tantrums run its course, then told Thomas' parents about his condition so they can help him with his stress.
- Maureen Connor/Permafrost (voiced by Hynden Walch) – Following her mother's death, Maureen Connor became a homeless girl, and developed psychiatric problems from the loneliness. After the Big Bang, she developed cryokinesis (the ability to generate and manipulate ice and snow, as well as imperviousness to cold), and her hair turned white and her skin light blue. Maureen turned to troublemaking, attracting Static's attention, who managed to calm her down and took her to a local church for help in their homeless program.
- Allie Langford/NailsA teenage girl who was in the Big Bang.She woke up the next morning with her bed collasped under her.She had a DNA scan and discovered she was a girl of steel.With regenarating nails.But the powers had a side affect.She was wearing heavy makeup and wore a coat and scarf to hide the truth from everyone;even her parents.She found a Bang Baby curing program and she ventured to Gotham and worked for Batman's enemeys for a cure(but she wasn't getting one).To fix her ways she helped Static and Batman.
- The Night-Breed – A group of Bang Babies recruited by Ebon. Its members are Bang Babies who have a fatal sensitivity to light, so they live underground. They are also very distinguishable, due to their vividly yellow-colored predator-type eyes. Despite the sole episode in which they appear making reference to more of these Bang Babies (season 4's "Army of Darkness"), these four are the only known members:
- Nightingale/Gail (voiced by Colleen O'Shaughnessey) – Generates a special dust called dark matter that she uses to protect herself from intense light. Nightingale lives underground along with other light-sensitive Bang Babies and is recruited by Ebon, who names them the Night-Breed, but she turns on Ebon during his attempt to blanket the entire city in "dark matter" (giving them free rein of it), absorbing it into herself.
- Brickhouse (voiced by Dawnn Lewis) – Nightingale's best friend whom Big Bang granted the ability to morph her body into a living brick-like humanoid state. She turns against Ebon when he traps Static, Gear, and Nightingale, and helps them escape. Brickhouse is based on one of the central characters of Blood Syndicate.
- Tech (voiced by Freddy Rodriguez) – Being super-intelligent, he builds a machine to cover the city in dark matter, and sides with Ebon when Nightingale and Brickhouse rebel and help Static and Gear to thwart it. Afterward, Tech decides to work on a cure for the Night-Breed's light sensitivity.
- Fade (voiced by Freddy Rodriguez) – Fade is physically intangible, i.e. he has the ability to pass through anything. Fade sides with Ebon when Nightingale and Brickhouse rebel against him, and goes back into hiding after their attempted takeover of Dakota is thwarted. He is based on one of the central characters of Blood Syndicate.
- Dule Jones (voiced by Marshall Jones) – A former gangbanger, he has metal tentacles which grow from his back (similar to Marvel Comics supervillain Doctor Octopus). Unlike fellow gang member Troy/Chainlink, Dule can retract his tentacles, and thus hide the fact that he is a Bang Baby. After the Big Bang, Dule gives up his gang lifestyle to play professional football, but Chainlink tries to blackmail him for money, threatening to reveal his secret. When they confront each other, everyone finds out that his powers are more advanced than Dule's (due to the fact that he breathed in more gas). Then Dule goes public, defusing the threat and defeating Chainlink in a confrontation with help from Static, Gear, and other football players.
- Puff (voiced by unknown voice actress)- A girl turned meta-human by the Big Bang. Her powers are to change her appearance which she has used to change her clothes to a police uniform, to turn her body into a puff of smoke but, only her lower half as her form of flight and transportation, and to blast a puff of smoke from her breath by blowing which can be acid or knock out gas which she says is determined by her mood.
- Unnamed Characters - several characters have made appearances on the show but have not been mentioned by name or nickname. They usually have a one-time appearance.
- a boy in the hospital who melts (episode 1)
- unnamed boy who becomes a werewolf at a music store in the second episode. Virgil makes a Britney Spears joke when it seems he is feeling ill.
Other Characters
- Frieda Goren (Danica McKellar): Virgil's friend and sometimes even more than that. Many times, she is short-tempered.
- Daisy Watkins (Crystal Scales): A girl that had attended an academy for the gifted in which she met Virgil, but later she attended the same school that Virgil, Richie and Freida in which she becomes their friend.
Episodes
Crossovers
- The Big Leagues - Dakota gets a real jolt when The Joker hits town, recruiting a band of metahumans to wreak his own special brand of havoc. Of course, with Joker on the loose, Batman and Robin can't be far behind. Static must put his hero worship in check as he teams up with the Dynamic Duo to put a shock to Joker's system.
- Hard as Nails - Static travels to Gotham City to rescue Nails, a school girl friend of his who has fallen in with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, who are promising to cure her of her Bang Baby affliction.
- A League of Their Own, Parts 1 and 2 – When the Watchtower has a sudden power drain, the Justice League are forced to recruit Static to "jump-start" their station before it re-enters the atmosphere. Unbeknownst to either Static or Gear, the power drain also releases Brainiac from confinement.
- The Teen Titans were originally planned to guest star, but those plans were scuttled since the Teen Titans TV series was still in early production at the time these episodes were produced. The Justice League was used instead.
- Toys in the Hood - Static teams up with Superman when the Man of Steel's old nemesis, Toyman, appears in Dakota.
- The original plan for Superman's guest appearance would have had him meeting Shaquille O'Neal (in his second appearance in the show), since he was a fan of The Man Of Steel. This didn't happen since Shaq was unreachable.
- Fallen Hero – Static faces off against his idol, Green Lantern when he causes chaos all over town. This is an instance of a voice actor "talking to himself", as Phil LaMarr voices both Static and Green Lantern. (The story itself is a re-write of a story in Green Lantern vol. 2 #7, which features Green Lantern Hal Jordan — John's predecessor — being trapped and impersonated by Sinestro.)
- The Once and Future Thing, Part 1: Weird Western Tales - Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern chase a time-traveling villain to the past, where they team up with the greatest heroes of the Old West. Static only appears at the end of this episode. (Note: This is a Justice League Unlimited episode.)
Video game
A Static Shock video game for the Game Boy Advance was developed by Vicarious Visions, with a story by Dwayne McDuffie. Despite having been advertised in magazines and comic books, the game was cancelled when Midway Games, the game's distributor, stopped releasing GBA games following a series of financial difficulties.
See also
External links
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