Static Shock

For shocks from static electricity, see Electrostatics and Triboelectric effect.

Static Shock
logo of the show
Format	Animated series
Created by	Dwayne McDuffie
Starring	Phil LaMarr Jason Marsden Danica McKellar Kevin Michael Richardson Michele Morgan
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	52 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	Kids' WB!
Original run	September 23, 2000 (2000-09-23) – May 22, 2004 (2004-05-22)
Chronology
Preceded by	The New Batman/Superman Adventures
Followed by	Justice League

Static Shock is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation. It premiered in September 2000 on the Kids' WB! block and ran for four seasons, with a total of 52 half-hour episodes.

The series centers around the adventures of DC Comics superhero Virgil Ovid Hawkins/Static. The series predates the re-appearance of Static in the main DC continuity by several years. 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. Disney XD began airing reruns of the series (starting with season 1) in February 2009 in the United States. Currently, Warner Bros. has no plans to release the series on DVD. However the company has stated that it wishes to eventually release all of the DC animated universe on DVD.^{[citation needed]} As of 2011, the first season is currently available for download on ITunes. AJ McLean and Neil Patrick Harris were special guests on the show.

Plot

Virgil was a simple fifteen-year-old trying to survive high school. His best friend is Richie Foley, and he has a crush on a girl named Frieda. He also has a dispute with a bully named "F-Stop" and was saved by a gang leader named Wade. Recently Wade had begun helping Virgil in hopes to recruit him, but Virgil is hesitant, as he knows his mother was killed in gangfire. Wade eventually leads Virgil to a restricted area for a gangfight against F-Stop's crew, which is interrupted by police helicopters, during the disputer between the gangs and police, a shot was fired releasing gas causing mutations among the people in the vicinity. (This event was later known as "The Big Bang".) It also caused Virgil to obtain the special power and ability to, create, generate and control static-electricity and magnetism and become known as "Static". But the gas also gave others surrounding the area to obtain their own powers, and unfortunately, it also led several of them to become super villains (against what their typical senses would tell them to do). The people who were mutated were then known as "Bang Babies", and their mutations apparently spread to other people around them, which explains how Richie obtained his own special ability of superhuman/advanced intelligence, and later became Virgil's partner named Gear.

Gear's Gadgets

• Static Saucer - A small piece of mylar that folds out to become a disk that Static rides on to fly through town.
• Rocket Boots - Gear uses these boots as his method of transportation through town, like how Static uses his disc.
• Shock Box - Walkie Talkies used between Virgil/Static and Richie/Gear to contact each other.
• Tracking devices - Static can attach these to people and track them as long as he is within a 2-mile radius.
• Zap Caps, 1st Edition - Small grenades that, after being charged by Static, can create an explosion of electricity when thrown.
• Zap Caps, 2nd Edition - Similar in appearance to the 1st edition, this version releases metal coils that wrap around the target on impact.
• Other Zap Caps - These zap caps were specifically designed for certain meta-humans that Static and Gear have dealt with. Some had been used on Hot Streak and Aqua Maria. One was used to give Aqua Maria an anti-dote to turn her back to normal.
• Backpack - Richie's/Gear's robot. Backpack is a super-computer, with a camera & tracking device, as well as a meta-human radar. Although Backpack can be controlled with a remote, it is linked with Gear, as it is Gear's intelligence and thoughts it can read and respond to.
• Time belt - A belt created for Nina Crocker, who became a hero named Time-Zone. Unable to fully control her time-controlling/traveling abilities and powers, Gear created the belt to make sure that her ability would not randomly go off. Using a special remote that Gear programmed(originally a VCR remote), the time of when to travel can be chosen, allowing much greater control over her time-controlling ability.

Characters

Hawkins family

Characters

• Virgil Ovid Hawkins/Static (Phil LaMarr) He is a Ghanaian/American high school student in the 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.
  Virgil 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.^{[original research?]}
• Robert Hawkins (Kevin Michael Richardson) – A social worker who runs the Freeman Community Center as head counselor, he is a widower and the father of two teenagers. 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 (and still is) a fan of the superhero Soul Power. 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 Gear's secret, even from his daughter.
• Sharon Hawkins (Michele 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 (which is usually barely edible).
  Sharon has been dating Adam Evans a.k.a. The Rubber-Band Man since the episode "Bent Out of Shape"; though she knows about his super identity, she genuinely cares for him. 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 tricked into thinking that her suspicions were wrong. In the episode "Out of Africa", she was the recipient of a golden spider amulet, which temporarily granted her the power to create illusions; however when she returned the amulet to Anansi, the abilities vanished. 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 becomes suspicious once again of Virgil's behavior until their father interrupts them.
• Jean Hawkins - Virgil and Sharon's deceased mother and deceased wife of Robert Hawkins. She was very important to all of her family, especially Virgil. She was seen in the episode "Tantrum" when Sharon and Robert were watching the home movies. Virgil still frequently goes to visit his mother's grave and confess all his problems there. Jean was seen again in the episode "Flashback" when Static, Gear, and Ebon were transported back in time to the night she died. Although Static attempted to convince her to stay in a safe place (even revealing that he was her son Virgil from the future), she still left to go on duty as a paramedic, and was shot and killed that night by a stray bullet, but not before telling Virgil how proud she was of him having become a superhero - a statement which finally comforted Virgil over her death.
• Trina Jessup (Sheryl Lee Ralph) - Robert's new 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 the crimes around Dakota.

Other heroes

• Richard "Richie" Osgood Foley/Gear 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 special ability and power is superhuman/enhanced intelligence, which enables him to easily invent rocket-powered boots and "Backpack", a highly intelligent multipurpose device capable of surveillance and other semi-independent activity which he wears on his back. With this equipment, he adopts the superhero identity "Gear" and becomes Static's full-time partner in crime-fighting.
  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 blonde and wore glasses) and Frieda Goren (with whom Virgil shared his secret identity as Static).
• Adam Evans/Rubber-Band Man (voiced by Kadeem Hardison) – 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 brother of the villainous Bang Baby 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 a tragic villain when he goes after an opportunistic record producer who had stolen one of his songs. He subsequently breaks out of prison but decides not to pursue a criminal career, however; he begins 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. While on patrol, Rubber-Band Man typically acts as an older brother figure to Static, keeping him from showing off and reminding him of consequences in their work, something that Adam's real brother Ebon never actually did when he looked after Adam prior to the Big Bang. It is unknown if Adam Evans was exposed to the cure for the Big Bang that neutralized many of the Bang Babies in Dakota at the end of the series.
  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. Since Rubber-Band Man and his brother Ebon can both stretch themselves; it is possible that the effects of the gas may have something to do with the person's genetic code.
• Shenice Vale/She-Bang (Rosslynn Taylor-Jordan) – A girl who was genetically engineered in a lab to have enhanced/superhuman strength and agility. The two scientists who created her, Drs. Jonathan and Dolores Vale, took pity on her and took her home from the lab; although she was not their natural child, 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 for mass-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 metahumans. Personality-wise, in her super-hero identity 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, though she gradually learns her lesson.She has a little crush on Virgil/Static.
• Nina Crocker/Time-Zone (Rachael MacFarlane) – 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. However because she never exist she could never go back to stop her from existing (a small plothole in the series).
  Time-Zone's powers were based on Flashback's from Blood Syndicate.
• Anansi the Spider (voiced by Carl Lumbly) – 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 illusion (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. 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. In the episode "Out of Africa", Anansi goes to Dakota to stop Osebo, Mmboro, and Onini (three of his enemies, based on the animals that the legendary Anansi caught to attain his stories), from obtaining a golden spider artifact, which is revealed to be the source of his powers. Static and Gear get drawn in when Sharon is kidnapped. In the end, Anansi obtains the artifact, but not before Sharon used it to make all of the dirty dishes "disappear", and took it for a spin for a while, and got kidnapped. Static, Gear, and Anansi rescued her. The spider artifact was never seen again afterward. Anansi's enemies are based on an ancient legend; the story, as told by Anansi, was that a clever Spider wanted to be able to tell stories, the "Sky Spirit" king of all the lands, agreed to give the spider what he wanted if he captured three trouble-makers: Onini the Python, Osebo the Leopard, the Mmoboro Hornet. The Spider trapped Mmoboro in a gourd, tied Onini to a stick, and dug a pit and covered it with leaves then lured Osebo into it and was trapped. The Sky Spirit thanked the spider and granted its wish giving it the ability to tell stories, through the power of making illusions. Anansi has three enemies: Mmoboro, a giant talking wasp who can turn into a swarm of smaller wasps, Onini, a giant talking black python, and Osebo, a large man-shaped talking leopard with a metal fist. At first sight, everyone mistakes Osebo for a tiger as he has stripes instead of spots; everyone who has ever heard that his is a leopard wonders why he has stripes. Anansi himself admitted to Static in "Out of Africa" "I too often wonder about the stripes". It is still unknown why Osebo has stripes.
• Morris Grant/Soul Power (voiced by the late 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.
• The DC Animated Universe heroes Batman, Robin, Superman, Green Lantern, the Justice League and Batman Beyond also make appearances in the series. The Teen Titans, Lois Lane and Aquaman are mentioned by name in some episodes.
• Future Virgil Hawkins/Future Static (voiced by Phil LaMarr)-He is a future version of Static and has a son in this timeline, who might have powers like his father. In this timeline, Future Static is known as one of the greatest heroes in the world and his powers have increased greatly during the last couple years.
• Future Richard ″Richie″ Foley/Future Gear (voiced by Jason Marsden)-He is a future version of Gear except with a voice change, and he may have also gained a little weight over the years. Gear has also tricked out the gas station or as he calls it, "The Static Station". He also has some new inventions like the Volterazer and the Brainiac has some new technology in his computer.
• The Hoop Squad heroes Pulverizer, Spindrive, Centerforce, Pointman are superheroes who work for a secret government. They all have their powers in their super suits and they have secret identities. When they're not fighting crime they're famous NBA basketball players Steve Nash, Yao Ming, Karl Malone and Tracy McGrady.

Villains

Main article: List of villains in Static Shock

Other Bang Babies

• Tamara Lawrence/Monster (Ariyan A. Johnson) – 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 (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 is 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 was not Static).
• Derek Barnett/D-Struct (voiced by Bumper Robinson) – A track athlete who could turn into a creature composed of ionic energy, 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 subject for Bang Baby research. He is based on a character who appeared in the Static and Hardware comics.
• Dwayne McCall (Blayne Barbosa) – A pre-teenaged boy who possesses reality-manipulating powers after exposure to Big Bang gas, 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 did not 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 (John Cho) – A gifted student whose demanding father pushed him to over-achieve in school. After the Big Bang, whenever Thomas gets angry or upset, it causes him to transform into a large, purple-skinned, orange-haired creature (resembling Marvel's Hulk) which has great strength and is impervious to pain. This creature is 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. It is unknown if he was one of the Bang Babies who was exposed to the cure and, if he was, infected again. Thomas' overall appearance, social interaction, personality and intellect seems to be based on Bruce Banner, the Hulks alter ego. Likewise Tantrum, the purple monster Thomas turns into, appearance-wise, powers, low intellect, behavior and speech patterns is based on Marvel's Hulk.
• Maureen Connor/Permafrost (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 exceedingly strong and powerful power and ability to control, generate, create and manipulate ice and snow at will, create highly destructive snowstorms, blizzards, hailstorms, immunity to cold, freeze an entire room, area, city or building with solid ice, and also create a variety of shapes out of solid ice); her hair turned white and her skin light blue. Maureen turned to trouble-making, attracting Static's attention, who managed to calm her down and took her to a local church for help in their homeless program, which she accepted.
• Allie Langford/Nails (Sibhan Fallen) - A teenage girl who experienced a delayed reaction to the Big Bang. Allie's exposure to the Big-Bang has transmuted her literally into a 'Girl of Steel', along with the ability to lengthen and retract the length of her fingernails, as well as shoot them as projectiles and regenerate new fingernails. Allie wore heavy makeup on her face and hands and took to wearing a full-length coat to hide her transformation from everyone, including her parents.
  In her attempts to find a cure without drawing attention to her condition, Allie learned of a Bang-Baby Clinic online and ventured to Gotham City. To her dismay, Nails (as Allie took to calling herself) learned that the clinic was in fact a hoax to hire meta-human mercenaries for personal gain orchestrated by Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, who played on Allie's insecurities and her desire to be returned to normal to persuade her into helping them rob a ship full of gold, in exchange for a cure. Static and Batman foil the scheme, however, and later, after having been reunited with her parents in Dakota, Allie was sponsored for a treatment program at a new Bang-Baby clinic established by Batman's alter-ego Bruce Wayne, where she began to make progress in controlling and reversing her "metallic affliction".
• 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. After Static and Gear thwart Ebon's plan, the Night-Breed refuses the duo's offer to help and retreat back into the dark, though not without promising to remain their friends. It is assumed that after the events of the series' finale, "Power Outage", they are returned to their normal, non-powered state.
  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 (Colleen O'Shaughnessey) – Generates a special dust called dark matter that she uses to protect herself from intense light and as a cover screen for escapes. 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 the 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 (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 (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.
• Chompers - A sheep dog-like creature with a bone tattoo on his arm usually seen with Carmendillo.
• 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)
  • A boy whose skin turns purple and is covered in gigantic boils (episode 1)
  • Unnamed boy who becomes a purple werewolf at a music store in the second episode. Virgil makes a Britney Spears joke when it seems he is feeling ill; Frieda snaps at Virgil in reply, much to his surprise. Static once referred to it as "Furfur" when Replikon assumed this form in the episode Duped.
  • Static fought several unnamed snake-bangbabies at the beginning of the episode "Junior". They appear as being cobras with snake arms and rattlesnake tails.
  • In the episode "Sons of the Father" Richie runs away from home and is cornered in an alley by Carmadillo and a light purple dog-man with bone tattoos circling his arm that chases Richie, but cannot go after him when Richie escapes up a fire escape ladder. He only barks and growls, and had been referred to as "Chompers".

Other characters

• Frieda Goren (Danica McKellar): 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 Gear's role as Virgil's best friend/confidant/and unofficial sidekick to his Static persona.
• Daisy Watkins (Crystal Scales): 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.
• Bernie Rast: A sleazy, loud-mouth TV producer who always looks out for a big hit to promote his clients, and by extension, himself.
• Shelly Sandoval: A young news reporter in Dakota who regularly reports on the metahuman activities in town.
• Mr. McGill: Virgil's and Richie's algebra and physics teacher. Usually talks with a drawling tone, rendering his students unable to concentrate on his lectures.
• Jimmy Osgood (Richard Steven Horvitz): An unstable boy who studies in Virgil's school and is constantly bullied. This leads him to steal his father's gun and pointing it at the respective bully, Nick Connor. At first, he seems to surrender after Richie calms him down. However he accidentally shoots Richie in the leg, leaving Jimmy mentally unbalanced. He receives treatment some time later and is sent to a juvenile detention center.

Episodes

Main article: List of Static Shock episodes

Crossovers

• "The Big Leagues" - Dakota gets a real jolt when the Joker hits town, recruiting a band of Meta-Humans to wreak his own special brand of havoc. Batman and Robin appear, pursuing the Joker. 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 these episodes would air before the Teen Titans TV series premiered. Justice League was used instead.^[1]
• "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 did not happen since O'Neal was unreachable.^[2]
• "Future Shock" – After helping Batman with a case, Static finds himself accidentally sent 40 years into the future, where he has to help the Batman of that era, Terry McGinnis, save a captured superhero: Static's future self.
• "Fallen Hero" – Static faces off against his idol, Green Lantern (John Stewart) 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 rewrite of a story in Green Lantern vol. 2 #7, which features Green Lantern Hal Jordan (John Stewart's predecessor) being trapped and impersonated by Sinestro.)

A future Static from the Justice League Unlimited series

• "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.)
• "The Once and Future Thing", Part 2: Time, Warped – Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern go to the future of Batman Beyond, where they meet a 65-year-old Static working for that period's Justice League. This older Static is wiser, but still jokes around a lot. (Note: This is a Justice League Unlimited episode.)

Cancelled video game

A Static Shock video game for the Game Boy Advance was developed by Vicarious Visions, with a story by Dwayne McDuffie. Unfortunately in the year 2002, despite advertisements in magazines and comic books, the game was cancelled when Midway Games (the organization that was going to distribute it), was already no longer distributing anymore GBA games because of a series of financial difficulties.

See also

• Meta-Human

References

1. ^ "A League of Their Own". Jl.toonzone.net. http://jl.toonzone.net/episodeA/episodeA.htm. Retrieved 2011-01-02. 
2. ^ "The World's Finest - Static Shock". Worldsfinestonline.com. http://www.worldsfinestonline.com/WF/staticshock/backstage/interviews/semper03.php. Retrieved 2011-01-02. 

External links

• Official website
• Static Shock at TV.com
• Static Shock at the Internet Movie Database
• The World's Finest Presents Static Shock