I know it's probably beating on a dead horse by now, but why the hell not?
Greetings Ladies and Gents! It is I, The Shaman of Animation back again with some more Superhero talk! Today's topic will be on a special hero, one that is close to many people, and his last big comic outing: That hero's name is Static.
Back in 1993, The late great Dwayne McDuffie along with other African American writers and artists founded Milestone who published comics (Known as Milestone Comics) through DC Comics that starred minorities. In June of that year [1993] one of Milestone's flagship characters was created: That character was Static (His name is Static people, not Static Shock...that's the most common mistake people make with him). The character was created to be an answer to Spider-Man in the sense that you have this young kid who had to balance his personal life and the issues that came with it with the responsibilities of being a Superhero.
While I never read the character's original comic run, I (as I'm sure as many other people reading this did) became acquainted with Static through the cartoon series that ran from 2000 to 2004 titled 'Static Shock'
The show was, and still is to this day, one of the best animated superhero series ever. Not only did the show stand out with its fresh hero, powers, and setting, but the show also touched on issues that happen in the world: Racism, Gang violence, having your race be properly represented, kids using guns to defend themselves from bullies. The show left such a mark on its audience that a decade later, without even much marketing from DC, Static still has a very strong and dedicated fanbase. People say that Spider-Man is the character that everyone can connect to; that when kids see him, they feel like they could actually BE him. As I look back on the show, I believe that Virgil Hawkins (A.K.A Static) IS that character for minorites everywhere, ESPECIALLY for young black kids out there.
But I've gone on enough, let's get to why you're all here, back in 2011, DC launched "The New 52" which was a revamp of The DC Universe that got rid of nearly all of the stories that existed before in DC and served to wipe the slate clean and create a new continuity in DC and allow for new stories. One of these characters that got a relaunch in the New 52 was of course our boy Static. I recently read some of this latest run (The means of how I read this book is not important to the topic at hand). My face was something along the lines of this after it was said and done:
I honestly can't remember reading or watching something that got a character SO WRONG. I even had a small talk about it with a friend of mine who's probably a bigger Static Fan than I am; and after that talk I had to get my thoughts out on it here in this blog. So here's my short list of what I think The New 52 did wrong with Static. This list will be coming from someone whose knowledge of Static stems mainly from the cartoon along with a little research on the original comics so bear with me folks.
Number 1: The Two Year Time Gap
The New 52 Static book had Virgil two years into his Superhero career and in the eighth and final issue (Yeah, the book only had eight issues), It turns out all of Static's time before the New 52 happened, which honestly hurt the book in my opinion. With the New 52, DC should've completely rebooted Static, you could've kept the origin the same (after all, if ain't broke don't fix it) but instead of Static being active for two years, have him be active for a couple of weeks then reintroduce the other bang babies and put its own spin on them.
Next on the list: The Stripping of Virgil's Individuality
The biggest offense of the New 52 Static book was that it took away everything that people loved about Virgil Hawkins and his world. For starters, Virgil Hawkins no longer lives in Dakota. He lives in New York City, A.K.A "The most generic and uninspired state and city for a superhero to live". Honestly, I will never understand what the team of the Static book were thinking by making this move. That action alone to me turns Static into "just another hero". And because Static is no longer in Dakota, his supporting cast is also gone. Richie's gone, Frieda only shows up once, Virgil's dad who had a decent role in the cartoon didn't add much to the comic.
Virgil's mom who, interestingly enough, in the cartoon died because she was caught in the crossfire of a gang riot. Here in the comic, she's alive. Which I personally think was a very big mistake on the hands of the comic writers. In the show, the death of Virgil's mother played a part in the person Virgil was, why he was so Anti-Guns (As most heroes are) because his mother was killed via guns. The New 52 comic had the opportunity to replicate that same kind of characteristic for Virgil, but it didn't take that opportunity and his mom ended up...just being there.
The villains introduced into this new book were completely forgettable to me, who they were and their motives. I had to look them up on Wikipedia and even after, I still don't know much about them and they're still completely forgettable and I don't care much about them. First, you have the Slate Gang who want to kidnap Static...for reasons I can not for the life of me remember, and then there's Virule who could've been an interesting villain for Static to take on, but he wasn't really much either. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having new villains for a particular character but when they're as lame as these, you can't help but beg for the old guys to come back.
And my final beef with The New 52 Static Book is:
Bigger not equaling better
If it weren't for the previous issue stated, THIS would be my biggest issue with New 52 Static. I've read some of the statements made by the creative team, mainly by Scott McDaniel. His idea for Static was to go with big, exciting and maybe even shocking stories that would sell books. And after reading that, I think Mr. McDaniel was approaching the Static book the wrong way. If I can bring back the Spider-Man parallels, the reason why people loved Static Shock weren't because his stories had some "Fate of The world" implications to them, but because they were more personal. They affected HIS world, his neighborhood, his psyche. The situations that Virgil were in hit close to home for the target audience, and that's why people connected to him. So when you try to do a story where Sharon has a clone and she nor the family can tell who's the real Sharon, you show you don't have an understanding of why people love the character, and you also make the audience's eyes glaze over from how stupid a story that is.
McDaniel said that the team couldn't afford a slow burn story, I say they should've found a way to make that work because a slow burn story is the ideal way to write a Static story. You should've started small, have Virgil fight some no name mooks, let us into his personal life, his friends, his family. Then you build towards your larger story: if you wanted, you could've introduced the Slate Gang and Virule; and then you could introduce more of the Milestone heroes (which was one of the best things the New 52 comic did by having Hardware in the book) and then by the end you have Static and the other Milestone heroes vs The Slate Gang. That's how it should have been done if you ask me.
That brings an end to this list peeps. I'm sure there are plenty of more things wrong with the New 52 Static Shock series, but these were the most noteworthy things I saw. With a new digital Static series apparently being in the works, I hope the team of that series takes the right cues from this book, because honestly there are some things that in the right hands COULD have worked (I'm really just talking about the villains here). Maybe someday Static will get a new comic, let's just hope that it won't make the same mistakes as this book did...
Til next time folks, I'm The Shaman of Animation and I just put a shock to your system.
This line in a Static Discussion is totally necessary!
Take Care...
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