Static Shock #1 – Review

By: Scott McDaniel & John Rozum (writers), Scott McDaniel (penciller), Jonathan Glapion & Le Beau Underwood (inkers), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: He’s not just a smart-talking kid who shoots lightning—he also loves physics!

The Review: I may have mentioned before at some point that I’m a fan (not an avid one, but a fan nonetheless) of the Static Shock cartoons.  Having few ethnic superheroes to look up to at the time, I suppose I just glommed onto whichever ones wandered into my awareness, and Static was among the most accessible of those.  I just appreciated that for once, someone other than the white dude—someone young—could be the heroic center of an entire show.

In spite of the anticipation following DC’s assumption of Static and other Milestone characters some years back, the teenaged lightning rod didn’t really show up as much as expected, and made little impact even when he did.  After seeing him get marginalized for so long, it sure is a pleasure to watch him flying around in a solo title again.

Better yet to know this isn’t a drastic reconceptualization of our hero, despite the updated threads and equipment.  Though transplanted into New York City (in Harlem, of course), Virgil comes packaged with his Dakota background and colorful family, and, as his constant communiqués with Hardware shows, he still retains ties to his Milestone fellows, possibly signaling more sightings of them in the future.

For now, we can simply enjoy seeing Static in action, mostly on his own, and delivering his usual potent mix of witty, nerdy, and hapless dialogue, penned by the always dependable Rozum.  Though electric-generating characters (and black ones in particular) come a dime a dozen in comics, Static’s unnatural zeal for science allows him some excellent usages of his powers even in the first few pages, where he uses double positive charges to repel innocents from danger.

You can also take pleasure in Virgil’s interaction with his family (a whole family, by golly), whose unawareness of his extracurricular activities give them the freedom to poke fun on his geeky, put-upon side (big sister Sharon takes it upon herself to submit his high school ID photo for him, complete with hi-top fade and glasses).  It’d also be great to actually see him at his part-time job and school, where he must boast some pretty interesting adventures: “Why is it the prettiest girls always have the biggest boyfriends?”

All that aside, the villains seem like your typical teen-villains, more unscrupulous and sneaky than dastardly, and certainly more colorful than your average foes.  Though they apparently have a fairly diverse group (including a couple crooked detectives, a Joker lookalike, and some lizard-man creature), none give off much of a superiorly threatening vibe, which makes them underwhelming candidates for Static’s first set of rogues.

McDaniel’s cartoony, highly angular art works for a title that boasts such a youthful tone, but at the same time keeps you from taking much of it seriously (sniping people dead doesn’t seem all that scary when it gets reduced to beams and red splats).  At times, you have a hard time figuring out what exactly you’re supposed to be seeing, like the nifty(?) holographic projections Hardware installed into Static’s equipment, which you can’t tell what it does.

Conclusion: A fun read that zips along and stays true to the character’s origins, but still has a ways to figure itself out.

Grade: B

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – Love Hardware’s strategy of misleading Virgil’s employers into thinking he’s a juvenile felon so they’ll leave him to his own devices.  I believe that’s what the reverend Jesse Jackson would call “the subtle genius of lowered expectations.”  Or something.