Static Shock #5 – Review

By: Scott McDaniel (writer & penciller), Andy Owens (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Folks, it’s never a good idea to mess with a guy’s sister.

The Review: In my experience, the end of a love affair—and of course I’m talking about comics here—always comes into two flavors: bittersweet or bitter.  Admittedly, my fling with Static Shock started out less than moony, gradually growing more and more disenchanted with each issue, but there’s still enough feeling in the relationship for me to say that even at the end, I still think it could’ve worked, had things been a little different.

Because honestly, the story so far has not been bad.  Rozum and McDaniel (and now, just McDaniel) have done a fine job weaving in a number of different plotlines, breaking up the story to keep it from being sedentary.  And in fact, in this issue, a lot of those plotlines actually come together to form a fairly cohesive picture of where this title might be going.  It’s just frustrating that it took this long for it get its act together.

Here, the fumbling of the Slate Gang, Piranha’s power quest, the dual agency of Pale Man, the focus on Sharon Hawkins, and Static’s lingering regrets about his past in Dakota finally intersect in one, highly involved and actually exciting climax.  You can’t put these many conflicting forces all in the same panel and think it won’t fall apart at some point.  Better yet, Static’s last-page convo with Hardware promises even more action to come, as he promises “the cavalry is coming.”  I personally wouldn’t mind seeing Rocket, Icon, maybe even Xombi join the fray.

All this doesn’t quite forgive the sluggish, repetitive pace the series has been running up till now, and this issue still has some of the ongoing problems that call the title’s future viability in question.  While Static’s use of his powers are still cleverly innovative, McDaniel still hasn’t figured out how to write it without making it sound like a science lesson.  Virgil’s spiel about Faraday’s law of magnetic induction sounds impressive, but also, frankly, a bit obscure.

McDaniel also, for the sake of plot, takes a few liberties with the Slate Gang’s common sense and intelligence, making them seem a bit thick and deserving of chastisement by their superiors.  As they seek to discover Static’s identity, it’s obvious all their data has led them to suspect Virgil Hawkins, but just because their “facial recognition algorithms” couldn’t see the similarity between Virgil’s old, geeky photo and his current dreadlocked appearance, they claim “Static has no civilian identity.”  Very, very weak.

But the real crux of this title’s problems is McDaniel’s art.  Its complete lack of texture (a fault of Major’s colors also) and rather flat appearance drains almost every panel of energy and depth.  Any time a character makes a movement, it looks awkward and stiff and thus unconvincing.  Take Piranha’s beatdown of a Slater.  Considering his size and weight, his punches should be knocking the Slater’s head off, but instead they look ordinary, even impotent.  While McDaniel’s art isn’t unappealing, it just has no draw to it whatsoever.

Conclusion: Story-wise, we get a pretty significant improvement, but it’s not enough to keep this title on my regular rotation, especially since the art feels like the biggest problem and it’s going to stick around for a while yet.  Maybe I’ll come back if another artist come onboard, but for now, consider this Dropped.

Grade: C+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – So…is it the Slaters or this “creep” from back in Dakota who kidnapped Sharon?  I’m not thrilled with these continuity bits that keep slipping into the story, either.