This blog post will interrogate some of the divergences between the mid-90’s comic book series Static and its early 2000’s cartoon adaption Static Shock. Dig the opening sequence from the first season.
From a general survey of fans on the Internet, Jeffrey Brown’s text Black Superheroes, and the fact that it was the only Milestone property adapted for television one can infer that Static was the fan favorite of the Milestone properties. As a narrative about a geeky black teenager struggling with coming into his own as both a teenager and a superhero, Static’s life probably mirrors that of many comic book fans more-so than the other major Milestone properties. In the first issue, we see him beat down by his foremost antagonist Hotstreak in front of his best friend Frieda on whom he has a major crush. Anyone who was ever an awkward teenage boy can sympathize with the moment. Static’s sarcastic, Spider-Man-inspired hilarious everyman Virgil Hawkins is the kind of superhero who would exist if a better member of the fandom were given superheroes.
In my opinion, the series did a good job of mixing a narrative about an awkward teenager with superpowers who likes role playing games with a serious investigation of issues that exist in the real world. Static was no less than the marriage of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee’s early work on Amazing Spider-Man and Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ groundbreaking run on Green Lantern co-starring Green Arrow. Though there were moments when the series veered into the territory of the kind of stuff we used to propagate back when I was a member of my high school’s Diversity Club, within its first 30 issues Static managed to deal with black anti-Semitism, homophobia, pre-marital sex, and gentrification while still delivering teenage melodrama and rambunctious superhero action.
Given Milestone Media’s acute collapse in 1997, we can view it as a blessing that Static made it on to the small screen in the early part of this decade. Here I want to talk about of the changes made to Static in adapting the property to television and how they are indicative of black tv in general. In doing so, I want to look at Herbert Eichelberger’s essay “Toward an Understanding of the Black Image in the Visual Arts as Seen through Filmic Metaphor.”
While in the comic book series, the protagonist’s family are of working class stock the tv show follows the same general trend as The Cosby Show and Family Matters. Virgil and his family definitely live in more spacious and comfortable surroundings in the animated series—witness the banister Virgil slides down in the opening music above. While as Eichelberger notes, the typical black family is headed by a single parent working two jobs, Virgil’s father has comfortable, professional aire about him and has time to do things like harass the mayor of the city about the explosion of new metahumans. (349) Meanwhile, in the comic book series, Virgil’s father is an orderly at a hospital who has worked his hands to the bone to move his family out of the inner city, so that Virgil and his sister can enjoy good schools. In one issue a combination of his overwork and the stress caused an attack of superpowered Chihuahuas on his workplace leads Virgil’s father to have a heart attack which becomes a heavy financial strain on the Hawkins family. We also see a contrast in the nature of Virgil’s afterschool job at a fast food restaurant in the shift from cartoon to comic. In the first few issues of comic book, Virgil’s mom makes it very clear that Virgil has to work there because they need the money, in the animated series his reason for holding down a job is to supplement his allowance.
While, as Dwayne McDuffie notes, it’s good to have a full line of black superheroes so that an individual black superhero like Static is not made to rep all black people all the time, we can say that the Hawkins family as presented in the animated series is not as close to the life lived by most African Americans as the Hawkins family presented in the comics.
Furthermore, Static Shock does not confront social issues in the same way as the comic book. While first episode involves Virgil almost getting roped into a gang so that he can deal with bullies, the audience is not presented with a discourse about the causes of gangs. Unlike the narrative presented by the Milestone comic book series Blood Syndicate, Static Shock does not explain that gangs flow from the crumbling infrastructure and lack of economic opportunity of the inner city. They’re presented as little more than bad kids hanging out together or forms of self-defense against bullies who are bad just because they are bad people.
While pointing to why there are these contrasts between the Static comic book and the Static Shock animated series is beyond the scope of this blog post, I will state that in the jump from Milestone comic to WB Animated series, the Static property was sanitized and made more petit bourgeois. I want to close by urging the reader to reflect on this in light of findings of Jack Greenberg about the way kids relate to tv cited by Eichelberger:
“(1) black and white youngsters identify with black television characters; (2) white youngsters who see blacks mostly on television as opposed to in their daily lives are likely to believe that television actually portrays real-life blacks; (3) behaviors and attitudes are closely linked to both social class and race differences; (4) young television fans strongly believe in the reality of television; and (5) viewers who perceive a great amount of similiarity between themselves and television characters are more affected by television than those who perceive less similiarity.” (349)In reflecting on this, remember that the television does a lot of babysitting in the typical single parent black family headed up by a person working two jobs. Though it would seem that most cartoon producers are generally more interested in sanitized television and the bottom line than the social utility of their programming, given the impressionability of youngsters it would be a leap forward to portray a working class black teenage superhero in a cartoon for two reasons. First and foremost, it is good for youngsters to have fictional role models in situations similar to their own lives. Through the power of syndication this could mean a lot for working class black children for years to come. Secondly, as noted in the quotation above, white youngsters tend to view the portrayal of blacks on television as reality. It would be a step forward in discrediting the black underclass myth.
That being said, Static Shock still rules. You can check out the first episode in sketchy YouTube format below:
Text bibliography:
Brown, Jeffrey. Black Superheroes, Milestone Comics, and Their Fans. Jacksons: University of Mississippi Press, 2001.
Eichelberger, Herbert. “Toward an Understanding of the Black Image in the Visual Arts as Seen through Filmic Metaphor,” in Out of Revolution: the Development of Africana Studies. Ed. By Aldrige, Delores P. and Carlene Young. New York: Lexington Books, 2000. Pp. 337-356
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