CBR Live! Archive
365 Reasons to Love Comics #44
Yesterday, I wrote about a certain creator. Today, I write about that certain creator's most popular creation.
2/13/07
44. Static
Static was a Spider-Man for the 90's. A fifteen year old kid trying to stay above gang life, gifted with cool electromagnetic superpowers, and dedicating himself to fighting crime.
I'm a bit under the weather today (literally and figuratively) and pressed for time, so I'm going to send you all over to the Wiki on Static to get all the background info, and instead talk about the importance of the character himself.
I think Static could hold another ongoing in this day and age; after all, he's had his own cartoon series, so the kids know who he is, and he's shown up on Justice League Unlimited, so the aging fanbase who don't veer outside the DCU know who he is, too!
His powers are cool and used in interesting ways. He is, after all, a living electromagnet.
He'd be a good role model for inner city African-American kids. Static comics could be dispersed through the public school system to entertain and educate youth and promote non-gang life.
Really, Static deserves to be more popular than he is. Rather than be a footnote in the field of comics and animation, Static should be able to stand above a lot of the chaff and act as a positive force in the medium.
Of course, some people have tried. Geoff Johns wanted to put Static in the Teen Titans, but there's always the issues of rights, as Static falls under McDuffie's Milestone.
C'mon, Dwayne! Let's get some new Static stories out to the masses!
Who else is ecstatic for Static?
- Posted on February 13, 2007 @ 05:59 PM
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12 Comments
Michael
February 13, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Given what Geoff Johns has done with the characters he got to put on Teen Titans, I think Static's absence from that lineup is a blessing in disguise.
Lynxara
February 13, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I was about to say. "Wasn't written by Geoff Johns" is no mark of shame for a character.
Evan Waters
February 13, 2007 at 8:58 pm
As a tangent, how can one be *literally* under the weather?
Back on-topic, I honestly thought "Static Shock" was the character's name. Made sense to me at the time. But yeah, I'd like to see more of him.
Bill Reed
February 13, 2007 at 9:05 pm
It's snowing like hell out there, man.
J To The AAP
February 14, 2007 at 4:43 am
^Hell is snowing?
Chuck T.
February 14, 2007 at 7:48 am
One of my favorite books ever, and I recently lost a couple issues in a flood. There's about the right number of issues for a Showcase volume, DC...
And a DC Direct action figure.
Pfft. Probably see Hentai Power Girl before that happens...
I am MODOK
February 14, 2007 at 8:26 am
Fantastic series. And I loved those subtitles on the covers. One for the kids, baby!
"O" the Humanatee!
February 14, 2007 at 8:58 am
I wish people would remember that Static (well, the Milestone Static, not Steve Ditko's character) was co-created by Dwayne McDuffie and Robert L. Washington III, and not give sole authorship to McDuffie. According to the index at the Milestone Rave web site (http://milestone.luthor.com/) - I don't have my own issues to hand - McDuffie and Washington co-wrote the first four issues, after which Washington wrote the bulk of the issues solo up to #18. McDuffie and Washington, along with Ivan Velez Jr., wrote the Worlds Collide title initiating a crossover between the Milestone and mainstream DC universes (with its very fun "colorforms" cover), and McDuffie wrote Static #14, a Worlds Collide issue, as well as the Static Shock mini-series years later.
I have no idea what the relative contributions of McDuffie and Washington were to the creation of Static, but personally I enjoyed the Washington-written and co-written issues (few as they were) more than I have enjoyed most of McDuffie's solo work. IMO, Static really went downhill after Washington left the book; I think he really had a gift for character-writing that his successors lacked. I wonder what became of him?
Dwayne McDuffie
February 16, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hi, Dwayne McDuffie here. Robert Washington is a very talented writer, but he had nothing to do with the creation of Static. I hired him to help out, after I wrote the Static series bible, when it became clear that I wouldn't have time to Hardware, Icon Blood Syndicate and Static, as well as learn to run my new company. I'm a co-creator of Static, along with Derek Dingle, Denys Cowan and Michael Davis. Robert Washington is not.
"O" the Humanatee!
February 16, 2007 at 8:01 am
My apologies, Mr. McDuffie. I don't know what the credits read in the actual issues (they're at my folks' house, a couple of hours away), but I was relying on information on various web sites, including Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is publicly edited and lots of people rely on it, you might want to see about changing the entry there.
The Kirbydotter
March 10, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Never caught on with the whole Milestone line.
Too hip hop for me.
Everything Milestone seemed to be inspired by the hip hop look.
lamaine the payne
July 31, 2008 at 12:54 am
i am just finding out about the orginal static all i knew was the wb's static and i am loving the lilttel i have found out they should really work on some way to give us some more comics that would be awesome