Warning: The following contains spoilers for Static: Season One #1 by Vita Ayala, Chriscross and Nikolas Draper-Ivey, on sale now.
The revival of Milestone Comics and the return of the Dakota Universe brings updated new versions of several classic Milestone heroes back into the spotlight. Earlier this year, Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition Zero by Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, Nikolas Draper-Ivey, Bill Sienkiewicz, Chris Sotomayor, Chriscross, Juan Castro, Will Quintana and Andworld Design gave Hardware a brand new origin and revisits Mileston's most well-known hero Static, tweaking his origin a bit as well.
While that origin is expanded upon in Static: Season One, this isn't the first time that story of how young Virgil Hawkins got his powers has changed. In fact, the electric hero has had five distinct origins since his first appearance in 1993.
STATIC'S NEW ORIGIN
In this year's Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition Zero and Static: Season One #1, Virgil attends a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest with his friend and crush Frieda Goren. The Dakota police show up on the scene and order the protesters to leave. When the activists stand their ground, the police fire a new type of gas designed by Alva Industries into the crowd. The gas starts hurting people immediately. Kids burst into flames and find themselves mutating in the street. Virgil emits a blast of electricity before passing out and waking up in a hospital where he discovers that he has the power to produce and control electricity.
STATIC'S ORIGINAL ORIGIN
Similar to his poignant new origin story, the original version of Static also got his powers in an incident involving the police. In Dwayne McDuffie, Robert L Washington, John Paul Leon and Steve Mitchell's 1993 Static #2, Virgil is being bullied at school by a racist gang member named Biz Money who beats him up. Tired of being bullied, Virgil gets a gun from his friend and follows Biz to the docks where he and his gang are hanging out, presumably up to no good. Here, Hawkins realizes that he isn't a killer. He tosses the gun into the sea and decides to go home, but before he can leave - the police arrive and gas the docks to raid Biz's gang. The gas is tainted with Quantum Juice and appears to kill or knockout everyone on the dock except for Virgil, who is suddenly surrounded by sparks.
STATIC SHOCK
Milestone's animated 2000 Static Shock show borrowed heavily from the comic's origin story but made a few changes to adapt its material for a younger audience. In the Season One episode "Shock to the System," directed by James Tucker, Virgil is still struggling with a bully, but rather than going to the docks to kill him, Virgil heads there with members of another gang simply to fight the bully and his crew. The fight is broken up by police who deploy regular tear gas into the fracas. The canisters crash into chemical containers, which explode and release a gas that transforms Virgil into Static and gives powers to some of the others who are present, including the villain Hot Streak. This formative event is known as the "Big Bang."
STATIC'S NEW 52 ORIGIN
DC's New 52 took Virgil out of Dakota and threw him and his family into the bustling city streets of New York, where Virgil worked part-time for S.T.A.R. Labs. 2011's Static Shock #5 by Scott McDaniel, John Rozum, Jonathan Glapion and Le Beau Underwood reveals that the New 52 iteration of Static's origin is almost identical to the 1993 series. In fact, many of the panels are almost identical to those drawn by John Paul Leon, but McDaniel introduces a second formative event in Virgil's life. When the Hawkins family was living in Dakota, she was kidnapped and cloned. Static blames himself for not being able to save her from this traumatic experience and struggles to help both versions of her cope with their bizarre new reality. This situation has had just as big of an impact on Virgil's life as the "big bang" that gave him his powers.
STATIC'S YOUNG JUSTICE ORIGIN
Virgil's story in the animated Young Justice is extremely different from any other iterations of the character. This version of Virgil's origins is vaguer, but seems to imply that he was born with his powers. Static first appears in Season 2, Episode 5 "Beneath" directed by Doug Murphy. In this episode, Virgil was abducted by the Reach. The Reach spent time experimenting on Virgil in an attempt to activate his "meta-gene." It is later revealed that he was also abducted and studied by members of the Light earlier in his life. Despite numerous experiments, Virgil's powers don't develop fully until he is being held in S.T.A.R. Labs. He doesn't really come into his own as a hero until Black Lightning became his mentor.
Regardless of how Static stories begin, they always weave engaging narratives for the charismatic young hero. Every iteration of Virgil Hawkins has been at once poignant and timeless, and the newest revitalization of the character is no exception.