Static Shock – 25hardasnails

Static travels to Gotham City to rescue Nails, a school girl friend of his who has fallen in with Harley and Ivy, who are promising to cure her of her Bang Baby affliction.

Media by Bird Boy, James Harvey
Review by Matt Zimmer

Voices:
Phil LaMarr as Virgil Hawkins/Static
Jason Marsden as Richie Foley
Kevin Conroy as Batman / Bruce Wayne
Robert Costanzo as Detective Bullock
Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon
T’Keyah Crystal Keymah as Allie / Nails
Diane Pershing as Poison Ivy
Crystal Scales as Daisy
Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn
Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Alfred
 

Static teams up with Batman again, this time in Gotham City to help a troubled runaway.

The episode opens in Gotham city with Static chasing a girl called Allie who now goes by the name of Nails. He recalls that Allie had been acting strange at school and how he and Richie discovered she was a Bang Baby and that she had run off to meet some people over the internet who claimed they could help her. Batman arrives and captures her and tells
Static he can take it from there, saying that he knows who Allie was going to meet. Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn show up and trap Static and
Batman in trees and take off with Allie.

Batman rescues himself and Static and takes Static back to the Batcave.
Meanwhile Harley and Ivy tell Nails that they have come up with a cure for the Bang Baby gas and will give it to her if she does some jobs for them. Later Static awakens being tended to by Alfred. He sees Batman working at the computer and learns that Batman knows he is Virgil
Hawkins because his student I.D. badge slipped out of his costume.
Batman wants to take down Allie hard but Virgil argues saying she’s just a mixed up kid. Batman tells Static that they’ll do it Static’s way for now but that if Nails hurts anybody she’s going down with Harley and
Ivy. Virgil is also annoyed that Batman has him blind-folded when they leave the Batcave. Meanwhile Harley and Ivy are having Nails perform heists of gold bars from banks. Allie say she doesn’t want to do this anymore and they give her the formula which turns out to be nail polish and kick her off the boat they were traveling in. Batman and Static arrive and save Nails and capture Harley and Ivy. At the end Allie is sent to a treatment facility to get better funded by Bruce Wayne who tells Virgil that he’s earned his share of trust as he is taken away by
Alfred, revealing to Static his secret identity.

I love the dynamic between Static and Batman and it was never better than in this episode. We see Virgil still intimidated by the Bat but working up the nerve to question him and even challenge him. I like how it evolved to the point where Batman sees him as a colleague in "A
League of Their Own" and "Future Shock". I think it’s cool that despite only four or five appearances on the show Batman’s relationship with
Static kept evolving and changing. I’ve seen complaints that Batman would NEVER let Static know his secret identity after only working with him twice. Yeah, because Paul Dini, who wrote the episode has NO clue what Batman would or wouldn’t do.

We got a lot of little fanboy moments in the episode like Batman mentioning that Robin was with the Titans (the episode was written before Dini knew the series wasn’t in continuity. Sue him) and hearing
Alfred using street slang. I personally thought the funniest part of the episode was Detective Bullock wondering what the heck Robin did to his hair.

The episode wasn’t perfect however. Surprisingly the scenes with Harley and Ivy were kind of weak. It makes sense that Dini would use them as they ARE creepy enough to lure a teen on-line but their dialogue was somewhat stilted and Harley’s jokes were more unfunny than usual.

I did like Static’s new costume however. The new theme song by Lil’
Romeo took a little getting used to but at least we now have a Brainiac robot in the credits! I was also pleased to see Batman’s universe was pretty much on model the entire episode after the characters looking funny in The Big Leagues. I have to say out of all of the Static Shock
DCAU crossovers this was one of the best and I remember how excited I was when I first watched it. A great episode.

Story: *****
Animation: ****1/2
Average: *****