Static Shock – 36toyshood

Static teams up with Superman when the Man of Steel’s old nemesis,
Toy Man, appears in Dakota.

Media by James Harvey; Pans by Borg4of3
Review by Matt Zimmer

Voices:
Phil LaMarr as Virgil Hawkins/Static
Jason Marsden as Richie Foley/Gear
George Newbern as Superman / Clark Kent
Bud Cort as Toyman
Crystal Scales as Daisy
Danica McKellar as Freida
Nicholette Sheridan as Miss Moore / Darcy

While on a field trip with Daisy and their new teacher Miss Moore the bus is attacked by a giant toy monkey. As Static and Gear come to the rescue they are surprised and elated by an appearance of Superman who stops the monkey. At school Virgil and Richie meet Clark Kent who is investigating Miss Moore who turns out to be the robot Darci Mason whom the Toyman was obsessed with on Superman: The Animated Series. Later
Darci kidnaps Daisy so the Toyman can construct Darci a new body based on Daisy’s and she can take over her life. Static and Superman arrive to stop Toyman but the duplication process has already taken place. The
Toyman almost kills Superman and Static with plastic/Kryptonite toy soldiers when Darci double-crosses him and defeats him. Static uses his electromagnetism to determine which of the two girls is Daisy and the
Toy activates a remote that destroys Darci for betraying him. At the end
Toyman goes to jail and Static takes Daisy home.

Out of all of the DCAU Static crossovers this was easily the worst. I think it was a questionable idea at best to make a sequel to a lesser-known Superman episode than to start off with an all-new story.
True we got Bud Cort as the Toyman (who was sorely missed in Justice
League’s Hereafter) out of the deal but other than that the episode is pretty run-of-the-mill and boring as well. I think the thing that hurts the episode most is surprisingly the new Superman theme the show created just for this episode which sounds worse even than the Batman theme introduced in The Big Leagues. It is so generic and is played so frequently that you can’t help but role your eyes.

George Newburn does a thankless job as Superman here. While his voice performance isn’t really that bad he gets stuck with a lot of clunky dialogue. The animation is passable at best. Nothing clicked in this episode. I really had no fun watching it which is the biggest sin a cartoon can commit. This was a really bad episode.

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