Static Shock – 48rubberroad

Static realizes that Rubberband Man is a severe dyslexic when they track down a stolen device.

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Matt Zimmer

Voices:
Phil LaMarr as Virgil Hawkins/Static
Jason Marsden as Richie Foley/Gear
Michele Morgan as Sharon
John DiMaggio as Tarmack
Kerrigan Mahan as Edwin Alva
Kadeem Hardison as Adam/Rubberband Man
Michael Rosenbaum as Trapper
Patton Oswalt as Specs

Rubberband Man faces his greatest challenge yet when his illiteracy gets in the way of his superheroing.

While playing vidoegames at Adam Evans house Virgil and Richie sees he has no books or magazines and his fan mail's unread. While on a date with Sharon a crisis arises where a giant metahuman named Tarmack is robbing a laboratory owned by Edwin Alva. Rubberband Man, Static and
Gear arrive to stop Tarmack but he escapes with a fusion generator because Rubberband Man couldn't read which button to press to stop his escape. Alva is furious. Virgil tells Rubberband Man that he knows he can't read and Rubberband Man reveals that he suffers from dyslexia and can only read if he does the work.

Tarmack takes the generator back to Specs and Trapper who are planning to use it to hold the city for ransom by threatening to destroy it. They plant the reactor down by the waterfront. Alva gives Static, Gear, and
Rubberband Man devices to stop the generator. Static and Gear arrive at
Specs and Trapper's headquarters to confront them but Rubberband Man is the one who gets to the waterfront first. After defeating Specs,
Trapper, and Tarmack Static and Richie race to help Rubberband Man.
Using the skills he learned in his reading classes Rubberband Man manages to read the instructions and shut down the generator just in time.

This was another "message" episode for the series and all things considered it was pretty well done. Instead of using the cliché that
Rubberband Man is too lazy to read they had him have dyslexia which affects a lot of people. I thought it was good that they showed some of the tricks used for recognizing words like counting letters. The PSA at the end of the episode didn't even bother me.

One thing I really appreciated about the fourth season of Static Shock
was that it really seemed more of a "back-to-basics" season for the show. Outside of Future Shock, Fallen Hero, and Hoop Squad the show didn't overly on guest stars as often as it had in recent seasons. We really didn't see anything of Edwin Alva and Rubberband Man in the third season and it was nice that the season actually went back to the characters that started the show. Where they went with the characters at the end of the season and whether or not it was a good thing is debatable but it was great seeing Alva and Rubberband Man again and more than once.

The animation in this episode was pretty good. The rubbery animation of the first two seasons would have definitely helped the Rubberband Man scenes but as it was it was done pretty well even if he didn't change shape as often as he did in his previous appearances. I still like his new costume too.

All in all, like the majority of Static Shock episodes that try to teach kids lessons this was very well done and I wish that when I was a kid cartoons that did Very Special Episodes were as straightforward and non-preachy as those on this show tend to be.