Static Shock – 51kidnapped

Static is forced to work for the evil Omnara when she kidnaps his father.

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 Hawkins
Kerrigan Mahan as Edwin Alva
Kevin Michael Richardson as Robert Hawkins
Kimberly Brooks as Puff
Wendie Malick as Dr. Roberts / Omnara

A woman who works at Alva Industries discovers Static's secret identity and kidnaps Robert.

While Gear is having trouble with a worm infecting his computer system a woman who works for Edwin Alva named Karen is fired by him when he tells her he has no more need to learn Static's identity. Minutes later, she hits pay dirt as one of her mini cameras follows Static home and sees him change into Virgil. She has Puff and Onyx kidnap Robert Hawkins and
Static tracks him to her. She says if he wants Robert to be safe he'll have to steal some technology from Edwin Alva for her. Robert, for his part, tells Static that he knows he is Virgil.

While stealing the tech from Alva Gear tries to stop him. He clues Gear into checking his computer and Gear takes the hint and lets him go.
Karen is building a device that will let her control all of the world's computers with her mind. Gear arrives and downloads a virus to stop her.
Static and Gear must then stop missiles she controls from destroying
Alva's buildings. In the end the virus woks and she is overloaded with so much information that she falls into a coma. Robert tells Static and
Gear that while he doesn't exactly approve of them risking their lives every day, that he won't stop them but he declines to tell the truth to a temperamental Sharon.

Ah, missed opportunities. It's probably not right for me to dislike this episode just because it was rewritten from Dwayne McDuffie's specifications. He had originally wanted Robert to find out Virgil's secret in the last story which although I won't go into it here would have been the greatest Static Shock episode ever. John Semper Jr wrote this and the last episode and Mr. McDuffie hated them both and after reading a brief description of McDuffie's original outline I have to say it would have kicked the poop out of this.

How is the episode itself? Outside of some nice scenes between Static and Robert, not all that impressive. For one thing the commercial break had us all beefed up for a smack down between Static and Gear that never materialized and that was probably the biggest disappointment of the episode. For another, the episode itself wasn't that interesting. I suppose it was trying to be Earth-shattering with the revelation but it actually seemed kind of rote and ordinary.

The animation was passable here although they certainly didn't exactly pull out all of the stops. I'll be honest, I liked this episode when I first saw it but it becomes more and more pedestrian with each passing viewing.

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