Static Shock (Seasons 1–4)

Static Shock (2000) is an American animated series you can watch online on iFILM. It ran four seasons on Kids WB as part of the DC animated universe — the same connected world that produced Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League.

Virgil Hawkins is a regular high school kid in Dakota City until a chemical explosion during a street riot exposes hundreds of people to a mutagenic gas. Some of them go wrong. Virgil gets electromagnetic powers and becomes Static — a teenage superhero making it up as he goes, dealing with homework and gang-affiliated supervillains in equal measure. The kids who got powers but chose crime, the so-called Bang Babies, keep him busy across 52 episodes.

What set the show apart from other superhero cartoons of its era was the character himself: a Black teenager from an inner-city neighbourhood, written with actual social context — the series dealt with racism, bullying, and grief without softening them for kids. Phil LaMarr voices Virgil throughout, and Batman and Superman drop in across the run. Stream all seasons of Static Shock online on iFILM.