Virgil Hawkins

Virgil Ovid Hawkins was a teenage boy in Dakota City who gained electromagnetic superpowers after being exposed to a mutagenic gas cloud during a massive street-gang confrontation known as the Big Bang. Taking the name Static, he became one of Dakota's first and most prominent young heroes.

Born from the visionary minds of Dwayne McDuffie, Robert L. Washington III, and John Paul Leon, Virgil Hawkins burst onto the scene in 1993's Static #1, a landmark debut from DC's Milestone imprint that arrived at a pivotal moment for representation in superhero comics. Over more than three decades of publication, this character has proven his staying power, sharing pages with heavyweights like Batman and Raquel Ervin and anchoring titles from Static to Static Shock and beyond. The fact that he keeps company with Hardware and Curtis Metcalf speaks to his deep roots in the richly imagined Milestone universe — a world built with purpose and heart. With a key-issue debut and a legacy stretching well into the 2020s, Virgil Hawkins is exactly the kind of character every serious collector and fan should have on their radar.