10 Best Static Shock Episodes

It was a hard choice for what to put on the top spot of this list. But at the end of the day, Sons of the Fathers is the most important episode this show ever made. Not just for what it talks about, but how it talks about it.

Plenty of cartoons discussed racism, but this show handled it with an intelligence and maturity that none of its peers - then or now - ever did. Virgil wants to hang out at Richie's place, noting that Richie hangs out at Virgil's place so often he may as well live there. He then finds out why - Richie is incredibly ashamed of his father, who turns out to be a racist.

But not in the way most cartoons portray racists, as screeching villains who make their bigotry as obvious as possible. Richie's dad's racism is hauntingly normal, filled with microaggressions and biases; the kind of racism that a lot of kids see in their parents and communities in the real world.

Eventually Richie can't stand his father anymore and runs away, prompting Static to chase after him and his father to swallow his pride and ask Robert Hawkins for help finding him. It leads to an argument between the two men, which ends up being one of the finest tirades against bigotry in TV history, delivered expertly by Kevin Michael Richardson.

This episode handled its subject matter with a nuance and maturity that no other show has quite managed. It's more than great, and cements Static as a seminal moment in DC's animated history.