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In Static, Virgil Hawkins’ relationship with his selfish mentor Hardware predicted the relationship between Spider-Man and Iron Man in the MCU.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Static: Season One #2, available now from DC.
Decades after his debut, Static is still the headlining hero of the Milestone Comics universe. The electromagnetic teen is easily becoming Milestone’s most recognizable character. However, Milestone’s hi-tech heroHardware, on the other hand, is a much more obscure character, with only a fraction of Static’s multimedia success.
Despite that, Static has turned to Hardware in the past in times of scientific need, and he just did so again in Static: Season One #2, by Vita Ayala, Chriscross,Nikolas Draper-Ivey and Andworld Design. Virgil Hawkins’ relationship with the sometimes selfish mentor Hardware ironically heavily resembles the relationship between Spider-Man and Iron Man in the MCU. Here’s how Milestone’s heroes did it first and how it actually fits a lot better.
Static and Hardware
In the original Milestone Universe, Hardware was very much a standoffish superhero, barely wanting to deal with other heroes and focused simply on his own problems. This made him fit right in with some of the gruffer heroes of the 1990s, while Static was a much more easygoing, fun-loving youngster. This meant that they rarely interacted.
Once the heroes officially became part of the DC Universe following Final Crisis and later, Flashpoint, Static began to interact with Hardware a bit more. For one, his new suit and signature flying disk were given to him by Hardware, a.k.a. Curtis Metcalf. This more hi-tech suit allowed communications interfacing with Hardware, making it quite the step up from Static’s old school hoodie look. Likewise, Hardware also helped Virgil get an internship at S.T.A.R. Labs, becoming much more of a mentor to the young man than ever before.
He’s recently returned to this role in the rebooted Milestone Universe, with Hardware helping to give Virgil some advice in Static: Season One #2, giving him access to a storage locker full of equipment. This cements the curmudgeonly Hardware as something of a secondary father figure to Static, something eerily similar to Iron Man’s role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Spider-Man.
Iron Man’s Pal, Peter Parker
Ever since he was introduced in Captain America: Civil War, the MCU Spider-Man has been close to Iron Man. Tony Stark took Peter Parker under his wing, giving him hi-tech suits and advice on what to do with his life. This characterization is completely at odds with any other version of the characters, with Spider-Man and Iron Man rarely interacting outside of the odd team-up until their tenure on the New Avengers in the early 2000s and Civil War. That closeness was mirrored in the Marvel Universe, where it became a foundational part of Peter Parker and effectively replaced Uncle Ben with Iron Man in the films’ narrative.
Their setup, however, is quite the same as Static and Hardware’s. For one, the technological Hardware is very much the Iron Man of the Milestone Universe, albeit one who’s usually fighting against a billionaire industrialist instead of being one. He’s also not the most overly heroic figure, with his arrogant, self-centered nature making him far from squeaky clean. This is very much like Tony Stark, who is sometimes portrayed realistically as a foppish playboy driven by his ego. Likewise, Static is much more in the Spider-Man mold for Milestone, being a jovial, nerdy teenager who enjoys cracking wise against opponents.
Thus, by taking a less popular tech hero and making him the mentor of the Spider-Man equivalent, Milestone essentially did what the Marvel Cinematic Universe would do five years before the big screen. This setup suits Static and Hardware a bit more than it does Spider-Man and Iron Man, with the former duo not having to take away from each other’s mythos as much in order to make the relationship work.
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