Virgil Hawkins is a fourteen-year-old living in Dakota City with his older sister Sharon and his widowed father Robert. He attends high school with his best friend Richie Foley and has a crush on a girl named Frieda. He also has an ongoing dispute with a bully named Francis, nicknamed "F-Stop." A gang leader named Wade recently helped Virgil, hoping to recruit him, but Virgil is hesitant, knowing his mother died in a gang-related shootout. Wade eventually leads Virgil to a restricted area for a fight against F-Stop's crew, but the confrontation is interrupted by police helicopters. During the clash with the police, chemical containers explode, releasing a gas that causes mutations among the people nearby—an event later known as "The Big Bang." As a result, Virgil gains the ability to create, generate, absorb, and control electricity and magnetism, leading him to adopt the alter-ego "Static." The gas also grants powers to others in the area, with several becoming supervillains. These mutated individuals become meta-humans known as "Bang Babies," and their mutations appear to spread to others around them.