Frieda Goren
19 years ago - Frieda Goren is born.
4 years ago - 15-year-old Frieda moves to Dakota City, where she meets Virgil Hawkins & Richie Foley. She is harassed by Francis Stone, prompting Virgil & Richie to follow him to the Big Bang street brawl. She later discovers that Virgil has become the hero Static and lets him take refuge in her room during a fight with Francis, becoming his confidant despite not returning his affections. She starts working for the school paper, while also running her own news blog.
3 years ago - 16-year-old Frieda chastises Virgil Hawkins for not being a supportive friend when he refuses to attend a pride parade in support of Richie Foley. When he does attend, She introduces him to her friend Daisy.
2 years ago - 17-year-old Frieda finds evidence of Edwin Alva & Alva Technologies secret bang baby detainment facilities and exposes them on her blog. Her friend Daisy breaks up with Virgil Hawkins, jealous of the time he spends with Fieda. She starts getting treatment for an eating disorder.
1 year ago - 18-year-old Frieda starts working as an intern at Catco Media while taking classes in journalism.
The entire Static Supporting Cast is walking an interesting tightrope between their animated appearances and their appearances from the comic. In almost every case, we can safely lean into the tv series and trust that we are getting an optimal version of the characters, but perhaps the biggest exception is Frieda. This is a character who did appear in the cartoon, but by a WIDE margin, she was a far more important character in the original comic, and we'd be doing Static a huge disservice if we didn't represent that version of her here.
|
Frieda's Comic HistoryStatic #1 from 1993 very much begins with Frieda Goren, the very first words of the comic introducing us to her as she finds herself acosted by thugs before Static saves her. We meet Static entirely as he puts on a show of heroism for her, and then goes home to quickly get on the phone with her. He obviously has a crush on her, but as the issue continues and he is attacked by Hotstreak and beaten up, Frieda discovers his secret identity and takes him to her room where he can recuperate and describe his origins, where we learn that the entire reason Virgil was at the Big Bang was looking to get revenge on Hotstreak after he harassed Frieda, making her part of the reason he got his powers in the first place.
So in a very real sense, the entire story of Static revolves around Frieda, even as she told him she didn't think of him romantically. She would continue to be his best friend and confidant, and some of the most poignant moments of the series happened in her room as she helped him work through his problems, or holding him accountable when he was being irresponsible or immature. Both she and Virgil dated other people as the series went on, but I think it was always clear that Virgil and Frieda were never destined to wind up as just friends. |
Our Frieda StoryWhile Frieda did appear in the animated series, her role as Virgil's best friend and confidant was instead filled by Richie, making her essentially a background character. In the 2021 comic series, Richie & Frieda actually share the role, making them a sort of dual act.
If you're going to try to really use Richie as he is depicted in the animated series, as Virgil's best friend and the guy making his technology, and even eventually as a fellow Dakota hero, then you're really setting Frieda up to have a less important role. The solution, we believe, is to make sure we lean HARD into what made Frieda so compelling in the first place; she is absolutely Static's Lois Lane. Yes, they were just friends despite Static's obvious crush on her. Yes, they dated other people. None of that ever really matters with the sort of relationship these two clearly had. Even with Richie as his right-hand man, Virgil will always need to be able to climb into Frieda's window for her to tell him he's being an idiot. She's a vital part of what makes him great. |
|