Hotstreak
20 years ago - Francis Stone is born in Dakota City.
16 years ago - 4-year-old Francis Stone accidentally inhales carbon monoxide and is rushed to the emergency room. He spends three days in the hospital, leading to lifelong Noscomephobia.
5 years ago - 15-year-old Francis Stone starts doing low-level errands for local dealers.
4 years ago - 16-year-old Francis Stone harasses Frieda Goren, leading to Virgil Hawkins & Richie Foley following him with an ill-conceived plan to teach him a lesson. Francis is in attendance at the Big Bang street brawl, which is targeted for a secret experiment by Edwin Alva, detonating Alva Technologies Gene-Bomb & exposing everyone present to their experimental mutagenic compound. Francis gains his pyrokinetic powers and attempts to claim their neighborhood and Frieda for himself as Hotstreak, until he is stopped by Virgil in one of his first times suiting up as Static. Francis is tried as an adult because of his powers.
2 years ago - 18-year-old Francis Stone is released from prison, and attacks a pride parade in Dakota City demanding for Static to come fight him. He is shut down by Gear.
Hotstreak's Comic HistoryHotstreak was the very first enemy Static ever faced, in his very first appearance, 1993's Static #1 by Dwayne McDuffie. It's as classic a first appearance as you could ever hope to see, with our young hero stepping up to a thuggish superpowered bad guy who is menacing his un requited love interest. Hotstreak is a great, great archetypical first baddie. He's a thug and a bully, violent and unrepentant, and the perfect blunt instrument for our hero to test himself against.
Hotstreak made a few returns to the series over the years, arriving to attack a pride parade and demand that Static fight him. He even showed up in Milestone Forever, the series that depicted the ultimate fate of the original Milestone Characters, still up to his old tricks as he attacks Virgil's high school reunion. Hotstreak also holds a unique place in Static's history, as one of the few enemies to begin in the comic, but to also translate over to the animated series. |
Hotstreak's Animation HistoryMost of Static's cast of villains have there origins in the cartoon, but as the only character to actually be an adaptation from the comic, there are a just a few elements that changed. His name is a big one; In the comics Hotstreak's name was Martin Scaponi, although he went by 'Biz Money B". In the cartoon, he was Francis Stone, and went by "F-Stop".
His look changed, of course, which could be expected as the animated series had it's own art style unique from the original comic, but also shifted the visual language of the character, making him less of a 'gangbanger', and more of a high school bully. Perhaps most notably, however, his powers were actually different. In the comic, Hotstreak was actually a speedster, able to psionically control the flames generated via friction from his speed. The cartoon simply made him pyrokinetic. |
Our Hotstreak StoryHotstreak is an incredibly important character in the evolution of Static's story. Not only is he the very first baddie Static ever defeats, but he's also the whole reason Vigil was present at the Big Bang street fight in the first place. You don't have to do a ton of work to get the character right, just including a few details about his status as a low level teenage gangster and bully, as well as overall creep, absolutely makes him the character we need.
In the comic, Hotstreak actually gets out of prison to menace the Pride Parade by joining a hate group. If you really want to include that bit of real-world unpleasantness in your timeline, we certainly wouldn't stop you, but generally speaking we're just not interested including ideas like that in our imaginary world of superheroes, even among the bad guys. He can absolutely show up and absolutely be a menance that has to be stopped, and he can do it for all sort of hateful reasons. We would just as soon not acknowledge that groups like that exist. Francis is enough of a classic bad guy already. |