2011 Flashpoint storyline, Virgil and his family leave Dakota for New York after an unspecified tragic incident that, among other things, left his sister, Sharon, as two separate, identical entities. The vigilante Hardware gives Virgil a new costume and modified flying disk (made-up of 6 smaller, hexagonal-shaped-disks which can re-arrange formation), which enables the two to remain in contact despite living in different cities. Hardware also gives him an internship at S.T.A.R. Labs as an after school job; he has Virgil posing as a prodigy kid that he (in his civilian identity, Curtis Metcalf) had recruited from the Juvenile Court System, on a commuted sentence, as his cover-story. During his first major battle, Static defeats the villain, Sunspot, and earns the attention of a criminal syndicate known as the Slate Gang. Static Shock was cancelled as of issue #8 as part of DC's "Second Wave" of The New 52 titles and replaced by an alternative title. In Teen Titans, Virgil designed the cape and wing apparatus of Red Robin's new costume while at S.T.A.R. Later, while recuperating at S.T.A.R. Labs from a previous battle, the Titans seek Virgil's help in curing Kid Flash, whose cells Virgil discovers are rapidly deteriorating as a result of an alteration of his powers. Virgil provides Kid Flash with a new costume (based on a personal sketch for a variant of the Flash's costume) containing materials that realign his molecules while stabilizing his powers, saving Kid Flash in the process. 2021 Milestone Returns Milestone Returns created a new version of Static, combining ideas from previous Static comics and the Static Shock TV series. For example, Frieda Goren, Daisy Watkins, and Richie Foley all appear as friends of Virgil's. Richie is openly gay in the series, as the character he was based on, Rick Stone, was also gay and Richie's sexual orientation was never discussed in the TV series. Starting in Milestone Returns Issue #0, which takes place on Earth-M, 16-year-old Virgil Hawkins goes to a Black Lives Matter protest in the city of Dakota with his friends Frieda and Daisy, where the police use unstable, untested tear gas created by Alva Industries, inadvertently causing the "Big Bang" and granting several people metahuman powers. Curtis Metcalf, a long-time employee of Alva Industries, anticipates Alva will blame him for the incident and goes into hiding. Virgil is found unconscious after the Big Bang and wakes up in