Milestone Returns… Maybe for Real This Time

Milestone Comics logo

Sorry, I’m so jaded sometimes… I want to see Milestone return. This comic company, published by DC but independently run, brought necessary diversity to superhero comics from their launch in 1993 until they stopped publishing comics in 1997. Their launch titles — Hardware, Icon, Static, and Blood Syndicate — starred mostly Black characters and were written and illustrated by Black creators and other people of color. They are probably best remembered these days for a successful, award-winning cartoon series, Static Shock.

There have been a variety of attempts to bring back various incarnations of the company and/or its characters. Some of the heroes appeared in DC titles in 2010 and 2011. In 2015 at the San Diego Con, there was an announcement that the characters would be reappearing as Earth M, part of the DC multiverse. That didn’t happen. At the 2017 New York Comic Con, there was a Milestone panel promising new titles in 2018. That didn’t happen (likely because of a lawsuit filed by co-founder Dwayne McDuffie’s widow that settled in 2019).

As part of yesterday’s virtual DC FanDome event, Milestone’s return was announced again, this time for February 2021, with the debut of the digital comic series Static Shock. (No creators were announced. Apparently it’s still in negotiations.) Later next year will be a Static Shock original graphic novel written by Reginald Hudlin and illustrated by Kyle Baker. Hudlin will also write the return of Icon and Rocket (my favorites), with art by Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan.

Later this year, DC will be digitizing and releasing the previous Milestone comics through the usual digital retailers. So at least that will be a great way to catch people up on some classic comics. Be interesting to see how they read these days, given they were created over 25 years ago — but still touch on relevant topics.



3 comments

  • James Schee

    There was also a (new?) Milestone comic on the DC Fandom free comics list. I read it, was promising in places but I was a left a little confused if this was a continuation or reboot.

  • I didn’t mention that, called Milestone Returns #0, because it was only available to read yesterday (and I posted late), and because, based on the creators involved, I think it was a leftover from the 2018 attempt. The impression I got from it was that it was intended to reintroduce the characters, with a few pages each for Icon and Static and a proposed new character (that I don’t know whether we’ll see now).

    Pretty sure we’re going to see at least a soft reboot, given how much time has passed. And some of the elements may need to be updated. I’m very curious to see if they still make Rocket a single mother, for instance.

  • James Schee

    Ah makes sense if so, as some of the costumes especially seemed dated even though they were supposed to be updates.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *