Milestone Media 2.0 is here...but is it a revival or a comeback?
The publishing company has been restarted by the surviving founders with plans to re-launch its characters across comics and other mediums, The Washington Post reports. Discussions about reviving Milestone Media began in the wake of the death of co-founder Dwayne McDuffie, with Reggie Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and Derek Dingle forming what Hudlin calls "the core of Milestone 2.0."
Originally founded back in 1992, Milestone began publishing comics in 1993 as an imprint of DC Comics. Although DC later integrated some of Milestone's characters into DC's core superhero line (including Static/Static Shock in the 2011 New 52 re-launch), Milestone retained ownership of all its characters and had merely licensed usage of the characters and the content it produced in the 90s.
Hudlin said the trio have been at work the past two years "sorting out all the business" in relation to reviving Milestone, and are planning to show off artwork from upcoming Milestone comic titles as soon as the San Diego Comic Con this year.
In addition to reviving Milestone characters of the past, the trio said they'll also be introducing new characters and including new creators in the mix. But Hudlin didn't stop there as he profoundly commented on race issues in comics/the big superhero continuities, despite strides in representation from the early '90s when Milestone was founded.
"There are all kinds of challenges that are facing people of color...that part hasn't changed," Hudlin told the Post. "What has changed is, there are a lot more characters of color in comics. What we feel is now, Milestone is necessary because of the types of characters that we do, and the viewpoint that we come from. We've never just done black characters just to do black characters. It's always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn't do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they're the black versions of the already established white characters, as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way, [that] these characters are legitimate because now there's a black Captain America. Having been a creator of these characters and a consumer, I always looked at it like, 'Well, geez, couldn't you give me an original character?' Black Panther worked because he was original. Static Shock worked because it was an original concept. It's a good time to come back and reintroduce original characters, as well as some new ones."
Here's to hoping Milestone 2.0 stays on that course and also continues to break down racial stereotypes and/or barriers in the industry.
