Milestone Comics

Milestone Media is a company best known for creating Milestone Comics, which were published and distributed by DC Comics and the ''Static Shock'' animated series. It was founded in 1993 by a coalition of African-American artists and writers, consisting of Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle. The founders felt that minorities were severely underrepresented in American comics and wished to address this.

History

Development

Christopher Priest participated in the early planning stages of Milestone Media, and was originally slated to become the editor-in-chief of the new company, but left the endeavor for personal reasons before any of Milestone's titles were published. Davis left Milestone in 1995, after the imprint had launched, to become president of the new Motown Animation & Filmworks,the comic book line Motown Machine Works was published by Image Comics. Cowan soon joined him to serve as editor in chief.

All Milestone Media titles were set in a continuity dubbed the "Dakotaverse", referring to the fictional midwestern city of Dakota in which most of the early Milestone stories were set. Before any titles were published, an extensive "bible" was created by McDuffie and other early creators which provided back-story and information on all of the original Dakotaverse characters, as well as detailed information about the history and geography of Dakota. Cowan produced the original character sketches that served as a guide for the other artists.

Publishing deal

Although Milestone comics were published through DC Comics, they did not fall under DC Comics' editorial control; DC retained only the right not to publish any material they objected to. Milestone Media retained the copyright of their properties and had the final say on all merchandising and licensing deals pertaining to them. In essence, DC licensed the characters, editorial services, and creative content of the Milestone books for an annual fee and a share of the profits. Dwayne McDuffie said that DC held up this agreement even though some of Milestone's storylines made them "very uncomfortable" as they were from perspectives that DC weren't used to. The biggest conflict they had was when an issue of Static showed the hero kissing his girlfriend on a bed, with unopened condoms visible. DC didn't want to publish this cover on grounds that it was using sex to sell comics; Milestone covered most of the image as a compromise. McDuffie believed it made DC uncomfortable because it was specifically "black sexuality", noting that the man who communicated DC’s concerns at the time was standing in front of a copy of ''Legionnaires'' #16, the cover of which depicts a blonde, white character in a revealing costume posing in a sexually suggestive position.

Dakotaverse

In 1993, Milestone Media launched its first four titles: ''Hardware'', ''Icon'', ''Blood Syndicate'' and ''Static''. At the same time, SkyBox and DC issued a trading card series, ''Milestone: The Dakota Universe'' (1993).

A year later, Milestone Media published its first company-wide crossover, ''Shadow War'', which spawned two more titles: '' Shadow Cabinet'' and ''Xombi''. Another ongoing series, '' Kobalt'', was introduced later. Milestone also participated in an intercompany crossover with DC, called " Worlds Collide" in which Metropolis-based superheroes from the DC Universe and Dakota-based superheroes from the Dakotaverse interacted temporarily.
Milestone had several advantages in its publishing efforts: Their books were distributed and marketed by one of the "Big Two" comic book publishers, the comics industry had experienced remarkable increases in sales in preceding years, they featured the work of several well-known and critically acclaimed creators, they used a coloring process that gave their books a distinctive look, and they had the potential to appeal to an audience that was not being targeted by other publishers.

They also suffered from several disadvantages: The comics market was experiencing a glut of "new universes" as several other publishers launched superhero lines around the same time (a slump would start in 1993 and a market crash in 1994), a significant number of retailers and readers perceived the Milestone books to be "comics for blacks" and assumed they would not interest non-African-American readers. The books received limited exposure beyond existing comics-shop customers, the coloring process added slightly to the cover price of their books, and overall comics sales had peaked around the time of Milestone's launch and declined dramatically in the years that followed. Initial sales, however, were found to be decent – albeit not as high as other companies. The perception of "comics for blacks" would be used by industry insiders to justify these early sales issues, ignoring the existence of the glut; few people at the time wanted to believe that the market conditions might be unsound and excuses were needed for why newer companies were struggling.

Milestone cancelled several of its lower-selling series in 1995 and 1996, and aborted plans for several mini-series. ''Heroes'', a new team book featuring Static and several of its more popular second-tier characters, was launched, but failed to sell well enough to justify an ongoing series. Milestone shut down its comic book division in 1997, with some of the remaining ongoing series discontinued in mid-story. It became primarily a licensing company, focusing on the Emmy Award and Humanitas Prize winning animated series ''Static Shock''.

In 2010, DC released a limited series titled ''Milestone Forever''. Taking place in the original Milestone Universe, it detailed the final fate of several of Dakota's heroes and revealed the events that led to its earlier merger into the DC Universe.

DC Universe

In 2008, DC Comics executive editor Dan DiDio announced that the Milestone Universe and characters would be revived and merged into the DC Universe proper. Examples of the integration included Static joining the Teen Titans; Static, Icon, Rocket and Hardware appearing in the ''Young Justice'' TV series; various character appearances in ''Brave and the Bold''; and the Shadow Cabinet appearing in ''Justice League of America''. An ongoing series starring Static was included in the initial 2011 launch of The New 52, but was cancelled after eight issues.

''Milestone Returns''

In a January 2015 interview, writer Reginald Hudlin discussed a relaunch of Milestone Media Group, along with surviving co-founders Denys Cowan and Derek Dingle. The following July, DC Comics announced the creation of "Earth-M" within their multiverse, which would be home to the earlier Milestone characters as well as new ones, and that one or two Earth M imprint titles would be published annually, as well as miniseries and one-shots. No further developments took place until October 2017, when it was announced that Milestone would be returning in 2018 with five titles, including ''Milestone'' (featuring Icon and Rocket), a new Static series, ''Duo'' (based on the character Xombi), and two other new titles: ''Earth-M'' and ''Love Army''. Charlotte Fullerton, Dwayne McDuffie's widow who inherited his 50% share in the original Milestone Media company, sued in August 2017 over being excluded from the revived company despite the new Milestone taking over the original's Milestone IPs.

The line was finally revived in ''Milestone Returns'' #0 in September 2020.

Staff

Milestone's founders were joined in the company's formative years by young professionals who formed the early production team for the startup company. The first two non-founder employees of Milestone were Matt Wayne, a script and comic writer who became editor, then managing editor; and Christine Gilliam, head of corporate communications. By January 1993, Noelle Giddings, who had previously worked in comics as a colorist, became Milestone's color editor, supervising the line's painted art; and Joe James, an experienced graphic designer, served as designer and creative associate. Later the production staff would expand to include Erica Helene, Jason Medley, Jacqueline Ching, Joe Daniello, Andrew Burrell, Marcus Bennett, and Michelline Hess. Allen Epps was the CFO and Bob Stein was the legal counsel.

In addition to using the talents of established creative professionals such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, M.D. Bright, Madeleine Blaustein, and Mike Gustovich, Milestone hired new talent, many of whom went on to successful careers. Among them are John Paul Leon, Christopher Sotomayor, Christopher Williams (aka ChrisCross), Ivan Velez Jr., Shawn Martinbrough, Tommy Lee Edwards, Jason Scott Jones (aka J.Scott.J), Prentis Rollins, J.H. Williams III, Humberto Ramos, John Rozum, Eric Battle, Joseph Illidge, Jamal Igle

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