''Milestone Returns'' or ''Earth-M'' is a relaunch of

American comic book An American comic book is a thin periodical literature originating in the United States, commonly between 24 and 64 pages, containing comics. While the form originated in 1933, American comic books first gained popularity after the 1938 publ ...

s published by

DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...

that began in September 2020. The line features reimagined versions of the

fictional characters In fiction, a character is a person or being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction o ...

and

shared universe A shared universe or shared world is a fictional universe from a set of creative works where one or more writers (or other artists) independently contribute works that can stand alone but fits into the joint development of the storyline, charact ...

Milestone Media Milestone Media Company LLC is the media company which created the Milestone Comics line, which were published and distributed by DC Comics. Milestone Media created the source material that was adapted as the '' Static Shock'' animated series. T ...

Denys Cowan Denys Cowan (; born January 30, 1961) is an American comics artist, television producer, media executive and one of the co-founders of Milestone Media. Early life Denys Cowan was first inspired by superheroes as a child from reruns of the 1950s T ...

, Michael Davis,

Derek T. Dingle Derek T. Dingle (born November 2, 1961) is an American editor and publisher known for co-founding Milestone Media and being the editor-in-chief of ''Black Enterprise''. Early life Dingle was born in New York City on November 2, 1961. He received ...

and

Dwayne McDuffie Dwayne Glenn McDuffie (February 20, 1962February 21, 2011) was an American writer of comic books and television. He co-founded the pioneering minority-owned-and-operated comic book company Milestone Media, which focused on underrepresented minori ...

Publication history

Background

In a January 2015 interview, writer

Reginald Hudlin Reginald Alan Hudlin (born December 15, 1961) is an American director, screenwriter, and producer. Along with his older brother Warrington Hudlin, he is known as one of the Hudlin Brothers. From 2005 to 2008, Hudlin was President of Entertainmen ...

discussed a relaunch of Milestone Media Group, along with surviving co-founders

and Derek Dingle. The following July, DC Comics announced the creation of "Earth-M" within their

multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...

, 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 revealed 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 Charlotte Louise Fullerton (born March 20) is an American writer of television, novels, comic books and video games. Biography Fullerton graduated with a BA in cinema-television/production from the University of Southern California, and starte ...

, 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.

Development

In 2020, ''Earth-M'' was retitled as ''Milestone Returns'', with the initial issue being published in September. An extended version was published in February 2021. The issues are available in print, digitally, and on

DC Universe Infinite DC Universe Infinite is an online service by DC Comics that launched on January 21, 2021 and primarily distributes past issues of DC-published comic books over the internet. It is a relaunch of the former DC Universe streaming service, after its ...

since April 2021.

Setting

''Milestone Returns'' is set in Earth-M, which is officially

non-canon The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean 'according to the canon' the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, ''canonical example ...

to the

DC Universe The DC Universe (DCU) is the shared universe in which most stories in American comic book titles published by DC Comics take place. In context, the term "DC Universe" usually refers to the main DC Continuity (fiction), continuity. It contains v ...

. According to '' Dark Crisis: Big Bang'', it is designated as Earth-93 in the

Multiverse The multiverse is the hypothetical set of all universes. Together, these universes are presumed to comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, information, and the physical laws and constants that describ ...

. In Earth-M, famous characters like Static,

Icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

Rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

, Hardware, and several others have new

origin stories In fiction, an origin story is an account or backstory revealing how a character or group of people become a protagonist or antagonist. In American comic books, it also refers to how characters gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances ...

related to the

Big Bang The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models based on the Big Bang concept explain a broad range of phenomena, including th ...

, the event that happened in the city of Dakota. While they still do not know each other, the enigmatic

Dharma Dharma (; , ) is a key concept in various Indian religions. The term ''dharma'' does not have a single, clear Untranslatability, translation and conveys a multifaceted idea. Etymologically, it comes from the Sanskrit ''dhr-'', meaning ''to hold ...

prepares them in secret for a war to come.''Milestone Returns'' #0 (2020). DC Comics.

List of titles

Collected editions

References

{{DC events 2020 comics debuts Comic book reboots DC Comics storylines Milestone Comics Superhero comics