Black and Proud: The Legacy of Milestone Comics

When DC’s Milestone Comics premiered in 1993, it ushered forth dozens of characters, heroes, and villains of different backgrounds. It was unlike anything mainstream comics had published before. Superficially known as simply a black comic company, the Milestone books sought to represent diversity through avenues beyond simply race. With four initial titles – Static, Icon, Hardware, and Blood Syndicate – characters of different socio-economic backgrounds, races, religions, sexual orientations, and genders were presented through superhero stories that stayed true to the genre while simultaneously reinventing it. The diverse characters provided diverse functions for these stories.

Check out today’s News article to learn more about the different topics and social issues Milestone tackled through it’s four headlining books, and the legacy it created.

What are your favorite Milestone characters? Let us know in the comments below!

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Glad we’re starting to see a lot of acknowledgement from DC on Milestone. I was pessimistic that we’d get anything, regardless of the article that came out a few weeks ago, because of the constant delays. Now however, I’m pretty confident we will. Hoping for some news soon.

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Loved these books back in the day! Always wanted some sort of omnibus or slipcase editions.

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I loved most of the Milestone titles, each for their own reason. The one that dug the deepest hooks into me, though, was definitely Xombi. I’d love to see that come back and be reintegrated into the main DCU.

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I’ve always been a big Static Shock fan.

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Love to see Black superheroes being recognized and put into the fore-front. DC! We need more Person of Color Comic Books ASAP! :tipping_hand_woman:t6:

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That’s really cool! I remember watching the TV show on Saturday mornings with my younger sister. Those were the days…

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I know right? Those were definitely the days.

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They need to bring back the whole lineup, but I dont think it should be integrated into the dcu as it would stiffle the writing. Milestone was amazing because it could be more real, i mean look at how the DCU barely even references John Stewarts race if it even does

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To be fair they more then referenced his race for a while. Even in the Green Lantern/ Green Arrow Comics. It would be a bad look to just keep hammering home his race for decade upon decade.

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I regularly read Milestone Comics and I miss them to this day. I always appreciated the diversity in them. My favorite books were Static and Xombi.

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They used to but complerely ignore it now even when its relevant in current continuity. I mean how do you have him in charge without having anyone make any reference, be it villain or otherwise. I understand your point but my point is the lack of realism that milestone had in the forefront. At one time dcu had it but lost its. I dont want to bash dc, its fun escapism, but milestone was more than that.

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I honestly was reading comics & what u said finally set in. I was actually coming back to delete it & leave a message saying never mind I misread your point. But I was too late lol. All good tho because your right. Milestone was something completely different. Their gonna put an unwrapped condom on the cover to bring teenage pregnancies into the light (even tho it got banned, that just gave it more attention) McDuffie & his friends were genius at pushing as far as possible past the line. It was his passing & not a lack of sales, content, or causing problems that got Milestone shut down. Nothing else was gonna stop it.

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The first time I saw Static #1 I passed it by. Friend bought Hardware #1 and showed it to me. I bought Hardware and every Milestone title after for the first few months. 1993 seen more characters of color than I had for the 20 years I had been reading comics

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I wish we could post the change petition on here

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Buck Wild if only for Dwayne McDuffie’s brilliant satire on the history of black representation in comics

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This was great, growing it made me feel good seeing what Milestone was doing for the African American community. I think the big guy Prime was like a Superman

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Unfortunately I wasn’t much into comic books back then. I watched all of the animated shows. Now as an adult, I read a lot more and wish I could get these titles. Does anyone know a place that I might be able to acquire some issues?

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There’s a good amount on here. Any comic shop but they’ll probably be a little pricey.

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I’m excited this is coming up now, although I am torn about having the 90s Milestone comics digitized…because a couple of those series I am slowly purchasing again for fun, and my excuse for spending the money is that they aren’t available on any Unlimited service, lol.

Right now my favorite Milestone hero to collect and read is Hardware, a character who resembles Valiant’s X-O Manowar or to a degree, Iron Man. Like other Milestone characters, you can see Hardware here on the DCU app:

But only two issues or so. The partial body armor and the giant chain for a weapon cranks up the suspense during battles, in my opinion.

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