I Reads You Review: MILESTONE FOREVER #2

MILESTONE FOREVER #2

DC COMICS

WRITER: Dwayne McDuffie

PENCILS/INKS: John Paul Leon (framing sequence)
PENCILS: Denys Cowan, ChrisCross
INKS: Prentis Rollins, Rob Still
LETTERS: Sal Cipriano
COLORS: Snakebite
COVER: Admira
48pp, Color, $5.99

Milestone was an imprint of DC Comics, active in producing comic books from 1993 through 1997. It was the creation of Milestone Media, a collective of African-American comic book creators. Milestone focused on comic books featuring minority characters, specifically African-American superheroes. Several titles appeared under the imprint, including Hardware, Icon, and Blood Syndicate. One of them, Static, was developed into an Emmy Award winning animated series, Static Shock.

After Milestone Media shuttered the imprint, Milestone’s characters mostly disappeared, although some made appearances in various DC Comics series. In the summer of the 2008, Dwayne McDuffie, a Milestone Media co-founder, announced that the Milestone characters would be merged into the DC Universe. That was a business decision, involving legal matters. Published early last year, Milestone Forever dealt with the fictional matters. It was a two-issue miniseries that provided the fictional depiction of Milestone’s universe, the “Dakotaverse,” merging with the DCU.

Milestone Forever focuses on a character named Dharma, the god-like being who initiated the “Big Bang,” the event that gave characters like Static their superpowers. Dharma believes that one of the Dakotaverse stars is the superhero who can save existence, thus, keeping Dharma from doing something dreadful. But which hero is the savior? In Milestone Forever #2, Dharma looks towards Hardware and Static. One is at a crossroads, however, and the other is having an adventure through his future.

As much as I liked the first issue of Milestone Forever, this second issue is a big improvement over the first. The first issue came across as a nostalgic piece of 1980s superhero fight comics, but #2 just seems nostalgic, a sentiment I share. The Hardware story, drawn by the incomparable Denys Cowan, and the Static story, drawn by the underrated ChrisCross, simultaneously celebrates the two characters in a low key way and pines for what was and will likely never again be.

Cowan’s art, great on its own, takes flight thanks to Snakebite’s fiery colors, and the art once again testifies to the potential that the Hardware comic book not only had but reached. Snakebite’s dazzling array of hues make the ChrisCross drawn story a tale that recalls both Static’s four-color foundation and its gritty take on it.

But Dwayne McDuffie must always get his due. He is a thoroughly underrated writer, and here, his magic is not in merging two universes, but rather in affirming that Milestone superhero comic books weren’t a stunt. They were the real fucking deal.

A-