Milestone Comics — the inclusive superhero imprint that featured characters like Static Shock, Icon, and Hardware — is returning in February 2021, DC Comics announced Saturday at its DC FanDome event.
This Milestone revival will start Sept. 12 at the second part of the DC FanDome event, with 24 hours of digital access to Milestone Returns No. 0, which is an introduction to Milestone for new readers as well as a nostalgic re-visit for those who are already familiar. It will then involve a digital-only Static Shock series in February, followed later in 2021 by a Static Shock original graphic novel from Reggie Hudlin and artist Kyle Baker. Denys Cowan will also be drawing a new series starring Milestone characters Icon and Rocket. As for who’s drawing the Static Shock digital-first series, the panel was not ready to name the artist just yet, noting that they have a really great candidate they’re trying to recruit.
Also coming as part of this revival is new digital availability for Milestone’s back catalog, which DC Comics Publisher Jim Lee said will be ramping up between now and February, marking the first time the comics will be available digitally.
This Milestone revival is a long-time coming, with the publisher having announced it and occasionally teased it for the past five years. Legal issues have until now hung up the rollout of the revival.
The announcement was made at a comics panel labeled as a surprise on the event’s schedule, which turned about to be all about Milestone, featuring a discussion of the history of Milestone prior to announcement. Participants included DC Publisher Jim Lee, Milestone founder and legendary artist Denys Cowan, journalist Marc Bernardin, writer Reggie Hudlin, and voice actor Phil Lamarr.
During the panel, Hudlin also said that this revival could also include movies, television, animated series, podcasts and toys starring Milestone characters.
A fun part of the history discussion was Lee remembering that he went to a Milestone party after San Diego Comic Con back in the early ’90s around the time Milestone launched. At that time, parties during San Diego were typically small things in hotel rooms where someone had cases of beer. For the Milestone launch, however, the creators had reserved a club and arrived in suits, with Cowan and Hudlin noting they did that to be stylish but also because they wanted to be taken seriously in an industry long dominated by white creators.
After the panel, DC Comics released art from the forthcoming revival, which you can find below…enjoy!
Best announcement of DC FanDome for me. Sure, the movie, tv show and video game news is also pretty cool, but aside from (possibly) Wonder Woman 1984? We won’t be seeing them for quite a while. The same could be said of the comics side as well, but those announcements aren’t nearly as affected by Covid as the others (retailer concerns aside).
The main reason, however, that I’m excited for this announcement the most is mainly that it’s comics-focused and not centered on Batman. I’m just completely burnt out on Batman at this point in time. And given what looks to be the current trajectory for DC Comics right now, well, any port in a storm. It helps that Milestone’s always interested me.
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