milestone-poster

While diversity in comics has made strides in the Big Two in the past couple of years, Denys Cowan still wants to see a greater shift in comics:

dwaynephoto“We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters,” Cowan said. “It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America.”

That’s why Cowan is one of the men instrumental in bringing back a new incarnation of Milestone Media. Milestone Media 2.0 co-founders Reginald Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and Derek Dingle are at the helm once again for a new version of the Milestone publishing imprint. The Washington Post broke the news, and made mention of the late Dwayne McDuffie’s influence on the Milestone line.

The original Milestone company debuted in 1997 under McDuffie and the rest of the co-founders. Returning to the imprint are characters new and old. Milestone also created Static Shock, a hero that has a live-action deal with Warner Bros.. If all goes as planned, it was noted that we can expect more news at the upcoming 2015 San Diego Comic-Con as Milestone spreads towards multiple publishers and media companies. Deals making the new imprint possible have been in development for two years.

9 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t want to throw shade on Milestone 2.0. All the best to them. I just hope one of the discussions they had in the two years they were planning this was possibly going into a direct market with a majority of white men and women readers with comics with black characters and emphasis on “the black perspective”. Maybe this is a “build it and they will come” goal for them. Great. Just recognize the very challenge and don’t let white people crying for “diversity” fool you into thinking that minorities make up a large part of that group.

  2. Well, now that the news is out…
    Milestone Media 2.0 should put the proof to the test. If they create books anywhere near the Quality of the first run, they’ll easily have an audience. Milestone was simply Better than Marvel or DC at the time by actually reflecting the world outside your window (Marvel’s catch phrase while Stan was leading the charge). Since those days in the 1960’s, America has become a great deal more diverse in it’s population, and it’s tastes, which is something that any producer working today knows.
    The item of most interest here is the addition of Reginald Hudlin.

    Hudlin has made quite a name for himself, as a writer a director and as a TV producer. Simply put, he has the sharpest eye to engage a vast new audience desperate for entertainment that speaks of their lives. The world outside your window is about to gain new meaning, as I believe Milestone Media is more important, more engaging to the core populace today than they might ever have been 20 years ago. Importantly, Milestone 2.0 won’t just be about print comics in musty old comicshops…they are an entertainment company focused on multi-platform delivery and media (television, film, social, and beyond…)

  3. I always viewed Milestone 1.0 as “urban superheroes”.
    While good comics aren’t a guarantee of good sales, it won’t hurt.
    It seems to be working on the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon… and it worked for Star Trek some fifty years ago.

  4. “I always viewed Milestone 1.0 as “urban superheroes”.”

    As opposed to “rural superheroes”? How many of those are there, except for Superboy when he was living in Smallville.

  5. @Jimmie – I wonder if you would want to bring Five Weapons back in some kind of Milestone-type universe? That was such a good title!!!

Comments are closed.