Originally published at: Let's take some time to remember Black comics legend Dwayne McDuffie | Boing Boing
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The entire Milestone imprint is criminally underrated and underutilized.
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It is sad that Dwayne McDuffie is gone; and it is sad that a vocal group of my fellow comic book nerds continue to be so insecure.
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More people than I expect can at least identify Static, but Hardware and Icon are rarely mentioned, which is a shame.
Steel (John Henry Irons) launched a few months after Hardware. When I found that out, I always wondered how much inspiration was “borrowed” for it. I absolutely loved Steel (JHI), but really never got into the current version, which is his daughter but has some vaguely defined powers instead of just brains like John Henry and Curtis (Hardware).
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That’s exactly what I mean.
Static is beloved by Millennials but DC is dragging their feet to adapt him. He could’ve easily taken Cyborg’s spot in Justice League. DC needed a Black character and Static could have filled that role.
And Icon and Rocket are too dope to be as obscure as they are. Their movie would do Black Panther numbers in today’s landscape. Such a shame.
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I remember when Milestone came out, but I was all aboard the Image hype train and didn’t branch out. Though I had heard good things about it.
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I have no idea if this is true, but I read somewhere that DC dragging their feet on Static was because they were concerned that they seem to be having an problem with too many black superheroes being literally electric based - Black Thunder plus his whole family, the rebooted Lightning Lad, some Teen Titans character, and so on.
No idea, but I know Static was a complete success back in the day. Literally lightning in a bottle, you could say.
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It is a repetitive ability for sure, but I think Static is more popular than Black Lighting ever was.
And I think that applies today as well, even after the success of his CW show.
I know this is anecdotal evidence, but my non comic reading friends ALWAYS ask me when a Static movie is coming out. My entire generation is waiting to fork over buckets of cash for ANYTHING related to Static.
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Disappointed to report the the Brooklyn Public library catalog returns just three results for “Dwayne McDuffie” two Static ebooks and a Justice League animated DVD. As a try-before-you-buy kinda guy, that’s a tough break for me, and a disappointing showing from BPL.
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Can you request books through inter library loan?
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I could renew my access to the NY public library system, but their selection of McDuffie is just as thin. Upgrade Soul did pop up in my search since it won the Dwayne McDuffie award, so I’ve got that on hold now…
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Black Lightning (or even Black Vulcan for the old people like me) was a bit niche. Some point in the past, I don’t remember when, they revamped him a bit and really fleshed his non-superhero identity out. It was really great writing, and deep. Unfortunately, it washed away in one of the recent retcons, just keeping him as a bit of a hardass, but no justification for it.
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Re: Black DC super heroes, I was a fan of John Stewart, the Green Lantern. I was already a fan when he was featured in the short lived Series Green Lantern: Mosaic, where he was tasked with keeping the peace on OA after it became populated by a patchwork of cities from across the galaxy. I very underrated book, IMO.
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Very true. One thing (of many things) that I like about the Young Justice animated series is that these characters were brought into the series – and fairly early at that. It being a show focused on the teen characters, Icon hasn’t gotten much development. Rocket’s gotten a bit more. Just not enough.
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I haven’t gotten into Young Justice.
Once Bruce Timm left, I was too heartbroken to keep watching DC animation.
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