Blog

Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Dwayne McDuffie
Artist(s): Various
Cover: Admira Wijaya

“Meta Fictions“:  There’s nothing I hate more than “not knowing,” and that’s pretty much where I’ve been since 1997 in regards to what happened to a lot of my favorite characters from the Milestone Universe when the books were canceled.  So understand my excitement when I found out that Dwayne McDuffie, co-founder of Milestone, would be writing Justice League of America, and in the back of my mind I wondered if there was a slight chance that during his run I could at least get a glimpse of the Dakotaverse characters that I had been missing.  Well in issues 27-28 and 30-34 my dreams were realized, and in that story there were hints of more to come!  Which brings us here to Milestone Forever, a two part mini-series that neatly ties up the loose ends of characters like Hardware, Static, and Shadow Cabinet, to name a few, and ushers them into the future of the DCU (DC Universe).

The book opens with Dharma looking into the past, present, and future, but there is a spot in time that he cannot see, which is frustrating enough; but beyond that point, what he sees in the future is the death of a universe.  Worse yet, is that it’s by his hand this destruction takes place, but he has no idea why and what actions in particular lead to this happening.  So while trying to piece together his own future, he observes his creations for a glimpse of anything that might help him, which leads us into Icon: Blood Will Tell. McDuffie picks up the pace here as some of the Dakota alumni take center stage.  While Holocaust is threatening his mother who is the mayor of Dakota City, Icon appears and the two have words before Holocaust makes a quick exit.  Soon after, Icon runs into Fade, who has been tracking him, and Icon pleads with Fade to come to side of the righteous; but Fade quickly tells him things aren’t always what they seem and disappears through a wall.  After breaking it down, we find that on the other side of that wall is the entire Blood Syndicate led by Holocaust!  Icon is far from unprepared though, as his back up arrives in the form of Static, Rocket, and my personal favorite, Hardware!  However, during the fight the surprise appearance of Wise Son puts a stop to everything as he challenges Holocaust to leadership of the Blood Syndicate, stating that he’s been the rightful leader since Tech 9’s death, and that it’s time they fought for justice. The story heats up from here on out and after everything is settled (at least for now), we’re taken back to Iron Butterfly and a very frustrated Dharma.

Seeing all of these characters again was like a comic homecoming for me, and as I said before it’s going to be a relief to finally have some closure after such a long time.  I was amazed at how easy it was to slip back into the story after all this time, and McDuffie didn’t miss a beat!  From Dharma’s inner thoughts to Static’s wise cracks during the big fight, the dialogue was great. I was a little disappointed the fight was over pretty quickly, but then again I’m admittedly selfish and just wanted to see Hardware, Icon, and Wise Son smack some people around for a few more pages.  The art in the book was handled by several of Milestone’s finest, like Denys Cowan, John Paul Leon, and Mark Bright to name a few, and from page to page the book looks great.  I would have liked to see some of the other artists that Milestone helped launch, like Humberto Ramos and Jim Palmiotti, even if it was just additions to the gallery at the end of the book; but hey, nobody asked me right?

Aside from that the only thing I wasn’t feeling too much was the cover, as I preferred the image shown to the right of this paragraph.  The whole “urban background” thing  along with the dotted color scheme to resemble the paper of yesteryear just took away from what I thought was a great looking piece.

When other companies were toying with the idea of exploring race, sexuality, diversity, and religion, Milestone went all city and showed what a few talented and diverse individuals could really do.  If I could, I’d thank Denys Cowan, Dwayne McDuffie, Michael Davis, and Derek Dingle for helping to bring these stories and the characters (even Static) to us, and for enabling me to get the first five issues of Kirby’s Black Panther run!

On a side note, Dwayne McDuffie stated on his Facebook fan page that DC chose to edit some of his pages, and even an all important recap page, since it’s been years since we’ve seen these characters, which I was going to mention earlier until finding out this information.

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