Is DC even trying?
Last spring the publisher announced that the “Milestone Universe” would return to comic book shelves in February of 2021. But here we are in the middle of March with virtually no Milestone product in our pull boxes. The “update” DC recently issued seemed to reflect a genuine disinterest in the project and that it’s vaunted resurrection of the popular imprint is a half-assed effort likely destined for failure.
Milestone’s story began in 1993 when a collection of comic creators recognized that African-Americans and other minorities were conspicuously absent from the comic book landscape. They got together and created Milestone Media, which birthed a number of original black characters super heroes. Even though Milestone was its own company, it enjoyed a unique partnership with DC which saw the mega publisher distribute their books.
The comic book industry was riding an unprecedented high when Milestone launched in 1993. As a result of the comics boom, a number of other high profile companies launched around the same time (most notably Image Comics, which started publishing in 1992). But despite the cluttered book shelves and fierce competition, Milestone still carved out a place in the highly competitive market and enjoyed better sales than some of it’s contemporaries.
But in the nineties, the fickle business gods took just as easily as they gave. And as savagely. The entire industry was reeling just a few years later and the situation got so dire that that a lot of pundits and observers were predicting that comic books would completely cease to exist by the year 2000. Milestone ceased publication in 1997.
Milestone’s story didn’t end there though. Static Shock, arguably Milestone’s most popular character, would star in his own award winning cartoon show and DC limited series. Static and other Milestone mainstays would pop up in a video game or a cartoon every once in a while and DC would publish a mini-series in 2010 to wrap up many of the stories Milestone’s demise left dangling (the rights to the characters eventually wound up in DC’s corporate pocket following Milestone Media’s eventual folding).
But twenty plus years after giving up publishing, Milestone still had plenty of popularity among fans. DC has announced a number of Milestone resurrections over the years, but nothing ever came from them. While DC did amalgamate Milestone’s characters into it’s universe proper during one of its numerous reboots (granting Milestone it’s own world-Earth “M”-in their multiverse), it never made any significant publishing effort to bring Milestone back.
Until supposedly now.
During last August’s Fandom, DC announced Milestone’s long awaited return would finally happen in February of 2021. There was even discussion of movies, podcasts and additional animation on top of the publishing initiatives. It appeared DC was serious this time, particularly after the civil strife and social upheaval that gripped the entire globe.
But beyond last summer’s strategically timed headline, it’s almost as if they don’t actually care.
It turned out there were no Milestone books in February. And there won’t be any in March. Or April. Instead DC lazily reissued Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0 at the end of February with some additional content (Infinite Edition was previously available during DC’s Fandom last August). But it will only be available as a digital edition until a print one is released three months later at the end of May. Milestone won’t see any actual titles launched until Static premieres in April with Icon and Rocket following in June and Hardware rounding out the lineup in August.
Each will be a six issue limited series and all will only be available online with no print versions currently scheduled.
Even worse, until a few days ago the creative team for Static was completely up in the air. No talent locked was down on the the book that was supposed to spearhead the imprint’s relaunch until virtually the last minute. DC may finally be granting Milestone new life, but they are choosing to do it with a whimper instead of a bang. And given it’s current plans for the imprint, cancellation feels like a foregone conclusion.
The simple truth is that the comic book buying public will largely ignore Milestone’s digital rebirth without a physical presence on comic store shelves to remind them it exists. It would take a significant promotional campaign by DC to keep the imprint fresh in consumer’s minds and lure them to the necessary online destinations to purchase the books. And judging by what we’ve seen from DC so far, it’s pretty safe to say that isn’t going to happen.
DC could have been done so much better. It could have taken advantage of Black History Month and made Infinite Edition’s print edition available the first week-the first day-of February. Then it could have launched one new title a week for the remainder of the month (print and digital side by side). During the entire month of February they could have also issued trades collecting Milestone’s original content. Right now it’s virtually impossible to find any of the original Milestone stuff in any physical format. And when you do it’s obscenely expensive (the first two trade paperbacks collecting the original Icon can be found on Amazon running for hundreds of dollars).
And DC has plenty of other tools at it’s disposal to promote Milestone as well. It could have tossed the Static Shock cartoon on HBO Max with a brief ad attached to each episode promoting the new line’s existence. It could have inserted a few issues in the Justice League Snyder Cut as sly product placement. DC could have produced a video essay celebrating Milestone’s history, its cultural importance and outlining plans for the re-launch for it’s Youtube channel. Right now you can punch Milestone Comics into Youtube’s search bar and get dozens of videos on the company. But none of them from DC.
The point is DC has no shortage of options to promote new product. But right now it looks like it just doesn’t seem to care about Milestone’s relaunch.
Yes, DC has had to deal with the global COVID-19 pandemic. And yes, it has been laying the groundwork to change its distribution model-no small disruption to business as usual during the best of times. But it’s kept putting out plenty of books relatively on time despite those challenges and is still going full steam ahead on its Infinite Frontier line/imprint/reboot/whatever.
Could you imagine DC putting out a new Superman or Batman series and not having a creative team locked down two months before the book was scheduled to go on sale? It would never happen. What’s disappointing is that DC has struggled (along with other publishers) to find a way to leverage the popularity of it’s numerous brands to promote diversity in its lineup. But Milestone offers a wealth of original characters that embrace ethnic and cultural diversity in their very design. And DC just seems to be ignoring them.
It’s beginning to feel like DC announced the return of Milestone, an imprint celebrating black super heroes and the challenges they have to face, simply to exploit a cultural moment that was gripping the Western world. And once they wormed their way into a few headlines and a couple of press releases, it promptly decided to forget about the whole thing completely. You’d be forgiven for thinking that any effort it puts into Milestone right now is token at best.
DC may not be actively trying to sabotage Milestone, but they are neglecting it. Criminally so. Simply put, DC is setting Milestone up to fail. Unfortunately when DC squanders the opportunity to truly put it’s money where its corporate mouth is, it will be the Milestone characters and the fans who love them who will pay for DC’s neglect and failure.
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