Dave Buesing's Comic Book Herald Writing!

Update Feburary 2021: Since posting, DC and Milestone have fortunately digitized and added more of the Milestone Universe comics to various platforms including Comixology and DC Universe Infinite. Better yet, the “Dakotaverse” is returning with all new comics, and I’ll be tracking and updating the reading order on this page below.

Today I’m looking at the history of Milestone Comics (the home of Static Shock), and particularly this big question: Why do Milestone comics remain so terribly inaccessible in 2020?

Milestone Comics was founded in 1993 by exclusively African-American creative voices, Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek Dingle (Christopher Priest also had a very early role prior to launch). The creators built their own shared superhero universe (the “Dakotaverse”) with a focus on underrepresented minorities in their stories. Milestone was distributed via DC Comics, although technically Milestone retained editorial control. The company published in the vicinity of 250 comics across around 8 monthly series until closing comics publication in 1997 (Milestone Media remained, though, and went on to ensure a home for the animated Static Shock series – which notably crossed over with DC’s Batman Beyond – from 2000 to 2004). [Read more…] about Previously On #112: Missing Milestone Media Comics!