Thursday, October 08, 2009

Possibly my favorite page from Milestone Comics:

I think Static has like four or five fire-type villains in his first twelve issues.
And it's from a fill-in even! From Static #12, "Getting Out" Written by Kurt Busiek, pencils by Neil Vokes, inks by Prentis Rollins and Bobby Rae. Back in the day, Milestone was dedicated to on-time books; so they may have been one of the last to use fill-in books to save deadlines. Still, that's not a slight on this issue, since it's nonetheless a lot of fun.
Y'know, in a universe with Thor, Captain America, and the Sentry; I'm surprised Spider-Man doesn't try that more often...
There has been a bit of chatter lately about how DC has, um, bungled? Hamstrung? Dropped the ball? Pick your own euphemism for how DC failed on the Milestone relaunch. Oh, but I think Static's still on the Teen Titans, and Xombi got to appear in that team-up book...that I can't even bring myself to care enough to look up.

But DC did halfass the relaunch on both ends, creatively and marketing-wise: instead of maybe folding Milestone into DC continuity during Final Crisis--which would've been pretty damn easy to do, even if you did it in a spin-off miniseries--apparently the in-story explanation is that Milestone's Dakota City has always been there, you just never noticed before. (Or maybe it's been there since the Superman/Milestone crossover where they were specifically separate universes.)

That, and it seems like cheap, Showcase style reprints of Milestone books would be a slam dunk: they are books from the nineties, and a lot of references and fashion are going to seem dated, so don't try and over-format them. Get them into people's hands, get them reading them, and they'll be more forgiving and more apt to want more if you start them out on the lower price point.

Look, I'm just upset because Milestone could've been a good addition to the DC Universe, not just an afterthought. As it stands now, figure Major Bummer and the Heckler will get another try first...OK, bad example, that would be great.

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