DC and Milestone Comics have announced release dates for projects created to celebrate Black History Month and Milestone’s 30th Anniversary.
Starting at the end of January, the two are rolling out special editions, variant covers, and novels along with new titles until February 2023. The first two projects to be released on January 31 are DC Power: A Celebration one-shot anthologies and Milestone Compendium Two. DC power previously revealed by a January 2023 appeal to DC Comics, and DC has now unveiled the cover look of the Taj Tenfold variant for the issue, featuring heroes such as Naomi McDuffie, Aquaman (Jackson Hyde), Signal (Duke Thomas) and Kid Flash (Wallace West), among others. The second Milestone compendium features a cover by Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan and collects more than 1,300 pages of stories, including a 1994 reprint Worlds Collide event that combines characters from the DC Universe and the “Dakotaverse” Milestone for the first time.
A week later on February 7th, new Static: Dakota’s Shadow miniseries and DC Universe by Dwayne McDuffie both launched. Launched at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, Dakota’s Shadow is the sequel of Static: Season One and was written by both Vita Ayala and Nikolas Draper-Ivey, with the latter also drawing the title. Meanwhile, DC Universe by Dwayne McDuffie is a 280-page hardcover collection that includes stories by founding members of Milestone Media of various titles such as Action Comics, Impulse, Batman: Gotham Knights and Firestorm: Nuclear Man.
The five edition event Icon vs. Hardware is the focus of February 14th. Originally announced at New York Comic Con 2022, the title was co-written by Reginald Hudlin and Leon Chills, and illustrated by Cowan. The series description details that the two Milestone heroes will clash with each other after Hardware discovers the time machine while searching for the crashed Icon spaceship.
Batman Beyond and Static Shock Crossover Again for Milestone 30th Anniversary
The last project Milestone has listed for February is an anthology one-shot Milestone 30th Anniversary Special, announced at NYCC and going on sale February 21, 2023. To celebrate the company’s founding in 1993, this special edition features stories focused on various Milestone heroes, such as Static, Rocket, Icon, and Hardware, including the modern hero Milestone face-to-face with their 90s version, due to Rift characters. Another story, “Static Beyond”, would be a cross between adult Static and Batman Beyond. The anniversary special features work by Chuck Brown, Stephanie Williams, Nikolas Draper-Ivey and others.
For Black History Month, DC will also be releasing a number of variant covers in 2023 highlighting the company’s Black superheroes. Issues that will make this variant cover available include Lightning #792, I’m Batman #18, Black Adam #8, Lazarus Planet Omega #1, Mighty woman #796 and Action Comics #1052, illustrated to focus on heroes like Cyborg, Nubia, and John Henry Irons.
Readers can check out the covers of this variant and the upcoming Milestone releases throughout February 2023.
Source: DC Comics