Potentially huge news today, as Denys Cowan, Reginald Hudlin and Derek Dingle have announced that they'll be relaunching the legendary Milestone Media this year as 'Milestone Media 2.0'.

Milestone would be the comic book company co-founded with Dwayne McDuffie in 1993, which published comics featuring superhero characters of color. Among their most well-known characters are  Static, who appeared most recently in a short-lived monthly series during DC Comics' New 52 relaunch, as part of the deal made between the two publishers. The company published comics by writers and artists of color, creating stories about characters of color, and ran solidly through 1997.

In the current landscape where Marvel have put high-profile African-American characters like Sam Wilson - formerly the Falcon - into the Captain America mantle, the three say that Milestone's return has never been more important. As Cowan tells the Post:

We’ve never just done black characters just to do black characters. It’s always come from a specific point of view, which is what made our books work. What we also didn’t do, which is the trend now, is [to] have characters that are, not blackface, but they’re the black versions of the already established white characters — as if it gives legitimacy to these black characters in some kind of way — [that] these characters are legitimate because now there’s a black Captain America."

Milestone's return is potentially hugely important for the comics industry as a whole, and the trio say that they'll be looking not just to put out work featuring familiar characters - but also to focus on promoting new creators and new concepts. In a comics industry filled with talents like Afua Richardson, David Walker, and Brandon Easton who still don't seem to ever get given gigs at the Big Two companies, this could be a chance to really see the comics industry diversify in interesting new ways.

This news comes with the caveat that although the company has returned, there are no plans yet for any particular books. This is a revival in name only for the time being, and we have no idea whether we can expect to see Icon or Hardware anytime soon. The article is all we have to go on, and it's somewhat vague - although the trio say that their plan is to first start debuting new images and concepts, all being well, at San Diego Comic-Con this year.

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