It was inevitable that the rise of Black Lives Matter especially in the USA where it originated would not only have an effect on politics but in the entertainment field including comics. DC has taken the opportunity to revive a line of characters that were published under the Milestone imprint back in the nineties but before we look at them and the comic itself it's worth examining the role of Black people in comics.
Frankly when it comes to the world of superheroes there are very few major or well known black characters. The most obvious and famous would now be the Black Panther who's recent movie was a major hit for Marvel and is a hero that has been around since 1966 when he first appeared in Fantastic Four #52. It wasn't until the seventies that the Panther got his own series even then it began in a comic called Jungle Action! I'm not sure that would be published in todays climate.
Over the years the Black Panther along with Luke Cage, Power-Man from Marvel and Black Lightning from DC were the only real attempts to create strong black heroes. Probably the best known black female is Storm from the X-Men who is Sudanese in origin. In fact the only major figure in comics that was black was one you would hardly recognise as such, Spawn!
In the 1993 Milestone launched four comics under an imprint agreement with DC, Hardware, Icon, Blood Syndicate and Static. These were successful enough to lead to more titles, Shadow Cabinet, Xombi and Kobalt along with a number of miniseries. There was even a crossover with the main DC Universe in Worlds Collide but Milestone's comics ceased being published by 1997.
The nineties was a period I dropped out of the hobby so have never read any of these comics though at one point Milestone characters were brought into the DC universe in Milestone Forever a series I did read and frankly instantly forgot about. perhaps it's time to dig up and give it another go?
The only other Milestone character I read was Static in his eight issue revival during the New 52 DC re-vamp and recall he had some interaction with the Teen Titans but that's about it util now.
Having already read DC's one-shot Asian superhero special I decided to give this a go and ordered a copy which arrived today. It's certainly a hard hitting comic and violent from the start surrounding the use of a chemical weapon against BLM demonstrators ironically designed by a black scientist who we later discover is also the hero called Hardwire which appears to be a black version of Iron Man from a first look.
We are also introduced to Static but it's Icon and Rocket that looks the most interesting. From the look of things the action takes place on a different Earth to the mainstream DCU heroes with the rebirth of the "multiverse" making this possible.
DC are launching three different six issue mini-series featuring Static, Icon & Rocket and Hardware each advertised as "Season One". A tentative but solid attempt to put black characters on the map and presumably aimed at that audience. I'm not sure how successful they will be but at least DC are trying to broaden the comics audience though from sheer observation I found the X-Men have a particular appeal to black comic fans.
Given my own now very limited comics budget I'm afraid none of these titles will be on my tiny "pull list" nowadays but any attempt to widen the comic book market is always a good thing and one hopes these comics will hit a note with the intended audience and beyond.
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