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sync & correction by f1nc0
~ Addic7ed.com ~

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I read a lot of comic books
when I was a kid.

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There were no black superheroes.

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None of 'em...
looked like me.

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As a young black kid,

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we would look at
the representations

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that we had
and sort of be ashamed.

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The comic books today, they
reflect the people who create them,

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people who are in charge,
who are mostly white males.

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At the time, I said, "If I want a world
where there's black superheroes,

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we're going to have to create
some black superheroes.

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Every black kid who's ever wanted
to do comics has had that idea.

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I told him, "The only way we're
going to see it is if we do it."

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Milestone Comics
was heroes for everybody.

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They were very, very innovative
and ahead of their time.

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It was definitely revolutionary.

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The political act
was forming the company,

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and having four black guys in charge.

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We broke a lot of barriers,

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but there's a price to be paid
for doing things differently.

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So... you want the real
story of Milestone?

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Okay, here we go.

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_

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_

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I was raised
in Springfield Gardens, Queens,

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by my grandparents.

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They took all of us kids in
after my mom died.

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She died when I was eight.
After my mom died,

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I met this kid, Derek,
Derek Dingle.

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He and I sat next to each other

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from second through fifth grade.

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We were...
we were pretty much inseparable.

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I went to Denys's home one day

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with a stack of comic books
from my brother's collection.

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I did not know
what a comic book was

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until Derek showed me,
and I was just done.

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From that moment, you know,
I just looked at them,

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and I was just...
I was just gone.

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After that, I probably went to
school to look at comic books.

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Well, I liked to get
the new comic books from Derek.

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I had big bottle glasses,
I had a pocket protector,

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I looked like Sam Jackson
in Unbreakable.

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You know, with that hairstyle
that went like that?

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I was that kid.

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I was that kid... I was picked on.

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Well, the comics were, like,
helping me cope with all that,

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or maybe sometimes you get picked on

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because you're reading comic books.

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Comics were sort of
that little underground thing

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that we all did back then.

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Growing up, I read
a lot of comic books.

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Most of the kids in my neighborhood
read comic books.

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It doesn't grab everybody.
You just know it's for you.

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I mean, you have to be born
a comic book fan, I think,

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'cause once you see one, it's like...

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And you open one, and the smell,
and the pages, and everything, it...

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You have to be born
a comic book fan, I think.

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Black kids
read comics in huge numbers.

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The presumption that
black people don't read comics

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comes from people
who don't know black people.

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To be a kid growing up in that era,

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you know, and reading
The Fantastic Four,

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and reading The Hulk,
and Spider-Man, and Batman,

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Superman, whatever it was
you were reading,

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and to not see yourself,

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you know, like, we were
completely invisible.

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There were representations of
African-Americans in mainstream comics,

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but they tended towards kind of
the stereotypical or the racist.

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Probably the most
infamous would be Ebony White

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with Will Eisner's "The Spirit."

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Big lips, big eyes...
he was meant to be comic relief.

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"White Wash," in 1941,

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this big red-lipped,
pimp hat-wearing guy

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who's all, "Oh Lord, help me!"
you know, this kind of thing.

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He was always in trouble,

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and it was just a superfluous,
unnecessary character.

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As a young black kid, you know,

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we would look at these other
characters and sort of be ashamed,

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because that's all
we would see of ourselves.

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That was the representations
that we had.

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There was nothing to aspire to.

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After a while, you're saying,

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"Why isn't the hero African-American?"

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I remember the day when Derek
bought me a copy of

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"Fantastic Four #52," and I
remember us reading it under the desk

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when we were supposed to be,
you know, doing our lessons,

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and that was the first time
I had seen the Black Panther.

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That was something...
that was a special moment.

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When the Black Panther showed up,
dressed all in black...

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still one of the coolest outfits
in the history of comic books.

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He's not a sidekick,
he's not a mugger...

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His introduction was him
taking on the Fantastic Four

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to see if he could beat them,

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and he did,
and as a kid, that blew my mind.

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They'd beaten Dr. Doom.

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They'd beaten Galactus,
who eats planets, but...

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the Black Panther defeats them all.

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So you go,
"This cat is badass."

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The Black Panther is a really
important character.

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Now, of course,
all of his earliest adventures

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were written by, you know,
white writers

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and drawn by white artists.

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Well, I never thought
that it was my place

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to talk about politics, but I
also felt there were some things

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that perhaps
ought to be mentioned,

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and one of the things I've
always been against is bigotry.

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I like the pilot very much, yeah.

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She's a black girl, that's good.

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Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

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named their black superhero
"the Black Panther"

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in the middle
of the civil rights movement.

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Think about that.

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Stan Lee and Ja... Two white...
Two Jewish people!

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And I thought, "I will make him
the king of a black nation in Africa."

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He had his own
country, and his country was

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the most technologically
advanced country on the planet.

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The mythology
is that he sort of understood

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that Americans were a little too racist

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to accept, like,
a black superhero from America.

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The Black Panther can be
powerful over there in Wakanda,

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and so he is not
as inherently threatening

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as someone that you might see
around the corner.

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The first
African-American hero I saw

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was Luke Cage.

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I would go to my local comic book store.

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They had their comic books
on a spinner rack,

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and I remember
this one standing out.

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It was just a single figure

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of a black man
bursting out of chains,

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and I thought it was
the coolest thing I'd ever seen.

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I brought it to school,
and I showed it to Derek.

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He was blown away.

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It was one of the few times
I got to show him something,

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you know, as opposed to him...
him always showing me.

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In the beginning,
I embraced it,

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and I bought all of the issues, but
I was finding it hard to read it.

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Some of the characters struck me
as being stereotypical

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and sort of making fun.

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I mean, I loved Luke Cage,

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and my cousins and I
would sit down,

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and we would read Luke Cage,
and we would laugh,

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and we would go,
"Nobody talks like this."

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You know, I don't think
that Luke Cage

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should be saying
"Sweet Christmas" all the time.

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"Sweet Christmas!"
Really?

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I knew there was a white guy

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sitting back, writing
and penning this, going...

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"What does a dude
from Harlem sound like?"

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Black people have never been in control
of their own story in this country.

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People should tell their own stories.

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The one thing that comic
books always communicated to me

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is two things,
heroes and possibilities,

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and if you don't see yourself
as part of that,

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then, you know,
who are the heroes,

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and what are my possibilities?

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When Derek and I
first started hanging out,

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it was all about
reading comic books.

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Eventually, it became about us
making our own comic books.

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I don't even think we thought to copy
them or mimeograph them or anything.

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We just sold the original art,
like, stapled together,

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like, you know,
you can get your own comic.

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The first characters we created
was a character called Black Vig,

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and Jive was his partner,
and I remember thinking,

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"These are
the coolest characters ever,

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and one day they're gonna be famous."

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I think at one point
Denys did say, you know,

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"Wouldn't it be cool if we could
do this when we were older?"

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That was the dream,
to somehow, someday,

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make our own comic books.

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We graduated.
Graduation day from P.S. 37,

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my family, the day after,
moved to Norfolk.

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Because he was my best
friend, it was unreal for me.

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It was unreal. I didn't
think I would see him again.

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Getting
on that Greyhound bus

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and knowing that it's a possibility

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I never would be connected
with my best friend again.

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When I got into comics,

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there were very few artists
who looked like me,

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so I didn't have a whole lot
of examples to look up to.

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The comic book industry in the
early 1970s wasn't diverse at all.

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It was a bunch
of Jewish and Italian guys.

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I'd say that DC was probably,
at that point, entirely white,

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entirely white and male,

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except for, you know, two women,

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and then I upped the demographics
by being the third.

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At the time, there were only a
few black artists and no writers.

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I remember one black guy,
I can't remember his name,

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who was in the production area,
and beyond that there was me.

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Arvell was, like,
the living example

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of a black person who made
his living drawing comics.

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One day, this 14-year-old
kid came over to our apartment,

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knocked on the door.
I opened it, and it was,

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"Hey, you're Arvell Jones!
Hey, it's really great to meet you!"

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and he just kind of
barges his way in,

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threw down some of his artwork
and told me, "Hey, man,

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I'll do whatever I could do."

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Well, that kid was Denys Cowan.

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He was an eager kid, and I thought,

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that took a lot of guts to stick
his neck out to get what he wanted,

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so he was always at the apartment
helping Arvell.

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I wasn't drawing anything.

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I was making coffee, running
errands, sweeping the floor.

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I was a terrible assistant.

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I think the only thing
I really wanted to do was draw.

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Three years later, I was, like, 17.

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I had a chance
to bring my portfolio

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into the art director at DC
at the time.

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He looks at my portfolio.

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My heart's beating, I remember
that now. He says, "Good."

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He handed it back, looked at me,
and he said, "These are good,

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but we already have a colored
artist working for us."

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At the time, I said, and strangely,
it was like, "Oh, okay,

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so you're not hiring
any more black artists."

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That's the only thing I thought.

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I didn't realize how [bleep] up
it was until later.

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After that, Jim Shooter at Marvel

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hired me to draw Luke Cage...

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- So Cage is trapped by the Halwan army...
- Right.

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And he hired me
to do it because he thought

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that I might be familiar
with the subject matter.

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"You're black, so we're going to
give you this black [bleep] to do,"

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so I got a chance to do Luke Cage,

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which I had read
when I was a little kid.

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After that, I had another opportunity
to draw the Black Panther.

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Now, that was a big deal for me.

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This is at the start
of my political awareness a bit.

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That story was about the Black
Panther fighting apartheid,

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and his South African neighbors
were being oppressed,

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and what was he doing about it,
being the king of Wakanda?

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Around that time,

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I started to get recognized
throughout the industry.

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It was a bit surreal. I even ended
up in an ad for Dewar's Scotch.

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While I was at Marvel, I met
another black artist, Michael Davis.

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I heard about Michael
from a mutual friend of ours.

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Her name was Darlene.

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Darlene said to me, "Michael,
you've got to meet Denys Cowan,"

237
00:12:32,986 --> 00:12:35,454
because you're, like, only one
of three or four black people

238
00:12:35,455 --> 00:12:37,856
working in the industry.

239
00:12:37,858 --> 00:12:39,058
I don't understand
how it happened,

240
00:12:39,059 --> 00:12:41,960
but we ended up being
very good friends.

241
00:12:41,962 --> 00:12:44,463
From that point,
he became my boy,

242
00:12:44,464 --> 00:12:48,464
and, quite literally,
introduced me to the industry.

243
00:12:51,404 --> 00:12:55,807
It was 1983.
I came back to New York.

244
00:12:55,809 --> 00:13:00,361
I got a job at Black Enterprise
as an associate editor.

245
00:13:00,813 --> 00:13:05,116
One day in 1989,
I was on my way to work.

246
00:13:05,118 --> 00:13:10,710
I see this 50th anniversary
Batman comic book,

247
00:13:10,745 --> 00:13:15,160
and then I go to the artists.
It's Denys Cowan.

248
00:13:15,162 --> 00:13:19,130
The very next day,
I called DC Comics.

249
00:13:19,132 --> 00:13:21,900
"I have to find Denys Cowan."

250
00:13:21,902 --> 00:13:26,171
I said, "You know what?
I'm going to go to Denys's house,"

251
00:13:26,173 --> 00:13:28,106
and I rang the doorbell...

252
00:13:28,108 --> 00:13:30,975
And I went to answer the
door, and there's Derek in a suit.

253
00:13:30,977 --> 00:13:34,312
I guess I probably looked like,
you know, an IRS agent.

254
00:13:34,314 --> 00:13:36,702
That's one of those movie moments, too.
You open the door

255
00:13:36,737 --> 00:13:39,117
and your best friend, who you
haven't seen in 10 years or whatever,

256
00:13:39,119 --> 00:13:42,516
is just standing there, going,
"Hey, what's up?"

257
00:13:46,058 --> 00:13:48,193
New York City was insane.

258
00:13:48,195 --> 00:13:50,351
The things that were going on
were crazy.

259
00:13:50,386 --> 00:13:53,069
Bed-Stuy, Crown Heights...

260
00:13:53,104 --> 00:13:55,300
We will not continue to pay

261
00:13:55,302 --> 00:13:59,302
for people that abuse,
and murder, and maim us...

262
00:13:59,506 --> 00:14:03,253
I mean, the '80s shaped what we did.

263
00:14:04,109 --> 00:14:07,228
It's funny that my
start would be with a group of guys,

264
00:14:07,229 --> 00:14:11,374
you know, and we're sort of
like a hip-hop X-Men, I guess.

265
00:14:11,584 --> 00:14:14,385
For a lot of people,
the escape was music, whatever.

266
00:14:14,387 --> 00:14:18,387
My escape was comic books.

267
00:14:18,558 --> 00:14:23,362
Hip hop was emerging
in a very political way.

268
00:14:23,363 --> 00:14:25,930
Public Enemy,
Tribe Called Quest...

269
00:14:25,932 --> 00:14:27,599
Def Jam was rising.

270
00:14:27,601 --> 00:14:30,134
Spike was creating, you know,
his production company.

271
00:14:30,136 --> 00:14:31,370
"She's Gotta Have It,"

272
00:14:31,371 --> 00:14:34,439
"Do the Right Thing,"
Malcolm X...

273
00:14:34,441 --> 00:14:37,442
Spike Lee, for us,
was a major influence,

274
00:14:37,444 --> 00:14:40,078
because Spike Lee did it himself.

275
00:14:40,080 --> 00:14:44,582
In the comic book medium,
there was a absence of this voice.

276
00:14:46,085 --> 00:14:48,620
99.9% of comic book
companies up to that point

277
00:14:48,622 --> 00:14:52,090
had been owned and run
by white males.

278
00:14:52,092 --> 00:14:57,562
My own inclination
was to create comics

279
00:14:57,564 --> 00:14:59,664
that were more contemporary,

280
00:14:59,666 --> 00:15:01,399
that, even though it was
a fantasy world,

281
00:15:01,401 --> 00:15:04,302
we wanted it to look like
the world we lived in.

282
00:15:04,304 --> 00:15:06,371
He was a brilliant person.

283
00:15:06,373 --> 00:15:09,340
Not just a brilliant writer,
but a brilliant person.

284
00:15:09,342 --> 00:15:13,978
Dwayne McDuffie was probably
the only black writer that I had met.

285
00:15:13,980 --> 00:15:17,548
I met him because they had asked
me to do Deathlok at Marvel,

286
00:15:17,550 --> 00:15:20,084
and he happened to be the writer.

287
00:15:20,086 --> 00:15:22,954
I responded to his writing immediately.

288
00:15:22,956 --> 00:15:27,692
My biggest issue, generally,
in writing mainstream comics is

289
00:15:27,694 --> 00:15:31,529
if you write a black character,
he represents blackness,

290
00:15:31,531 --> 00:15:32,631
and that's ridiculous.

291
00:15:32,632 --> 00:15:34,632
That's way too much,
way too complex,

292
00:15:34,634 --> 00:15:36,501
way too much weight
for any character,

293
00:15:36,503 --> 00:15:39,213
any single character, to hold.

294
00:15:39,471 --> 00:15:41,471
And we had both
gotten to the point where

295
00:15:41,472 --> 00:15:46,589
we were frustrated at
the lack of characters

296
00:15:46,624 --> 00:15:49,235
to express the things
that we wanted to express,

297
00:15:49,270 --> 00:15:52,074
but that all changed in 1992.

298
00:15:53,052 --> 00:15:57,422
I literally woke up one morning.
I thought, "This is it.

299
00:15:57,424 --> 00:16:00,258
If I want a world where
there's black superheroes,

300
00:16:00,260 --> 00:16:02,660
we're going to have to create
some black superheroes."

301
00:16:02,662 --> 00:16:05,029
I got up and I called Michael Davis.

302
00:16:05,031 --> 00:16:07,598
The idea was to create
a universe of characters

303
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:12,036
- that looked like us.
- "What do you think? Am I crazy?"

304
00:16:12,038 --> 00:16:14,138
and he said, "You're crazy."

305
00:16:14,140 --> 00:16:17,365
Every black kid who's ever wanted
to do comics has had that idea.

306
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,714
I told him, "The only way we're
going to see it is if we do it."

307
00:16:22,716 --> 00:16:25,299
It was that time.

308
00:16:26,884 --> 00:16:29,120
So the next person
we called was Dwayne McDuffie,

309
00:16:29,122 --> 00:16:32,724
and Dwayne looked at both of us
and said, "You guys are crazy."

310
00:16:32,726 --> 00:16:36,361
I'm like, "Nah, Dwayne,
we can do it because..."

311
00:16:36,363 --> 00:16:38,196
whatever reasons I came up with,
I don't even remember,

312
00:16:38,198 --> 00:16:40,665
and Dwayne said, "You're crazy, but
imma do it wit' you because you crazy,

313
00:16:40,667 --> 00:16:43,001
but we'll do it, but you crazy."

314
00:16:43,003 --> 00:16:48,073
Denys was committed from day one
to get Derek involved.

315
00:16:48,074 --> 00:16:51,074
You know why? Because him and Derek
made up comic books

316
00:16:51,155 --> 00:16:53,378
when they were kids.
How cool is that [bleep]?

317
00:16:53,380 --> 00:16:56,214
Dwayne and Michael and I
knew nothing about business,

318
00:16:56,216 --> 00:16:58,642
but we knew Derek wore a tie.

319
00:16:59,218 --> 00:17:03,637
I always wore a suit,
even on Saturdays.

320
00:17:03,672 --> 00:17:05,707
"Here's the idea," and I
pitched him the same thing.

321
00:17:05,742 --> 00:17:06,958
He said, "You're crazy."

322
00:17:06,959 --> 00:17:11,380
My response, of course, was,
"Denys, I have a job."

323
00:17:11,415 --> 00:17:17,068
And he said, "Derek...
we have to do this.

324
00:17:17,070 --> 00:17:20,071
You know,
people have marched and died

325
00:17:20,073 --> 00:17:23,674
so that we can create these images."

326
00:17:23,676 --> 00:17:25,777
From that point on,

327
00:17:25,779 --> 00:17:30,557
the reservations, you know,
faded away.

328
00:17:32,084 --> 00:17:34,585
We met constantly,
I drew a lot of pictures.

329
00:17:34,587 --> 00:17:37,588
I probably designed
the whole universe.

330
00:17:37,590 --> 00:17:41,059
I got a phone call
from Denys Cowan,

331
00:17:41,061 --> 00:17:43,628
and I always wanted to do
something like this.

332
00:17:43,630 --> 00:17:46,564
Christopher Priest
wrote some bible stuff.

333
00:17:46,566 --> 00:17:48,399
Michael wrote some bible stuff.

334
00:17:48,401 --> 00:17:52,910
I created most
of the background stuff,

335
00:17:52,945 --> 00:17:57,509
and then I ran it all past Dwayne
McDuffie, who made it better.

336
00:17:57,510 --> 00:18:00,787
Dwayne McDuffie
distilled all of it, rewrote it,

337
00:18:00,822 --> 00:18:04,141
and made it fit into
this 28-page document.

338
00:18:04,451 --> 00:18:08,119
On a Friday evening, I brought
that document over to DC Comics

339
00:18:08,121 --> 00:18:10,121
right before Paul Levitz
had to go home,

340
00:18:10,123 --> 00:18:11,856
and gave it to him in his hands.

341
00:18:11,858 --> 00:18:15,561
Denys Cowan walked into my office,
we were friendly,

342
00:18:15,562 --> 00:18:20,164
- and he had a nice thick bible...
- He couldn't put it down.

343
00:18:20,166 --> 00:18:23,835
Every time he put it down,
he'd pick it back up.

344
00:18:23,837 --> 00:18:26,838
So Monday morning,
he calls me up,

345
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:30,840
calls me on my phone and says,
"Denys, this is great.

346
00:18:31,111 --> 00:18:33,511
We want to do it.
Come down and meet with us."

347
00:18:33,513 --> 00:18:36,052
Boom.

348
00:18:37,449 --> 00:18:42,320
It was euphoric.
It was exciting.

349
00:18:42,322 --> 00:18:44,822
You know, we did pop the cork
on the Champagne,

350
00:18:44,824 --> 00:18:46,424
but what was cooler than that

351
00:18:46,426 --> 00:18:52,663
was when we went into our offices.
That made it real.

352
00:18:52,665 --> 00:18:55,133
"Oh, my god, what does this
really all mean?"

353
00:18:55,135 --> 00:18:59,190
That means that we had to deliver.

354
00:19:04,377 --> 00:19:08,146
We all initially met at my
studio in Manhattan at the time.

355
00:19:08,148 --> 00:19:11,516
We said, "Okay, if we're going
to create a comic book universe,

356
00:19:11,518 --> 00:19:14,403
what do we need to do?"
and then we said,

357
00:19:14,404 --> 00:19:17,655
"Well, we need archetypes,
like the Superman archetype."

358
00:19:20,360 --> 00:19:22,860
Icon
is an African-American...

359
00:19:22,862 --> 00:19:25,731
No, he's not. He actually is not.
Icon is an alien.

360
00:19:25,732 --> 00:19:27,798
He crash-landed
here on Earth.

361
00:19:27,800 --> 00:19:29,834
The pod being discovered,

362
00:19:29,836 --> 00:19:31,370
but he wasn't discovered
by Ma and Pa Kent.

363
00:19:31,371 --> 00:19:34,672
He was discovered by a slave.

364
00:19:34,674 --> 00:19:36,908
It was important to us
to represent

365
00:19:36,910 --> 00:19:40,244
there was no one monolithic
black point of view.

366
00:19:40,246 --> 00:19:43,614
He's a Republican
because Lincoln freed the slaves,

367
00:19:43,616 --> 00:19:45,516
and he's sticking with
what's working for him.

368
00:19:45,518 --> 00:19:47,652
Icon had a sidekick, Rocket,

369
00:19:47,654 --> 00:19:50,221
and Rocket was
the antithesis of Icon.

370
00:19:50,223 --> 00:19:54,258
Rocket was a spitfire,
and young and energetic.

371
00:19:54,260 --> 00:19:56,194
The book was told
through her point of view,

372
00:19:56,196 --> 00:19:57,862
which was another Dwayne innovation.

373
00:19:57,864 --> 00:19:59,764
You only saw the world
through her eyes.

374
00:19:59,766 --> 00:20:01,766
If she didn't see it,
you didn't see it.

375
00:20:01,768 --> 00:20:05,403
Genius...
just genius.

376
00:20:05,405 --> 00:20:08,081
To see them having the
conversations that they were having,

377
00:20:08,116 --> 00:20:12,911
to see Rocket challenge his
assumptions about class, and work ethic,

378
00:20:12,912 --> 00:20:15,981
and the way in which you can pick
yourself up by your own bootstraps...

379
00:20:15,982 --> 00:20:21,383
Reading that comic book became a
much more rich experience for me.

380
00:20:22,622 --> 00:20:25,356
The next book
we released was "Hardware."

381
00:20:25,358 --> 00:20:28,726
I loved Hardware
because he was just cool.

382
00:20:28,728 --> 00:20:32,597
You know, he had that Tony Stark
kind of swagger to him.

383
00:20:32,599 --> 00:20:35,633
Hardware is a technological genius

384
00:20:35,635 --> 00:20:39,635
who works for a corrupt company,
Alva Industries,

385
00:20:39,739 --> 00:20:42,907
and because he recognizes
the corruption in the company,

386
00:20:42,909 --> 00:20:47,678
he decides to create the Hardware
armor and fight the corruption.

387
00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:50,514
The first couple of pages
of the first issue,

388
00:20:50,516 --> 00:20:54,391
there's this metaphor
of a caged bird...

389
00:20:56,289 --> 00:20:59,991
Certainly, Dwayne
was writing about himself

390
00:20:59,993 --> 00:21:05,826
and that frustration of working for
the man that doesn't appreciate you.

391
00:21:06,265 --> 00:21:08,733
The next book we did
was a little different.

392
00:21:08,735 --> 00:21:11,502
"What if we had a teenage kid,
and he's a black kid,

393
00:21:11,504 --> 00:21:13,771
and he has nuclear powers?

394
00:21:13,773 --> 00:21:16,575
No, what if he has speed powers?
Like, he's really...

395
00:21:16,576 --> 00:21:19,742
No.
What if he has electric powers?"

396
00:21:20,746 --> 00:21:24,582
He can control electricity,
and we'll call him "Static."

397
00:21:24,584 --> 00:21:26,817
Static was interesting
because Static,

398
00:21:26,819 --> 00:21:30,988
it was one of my favorite comics.
It was the most old-fashioned.

399
00:21:30,990 --> 00:21:34,625
He spoke to
who the core demo was,

400
00:21:34,627 --> 00:21:37,328
which was smart,
nerdy, black kids,

401
00:21:37,330 --> 00:21:40,766
- or I guess the new phrase is "blerd."
- We made him a geek.

402
00:21:40,767 --> 00:21:42,667
We made him a big science fiction fan,

403
00:21:42,669 --> 00:21:46,604
like the four of us actually were
when we were that age.

404
00:21:46,606 --> 00:21:48,606
The last thing we needed
was a superhero team,

405
00:21:48,608 --> 00:21:51,476
because all great comic book
universes have a superhero team.

406
00:21:53,413 --> 00:21:56,814
There's no other superhero team
like the Blood Syndicate.

407
00:21:56,816 --> 00:22:00,451
All superhero teams
are basically like a gang anyway,

408
00:22:00,453 --> 00:22:03,054
so why not just do a real gang?

409
00:22:03,056 --> 00:22:06,024
I loved the diversity
of "Blood Syndicate."

410
00:22:06,025 --> 00:22:09,344
You had gay, straight, lesbian,
African-American, Latino,

411
00:22:09,345 --> 00:22:12,030
Native characters in a comic,
which you had never seen before.

412
00:22:12,031 --> 00:22:15,381
There were a lot of
metaphors for police brutality,

413
00:22:15,459 --> 00:22:18,002
drugs, and the ra... you know,
how drugs ravaged communities.

414
00:22:18,004 --> 00:22:20,838
The Blood Syndicate
dealt with all of that.

415
00:22:20,840 --> 00:22:23,007
Each of these
characters in that universe,

416
00:22:23,009 --> 00:22:24,709
in the Milestone universe,

417
00:22:24,711 --> 00:22:29,080
to a degree, because they
were black, had to eat crow.

418
00:22:29,082 --> 00:22:32,783
They didn't turn their backs
on the greater good.

419
00:22:32,785 --> 00:22:36,785
They still said, "Damn it,
this dude thinks I'm trash,

420
00:22:37,056 --> 00:22:42,305
but let me go
and save this airplane."

421
00:22:43,829 --> 00:22:47,098
There's never been
a good distribution chain

422
00:22:47,100 --> 00:22:49,767
that was black-owned
or black-controlled,

423
00:22:49,769 --> 00:22:52,002
or even particularly black-friendly.

424
00:22:52,004 --> 00:22:58,809
They really wanted to be free
to do things very independently.

425
00:22:58,811 --> 00:23:01,979
There's limits to how much
independence was possible

426
00:23:01,981 --> 00:23:07,485
when they required both
distribution, economic support...

427
00:23:07,487 --> 00:23:11,489
- It was challenging.
- We had complete editorial control.

428
00:23:11,491 --> 00:23:16,127
- They could say no.
- If something offended DC's...

429
00:23:16,129 --> 00:23:19,830
not principles, but sort
of DC's brand in some way,

430
00:23:19,832 --> 00:23:23,534
I think we had the ability to say,
"Please don't publish that."

431
00:23:23,536 --> 00:23:25,987
They had final approval of
what they were going to publish.

432
00:23:26,022 --> 00:23:29,473
It was their money, their comic
book company, and everything else.

433
00:23:29,475 --> 00:23:30,842
Meet the men of Milestone,

434
00:23:30,843 --> 00:23:33,544
the newest division of DC Comics.

435
00:23:33,546 --> 00:23:35,413
Dwayne McDuffie
is the editor in chief...

436
00:23:35,415 --> 00:23:38,149
We want to give people
that shock of recognition I got

437
00:23:38,151 --> 00:23:39,817
the first time I saw a black superhero,

438
00:23:39,819 --> 00:23:41,519
and I went, "Wow," you know?

439
00:23:41,521 --> 00:23:43,889
"I could do this.
I could be Superman."

440
00:23:45,458 --> 00:23:48,826
20 years ago, there
were two titles being published

441
00:23:48,828 --> 00:23:52,129
by a major publisher
that had black lead characters,

442
00:23:52,131 --> 00:23:53,764
until this week,
where everything changed.

443
00:23:53,766 --> 00:23:56,734
History changed this week.

444
00:23:56,736 --> 00:23:58,203
The books
were as good or better

445
00:23:58,204 --> 00:24:00,871
than anything else on the stands,

446
00:24:00,873 --> 00:24:03,741
and I read them not out of
some sense of obligation,

447
00:24:03,743 --> 00:24:05,910
but because I wanted
to read the books.

448
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:09,713
These Milestone comic books
are really dope, man.

449
00:24:09,715 --> 00:24:11,882
I got, I got this, um,
Blood Syndicate, man.

450
00:24:11,884 --> 00:24:13,885
They've got all kind of people in here.
What you got?

451
00:24:13,886 --> 00:24:16,787
Icon, man... Oh, he looks hell.
What you got, Dre?

452
00:24:16,789 --> 00:24:19,891
- I got Hardware, man, all three issues, man.
- Yeah?

453
00:24:19,892 --> 00:24:22,960
It's hard to say
what numbers we expected

454
00:24:22,962 --> 00:24:25,564
from the Milestone comics,
but they were really good.

455
00:24:27,700 --> 00:24:31,569
We've got these jackets
with "M" on the back, right?

456
00:24:31,571 --> 00:24:33,671
It's like, you walk
through a convention back then

457
00:24:33,673 --> 00:24:34,840
with that "M" on your back, man,

458
00:24:34,841 --> 00:24:37,286
it's like you're a Beatle,
because we did something

459
00:24:37,321 --> 00:24:40,932
that no one else could even
imagine getting done.

460
00:24:40,967 --> 00:24:43,647
Sometimes you didn't know
who would be coming into the office.

461
00:24:43,649 --> 00:24:46,517
You know, one day
it'll be John Singleton,

462
00:24:46,519 --> 00:24:49,553
another day it'd be Quincy Jones.

463
00:24:49,555 --> 00:24:51,856
Clarence Thomas,
the Supreme Court judge,

464
00:24:51,858 --> 00:24:55,893
- wrote Derek a fan letter.
- You know, because of Icon...

465
00:24:57,530 --> 00:25:01,098
In fact, invited me to his chambers.

466
00:25:01,100 --> 00:25:03,623
It was amusing to us,
and a little strange,

467
00:25:03,658 --> 00:25:07,234
that Clarence Thomas would say
this was his favorite book.

468
00:25:07,269 --> 00:25:10,008
Now I think about it, I'm like,
Well, yeah, he liked Icon,

469
00:25:10,009 --> 00:25:11,842
who was just a conservative dude.

470
00:25:13,646 --> 00:25:17,281
I moved to New York City
to work for Milestone specifically.

471
00:25:17,283 --> 00:25:20,584
I knew that they were making history.

472
00:25:20,586 --> 00:25:23,621
They knew me
as the white guy at Milestone.

473
00:25:23,623 --> 00:25:28,788
I ended up doing some of the
most exciting work of my life.

474
00:25:29,761 --> 00:25:31,729
Dwayne had
a very strong point of view

475
00:25:31,731 --> 00:25:35,666
that he wanted
to get across editorially.

476
00:25:35,668 --> 00:25:41,298
Dwayne had this unshakable
moral code.

477
00:25:41,333 --> 00:25:44,675
It created some...
some challenges,

478
00:25:44,677 --> 00:25:47,845
because in some situations,
in terms of business,

479
00:25:47,847 --> 00:25:51,148
there needs to be,
you know, compromise.

480
00:25:51,150 --> 00:25:52,617
When things are going well,

481
00:25:52,618 --> 00:25:55,753
you know, you kind of rolling
along, and it's all good.

482
00:25:55,755 --> 00:25:58,872
It's only when things are not going so well
that you start taking stock

483
00:25:58,907 --> 00:26:01,535
that maybe this wasn't
what we thought it was.

484
00:26:04,996 --> 00:26:08,632
There was
a political heart to Milestone.

485
00:26:08,634 --> 00:26:11,136
Dwayne McDuffie
has always been political.

486
00:26:11,137 --> 00:26:13,137
His books have always been political.

487
00:26:13,139 --> 00:26:15,072
His stories have
always been political.

488
00:26:15,074 --> 00:26:16,308
He was an activist.

489
00:26:16,309 --> 00:26:19,910
Two questions
Dwayne always asked in a story.

490
00:26:19,912 --> 00:26:21,812
One is, "What's the worst thing
that can happen?"

491
00:26:21,814 --> 00:26:24,848
and the other is, "What if
this was really happening?

492
00:26:24,850 --> 00:26:26,084
How would it play out?"

493
00:26:26,085 --> 00:26:31,322
Well, in Icon and Rocket,
we had Rachel get pregnant,

494
00:26:31,324 --> 00:26:34,799
at 14, so it was
a teenage pregnancy,

495
00:26:34,834 --> 00:26:38,623
so we were dealing with, like,
kind of heady stuff for 1992.

496
00:26:38,998 --> 00:26:41,298
It was to address a certain reality

497
00:26:41,300 --> 00:26:44,068
that has never been reflected
in comics before.

498
00:26:44,070 --> 00:26:46,604
We got into some kind of
controversy about that.

499
00:26:46,606 --> 00:26:49,773
We published a lot of stuff that
made them very uncomfortable,

500
00:26:49,775 --> 00:26:51,142
which always sort of amused me

501
00:26:51,143 --> 00:26:54,745
because they weren't as uncomfortable
when they dealt with those topics.

502
00:26:54,747 --> 00:26:58,816
Well, it was largely Dwayne's job
that we would butt heads with.

503
00:26:58,818 --> 00:27:01,085
He thought that
they can't tell us what to do.

504
00:27:01,087 --> 00:27:03,921
"They hired us
for a specific point of view,

505
00:27:03,923 --> 00:27:07,758
and if they're not going to let
us do this, then why are we there?

506
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:10,395
We have to do this, and we have
to do it, we're making a point."

507
00:27:10,396 --> 00:27:13,130
I felt it was unnecessary.

508
00:27:13,132 --> 00:27:16,667
Denys, I think, was starting
to butt heads with Dwayne more.

509
00:27:16,669 --> 00:27:18,335
They're... they're
two different people.

510
00:27:18,337 --> 00:27:21,372
It wasn't that he was
more of an idealist.

511
00:27:21,374 --> 00:27:24,708
It was just that I was
a little bit more practical.

512
00:27:24,710 --> 00:27:27,911
I knew there was
a lot of internal tension,

513
00:27:27,913 --> 00:27:32,317
and the friendship
and the partnership started to unravel.

514
00:27:32,318 --> 00:27:34,051
Probably the biggest...

515
00:27:34,053 --> 00:27:38,255
the biggest actual fight that we had
was an issue of Static.

516
00:27:40,426 --> 00:27:42,826
The incident
that happened was

517
00:27:42,828 --> 00:27:46,231
that we wanted to show safe sex
on a Static Shock cover.

518
00:27:46,232 --> 00:27:49,166
It sounds like something
we'd have an argument about.

519
00:27:49,168 --> 00:27:50,768
The way we were going to do that

520
00:27:50,770 --> 00:27:54,770
was to show condoms
in a wrapper on the cover.

521
00:27:54,874 --> 00:27:57,741
On the cover, he's
making out with his girlfriend.

522
00:27:57,743 --> 00:28:01,311
There's no flesh exposed,
but they're going at it pretty good.

523
00:28:01,313 --> 00:28:04,081
The idea
of a black teenage superhero

524
00:28:04,083 --> 00:28:08,787
having sex with his girlfriend and
using cond... That was a lot for DC.

525
00:28:08,788 --> 00:28:14,054
You can imagine. There was a lot of
Pepto-Bismol being had at DC that day.

526
00:28:14,089 --> 00:28:16,427
I remember there was one...
one issue of one of the books

527
00:28:16,429 --> 00:28:19,831
where we had a fairly energetic
disagreement about the cover art,

528
00:28:19,832 --> 00:28:24,235
and we asked them to make changes.
They were very frustrated by that.

529
00:28:24,236 --> 00:28:27,405
That was a huge, huge fight,
and I think a lot of it,

530
00:28:27,406 --> 00:28:30,175
it wasn't about sexuality.
It was about black sexuality.

531
00:28:30,176 --> 00:28:31,509
He didn't like it at all.

532
00:28:31,510 --> 00:28:35,447
You know, when they decided to censor
that particular issue of Static Shock,

533
00:28:35,448 --> 00:28:39,552
he fought back.
He fought back pretty hard.

534
00:28:40,819 --> 00:28:43,187
Even though they said
that we couldn't do it,

535
00:28:43,189 --> 00:28:46,156
somehow in between the stage
of where they approved it

536
00:28:46,158 --> 00:28:49,294
and when we sent it to the printer
after getting it back,

537
00:28:49,295 --> 00:28:51,128
somewhere between
Dwayne McDuffie

538
00:28:51,130 --> 00:28:52,830
and whoever else
was working with him,

539
00:28:52,832 --> 00:28:54,998
through some kind
of bait and switch,

540
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,367
the condom
was back on the cover,

541
00:28:57,369 --> 00:29:01,369
but that's not what
the issue was ever, really.

542
00:29:01,373 --> 00:29:04,808
The issue was the editorial
that accompanied the cover,

543
00:29:04,810 --> 00:29:06,744
and the editorial page started talking

544
00:29:06,746 --> 00:29:10,114
about the injustices
that were done to us,

545
00:29:10,116 --> 00:29:15,987
and how was it racist to not
show condoms on the cover,

546
00:29:16,022 --> 00:29:18,789
and this and that and the other,

547
00:29:18,791 --> 00:29:22,827
and I think that people at DC,
Paul and other people,

548
00:29:22,828 --> 00:29:25,296
got very upset at that,
reading about themselves

549
00:29:25,297 --> 00:29:29,133
in an editorial page of Milestone
and how unfair they were,

550
00:29:29,135 --> 00:29:31,817
because they had been paying
for this whole thing.

551
00:29:32,303 --> 00:29:35,840
I felt it was their money.
I really did.

552
00:29:35,841 --> 00:29:38,442
I felt it was unnecessary.

553
00:29:38,444 --> 00:29:40,477
I felt we could have gotten
what we wanted

554
00:29:40,479 --> 00:29:44,381
without going through the "Let's put
it on the cover based on principle,"

555
00:29:44,383 --> 00:29:48,383
because what happened
after that was... not good.

556
00:29:50,221 --> 00:29:54,959
Mysteriously, payments that
were due to Milestone kind of dried up,

557
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,327
and we kind of had a
little bit of trouble.

558
00:29:57,329 --> 00:30:02,533
Paul's response was...
dispassionate and direct.

559
00:30:02,535 --> 00:30:05,169
"If this is the way you feel
about how we treat you,

560
00:30:05,171 --> 00:30:07,504
then we're going
to no longer treat you

561
00:30:07,506 --> 00:30:09,339
like we were treating you before.

562
00:30:09,341 --> 00:30:11,141
We will treat you in this new way,"

563
00:30:11,143 --> 00:30:15,884
and that's when things became
very hard for Milestone.

564
00:30:16,481 --> 00:30:21,521
Soon after that cover incident
is when I left,

565
00:30:21,821 --> 00:30:24,054
and didn't discuss it with anybody,

566
00:30:24,056 --> 00:30:27,357
and it was just... it was just
a very bad situation for me,

567
00:30:27,359 --> 00:30:31,359
handled not very well by me.

568
00:30:31,597 --> 00:30:33,497
Derek, I don't know what Derek said.

569
00:30:33,499 --> 00:30:38,001
I think he was disappointed,
because I just made the move.

570
00:30:38,003 --> 00:30:40,070
There was no hard,
long discussion with Derek,

571
00:30:40,072 --> 00:30:43,240
because at that time,
I wasn't having any conversations

572
00:30:43,242 --> 00:30:44,842
with Dwayne and Derek
about anything.

573
00:30:46,511 --> 00:30:48,612
My friendship with Michael continued,

574
00:30:48,614 --> 00:30:53,501
but not with Dwayne and Derek,
not at all.

575
00:30:57,188 --> 00:31:00,022
I would talk to Dwayne on
the phone every once in a while.

576
00:31:00,057 --> 00:31:02,494
"Hey, man, how's it going?"
and everything, and he would say,

577
00:31:02,558 --> 00:31:05,629
"Oh, man, it's always a fight."

578
00:31:05,931 --> 00:31:09,931
At the time,
the whole comics industry was...

579
00:31:09,935 --> 00:31:14,217
not collapsing, but it was definitely
changing and imploding and shrinking.

580
00:31:14,252 --> 00:31:17,242
I mean, Derek was doing the best he
could to keep everything together.

581
00:31:17,243 --> 00:31:21,545
Milestone was dealing
with the challenges of the industry.

582
00:31:21,547 --> 00:31:24,114
They ended up moving
to DC Comics

583
00:31:24,116 --> 00:31:26,450
and working
out of DC Comics' offices,

584
00:31:26,452 --> 00:31:29,286
but once you're doing that, it's over.

585
00:31:29,288 --> 00:31:35,225
The Milestone line, along with a
number of other lines, were cut.

586
00:31:35,227 --> 00:31:36,894
I don't know whether
we broke the news to them

587
00:31:36,896 --> 00:31:39,564
or they broke the news to us.

588
00:31:39,964 --> 00:31:44,152
We just weren't able to make
it work in the marketplace.

589
00:31:46,916 --> 00:31:49,573
I think that they just
ran into losing sales,

590
00:31:49,575 --> 00:31:53,575
and "These guys are difficult
to work with anyway."

591
00:31:53,612 --> 00:31:56,113
At the time when... when
they were considering

592
00:31:56,114 --> 00:31:58,615
what to do with Milestone,
that was part of it.

593
00:31:58,617 --> 00:32:03,487
It pissed me off because
sometimes they don't know what...

594
00:32:03,489 --> 00:32:08,692
what was missing until you
jump up and scream loud enough,

595
00:32:08,694 --> 00:32:14,100
and that's what was the bummer
about Milestone stopping,

596
00:32:14,135 --> 00:32:18,033
was... was there was
a voice that was silenced.

597
00:32:18,270 --> 00:32:24,675
It's sad, because Milestone is the
greatest thing to ever happen...

598
00:32:24,677 --> 00:32:27,077
Milestone's the greatest thing
to ever happen to comics

599
00:32:27,079 --> 00:32:29,647
since the Black Panther.

600
00:32:33,184 --> 00:32:36,620
I think when you see comics
fans talk about Milestone now,

601
00:32:36,622 --> 00:32:40,223
they often talk about Milestone
as some sort of failed experiment.

602
00:32:40,225 --> 00:32:43,226
It's always been my argument
that Milestone comics didn't fail,

603
00:32:43,228 --> 00:32:45,696
but that comics failed Milestone.

604
00:32:45,698 --> 00:32:48,665
Milestone is not a failure
by any stretch of the imagination.

605
00:32:48,667 --> 00:32:52,436
There's a lot of folks
who not only got their career started,

606
00:32:52,438 --> 00:32:58,575
but got a crash course in storytelling
and business from Milestone.

607
00:32:58,577 --> 00:33:02,045
How many people
did Milestone Media hire?

608
00:33:02,047 --> 00:33:05,349
How many artists got
their start at Milestone Media?

609
00:33:05,351 --> 00:33:07,451
How many writers?
How many illustrators?

610
00:33:07,453 --> 00:33:10,558
That's passed on
through all of these artists,

611
00:33:10,593 --> 00:33:12,718
probably hundreds of artists.

612
00:33:13,591 --> 00:33:15,492
Milestone was not
a failure to me

613
00:33:15,494 --> 00:33:17,294
because the things that we created,

614
00:33:17,296 --> 00:33:20,978
and the characters that we created
are forever.

615
00:33:27,373 --> 00:33:29,306
About three years after
Milestone stopped publishing it,

616
00:33:29,308 --> 00:33:35,612
a producer pal of mine pitched the
idea of doing Static to Kids' WB.

617
00:33:35,614 --> 00:33:37,614
Basically, I got a phone call, and said,

618
00:33:37,615 --> 00:33:40,513
"Would you mind if we did
Static as a TV show?"

619
00:33:40,548 --> 00:33:42,619
and, you know,
I thought about it and said yes.

620
00:33:43,655 --> 00:33:48,458
Static Shock the animated series
was an extraordinary success.

621
00:33:48,460 --> 00:33:51,461
The first day
that Static was on television,

622
00:33:51,463 --> 00:33:55,565
more people saw it than read
all of 45 issues combined.

623
00:33:55,567 --> 00:34:01,305
The creative process
was mostly Denys and Dwayne.

624
00:34:01,340 --> 00:34:05,709
At that point,
they patched things up a little bit.

625
00:34:05,711 --> 00:34:08,813
I remember talking to Dwayne,
and he said, "You know what?

626
00:34:08,814 --> 00:34:12,814
There are some things
I can never forgive Denys for,

627
00:34:13,085 --> 00:34:15,619
but I can sure as hell work with him."

628
00:34:15,621 --> 00:34:18,856
We worked together on Static
Shock, and once again we got along famously

629
00:34:18,857 --> 00:34:22,092
professionally, but personally,
it was a lil... it was a little trickier.

630
00:34:22,094 --> 00:34:24,294
Because I was friends
with everybody,

631
00:34:24,296 --> 00:34:28,065
even when people weren't getting along,
I was talking to everybody.

632
00:34:28,067 --> 00:34:33,070
After the success of Static Shock,
Dwayne and Denys, I hear,

633
00:34:33,072 --> 00:34:36,573
were talking about a reboot
of the whole Milestone line.

634
00:34:36,575 --> 00:34:40,394
I felt it was important
because these characters

635
00:34:40,395 --> 00:34:43,180
needed to be seen again
by an entirely new generation,

636
00:34:43,182 --> 00:34:47,184
by the generation that
missed them and by their kids.

637
00:34:47,186 --> 00:34:50,287
That's when the germ of the idea
about bringing it back started.

638
00:34:50,289 --> 00:34:53,123
I was excited to say,
"Okay, let's get together,"

639
00:34:53,125 --> 00:34:56,126
again, we're scheming
on how to revive Milestone,

640
00:34:56,128 --> 00:35:00,412
the whole thing,
and then it was over.

641
00:35:04,402 --> 00:35:07,137
I get a call from his wife

642
00:35:07,139 --> 00:35:10,240
saying that Dwayne
was in the hospital.

643
00:35:10,242 --> 00:35:13,511
Dwayne had had a heart attack.
He had surgery.

644
00:35:13,512 --> 00:35:16,163
He had come out of surgery...

645
00:35:16,681 --> 00:35:21,151
So we all thought he was
going to be fine and that he was fine.

646
00:35:21,153 --> 00:35:22,786
He sent me an email
from the hospital,

647
00:35:22,788 --> 00:35:24,488
and it was picture of Static Shock,

648
00:35:24,490 --> 00:35:28,266
the action figure
that was going be produced...

649
00:35:29,727 --> 00:35:33,763
"Look what we created.
Look what we did,"

650
00:35:33,765 --> 00:35:37,367
and then the next day,
he was dead.

651
00:35:38,536 --> 00:35:41,364
It was like...

652
00:35:43,708 --> 00:35:49,051
...somebody just hit me
and took all the air out of me.

653
00:35:49,647 --> 00:35:55,617
I turned on the computer,
and it said Dwayne McDuffie was dead.

654
00:35:55,654 --> 00:35:59,356
You know, I always
thought that Dwayne didn't realize

655
00:35:59,358 --> 00:36:03,358
how much of an impact
his work had on people.

656
00:36:03,662 --> 00:36:05,729
I mean, I can say
beyond a shadow of a doubt,

657
00:36:05,731 --> 00:36:08,365
Dwayne McDuffie,
I owe a massive debt to.

658
00:36:08,367 --> 00:36:11,301
What he has given to comics,

659
00:36:11,303 --> 00:36:16,122
what he has given to animation,
can't be overstated.

660
00:36:16,841 --> 00:36:21,597
So many people
coming to us and saying,

661
00:36:21,632 --> 00:36:27,484
"This needs to come back.
There's still a void."

662
00:36:27,486 --> 00:36:29,786
And it was
that pivotal moment

663
00:36:29,788 --> 00:36:34,524
where you just go,
"Well, we just can't let it end."

664
00:36:41,266 --> 00:36:46,536
We had a memorial service
shortly after Dwayne's death.

665
00:36:46,538 --> 00:36:49,206
I was fine
until I saw Dwayne's mom.

666
00:36:49,208 --> 00:36:52,542
When I saw his mom,
and we started talking about her son,

667
00:36:52,544 --> 00:36:54,678
that's when I broke down,

668
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,248
and she knew what kind of
rocky relationship we had...

669
00:36:58,250 --> 00:37:01,586
but none of that mattered, you know?
None of that mattered.

670
00:37:01,587 --> 00:37:04,455
What mattered was what we had
done, and what we had shared,

671
00:37:04,456 --> 00:37:08,456
and the devastating loss.

672
00:37:08,694 --> 00:37:11,828
People were
starting to disperse,

673
00:37:11,830 --> 00:37:19,267
and I called Denys and Reggie,
and I remember saying,

674
00:37:19,304 --> 00:37:24,808
"We can't let this die.
This is too important."

675
00:37:24,810 --> 00:37:27,877
That's when the germ of the
idea for bringing it back started.

676
00:37:27,879 --> 00:37:34,015
It was time.
Reggie Hudlin said, "We should talk."

677
00:37:34,453 --> 00:37:36,586
"We can't just let it end like this.

678
00:37:36,588 --> 00:37:39,322
We can't let it end
at a memorial service."

679
00:37:39,324 --> 00:37:43,994
Denys shook his head
as he's always shook his head, "I'm in."

680
00:37:43,996 --> 00:37:47,798
I called Derek
two days after.

681
00:37:47,799 --> 00:37:50,268
We kind of patched things up
and we talked about it,

682
00:37:50,269 --> 00:37:52,969
and I apologized for any of my...

683
00:37:52,971 --> 00:37:57,617
miscalculations on how...
how I should have behaved,

684
00:37:57,652 --> 00:37:59,743
and he accepted my apology,

685
00:37:59,745 --> 00:38:04,111
and I really meant it,
because Dwayne's gone...

686
00:38:04,616 --> 00:38:08,485
and it won't be the same,
but to me...

687
00:38:08,487 --> 00:38:12,487
it's just as imperative now to...
to... to build this again,

688
00:38:12,991 --> 00:38:15,492
and he agreed.

689
00:38:15,494 --> 00:38:17,294
Got some huge news at the Con.

690
00:38:17,296 --> 00:38:18,863
Milestone Comics is coming back,

691
00:38:18,864 --> 00:38:22,399
and Reginald Hudlin
is part of all of this, and...

692
00:38:22,401 --> 00:38:26,736
After Dwayne McDuffie passed
away, I met with Reggie Hudlin,

693
00:38:26,738 --> 00:38:30,040
who had been invited into
the Milestone Media Group,

694
00:38:30,042 --> 00:38:32,375
so we took a number
of meetings with him and Denys,

695
00:38:32,377 --> 00:38:35,817
and really just talked about the future
of Milestone and these characters,

696
00:38:35,852 --> 00:38:40,147
and we saw that there was
an incredible missed opportunity

697
00:38:40,182 --> 00:38:41,738
not having
these characters out there.

698
00:38:41,773 --> 00:38:45,456
Everyone at DC was excited about
the idea of bringing it back to life.

699
00:38:45,457 --> 00:38:47,924
This is going to be
a new Milestone Media.

700
00:38:47,926 --> 00:38:51,061
It's not a matter of doing
what we did before.

701
00:38:51,063 --> 00:38:55,063
It's about defining what
Milestone Media means now.

702
00:38:56,368 --> 00:38:57,568
Hardware is making
another appearance,

703
00:38:57,569 --> 00:39:01,738
Blood Syndicate,
we're relaunching Static Shock.

704
00:39:01,740 --> 00:39:03,573
We're relaunching Icon and Rocket.

705
00:39:03,575 --> 00:39:04,909
But the most exciting part

706
00:39:04,910 --> 00:39:07,711
is that we have a whole bunch
of new characters

707
00:39:07,713 --> 00:39:11,381
that people are not ready for
and they have not expected.

708
00:39:12,083 --> 00:39:16,843
Who would have imagined that
there would be so many changes in fandom,

709
00:39:16,878 --> 00:39:21,022
where you have people really
demanding diversity and inclusivity,

710
00:39:21,057 --> 00:39:23,059
so the industry has changed
quite a bit,

711
00:39:23,061 --> 00:39:26,613
and, frankly, it was the right
time for DC to do this right now.

712
00:39:28,033 --> 00:39:30,133
There's definitely
been an evolution and progress

713
00:39:30,135 --> 00:39:31,535
since I was a child.

714
00:39:31,536 --> 00:39:34,070
Not only have we come such a long way

715
00:39:34,072 --> 00:39:38,649
that Black Panther,
the movie is even being made.

716
00:39:38,684 --> 00:39:41,550
It's going to be a tent-pole movie.

717
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:53,929
I'm so glad we're making
the Black Panther movie now,

718
00:39:53,964 --> 00:39:57,060
and it's going to be just
the way I had envisioned it,

719
00:39:57,062 --> 00:39:59,473
and I can't wait to see it.

720
00:40:05,002 --> 00:40:06,669
I'm still not sure what I am.

721
00:40:06,671 --> 00:40:10,473
To have Luke Cage on Netflix is,
that's some powerful [bleep].

722
00:40:10,475 --> 00:40:12,742
When I heard they were
making the Luke Cage,

723
00:40:12,744 --> 00:40:14,744
you know, I was a little
apprehensive at first.

724
00:40:14,746 --> 00:40:18,182
It's you.
Yeah, it's you.

725
00:40:18,183 --> 00:40:21,411
Sweet Christmas.

726
00:40:23,422 --> 00:40:25,755
I've watched little black kids
dressed up as Thor

727
00:40:25,757 --> 00:40:28,658
and Captain America and Batman
and Superman for years.

728
00:40:28,660 --> 00:40:33,630
Last year, I saw little white kids
dressed up as the Black Panther.

729
00:40:33,632 --> 00:40:36,966
That, to me, is way more progress

730
00:40:36,968 --> 00:40:39,569
than anything I... I can...
I can quantify.

731
00:40:41,205 --> 00:40:43,606
I don't see any way
you can look this renaissance

732
00:40:43,608 --> 00:40:46,075
not paying homage
to Milestone Media.

733
00:40:46,077 --> 00:40:48,778
They made it okay
to be black and dream.

734
00:40:48,780 --> 00:40:50,747
United we fight!

735
00:40:50,749 --> 00:40:54,684
This is a world that needs
Milestone Comics in it.

736
00:40:54,686 --> 00:40:57,620
It needs that example.

737
00:40:59,023 --> 00:41:03,023
Milestone was a badge of honor.

738
00:41:03,562 --> 00:41:08,424
It represented a change
in the industry.

739
00:41:08,567 --> 00:41:13,833
I must say, it's the most exciting
thing that I've ever done in my life,

740
00:41:13,868 --> 00:41:17,990
other than growing up next to Denys

741
00:41:18,488 --> 00:41:22,743
with a stack of comic books
from my brother's collection.

742
00:41:22,781 --> 00:41:28,852
It's, um... it's been quite a journey.
It's been quite a journey.

743
00:41:28,854 --> 00:41:32,822
Being able to work with
Derek again means more to me

744
00:41:32,824 --> 00:41:36,493
than, you know, anyone
could possibly understand.

745
00:41:36,495 --> 00:41:38,095
It's...

746
00:41:38,863 --> 00:41:42,799
It's as it should be,
because we started this together,

747
00:41:42,801 --> 00:41:46,069
so, you know, we're going
to continue this together.

748
00:41:51,719 --> 00:41:57,216
sync & correction by f1nc0
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