REVIEW: New Talent Showcase #1: The Milestone Initiative

One of comic’s most historic imprints shows love to the next generation of creatives with the New Talent Showcase #1: The Milestone Initiative. It’s a collection of 12 short stories featuring the stars of Milestone’s Dakota Universe: Static, Rocket and Icon, Hardware, the Blood Syndicate, and Ebon.

A group of emerging writers and artists get to put their unique spins on these legacy characters. The first is a story by Ashley Allen and stars Milestone’s most popular hero, Static. Young Mr. Hawkins is on his first “date” with Rocket. It’s a nice mix of action, comedy/romance and highlights Static’s signature attributes; his charm, nerdiness, and relatability. The two team-up again in a later tale that is much darker in tone. It features a villain out for revenge pushes Rocket over the edge and into a revenge quest of her own with Static caught in the middle.

Icon, the Dakotaverse’s Superman has the most interesting and controversial history of all of Milestone’s characters. In his original incarnation, he is an alien baby that crashes on Earth, mimics the first human he sees who just so happens to be a slave in the deep south. He doesn’t use his powers to help the oppressed people around him and doesn’t become a hero for decades afterwards. He’s a notoriously cold character who shows minimal humanity (which is fair because he is not a human). In this showcase, two writers attempt to humanize the stoic Icon. One is a touching love story that explains what turned Icon cold and what or who brought him back from the abyss. The other details his early superhero days and again showcases the people that have profoundly impacted him for the better. Two highlights of the entire book.

But the best entry in the showcase revolves around the genius inventor turned superhero, Hardware. “Makings of You” written by Jarrod Pratt has Hardware facing off against a villain that literally hacks his mind. There are striking tones and images dealing with slavery and a man’s deepest darkest fears and feelings of inadequacy. A fantastic mix of powerful writing and powerful art by Damion Hampton, Anthony Fowler Jr, and Hi-Fi. Static also gets an emotional story focusing more on his family. It’s about his parents raising not only a teenager but a young black man who is also a superhero to boot. Writer Jordan Clark does an excellent job of showing how those added burdens affect the people he loves.

The Blood Syndicate get an international spy-style romp in Cuba which is both unexpected and cool. And Syndicate member Aquamaria gets a solo story following her learning on the fly to be a “hero”. The Dakotaverse’s big bad, Ebon gets an arc showing his not-so-evil motivation for the evil things he does. But for all the characters featured, Rocket is the breakout star. She appears in 5 of the 12 stories. She goes solo and teams up with Icon and Static (making them both more interesting). She’s more than Icon’s sidekick here. This may be the start of something big for the smart, powerful, and straight-up cool young heroine.

Besides great storytelling, the showcase features a ton of great artwork. Hardware has never looked better and Petterson Oliveira’s puts together one of the best-looking action sequences in a comic this year in Static and Rocket’s “The Hate You Live” story. For a project featuring so many different artists, there is a great balance struck between differentiating the characters yet making the overall Dakotaverse feel connected visually.

In 1993, Milestone Comics became the first black-owned comic book publisher to hit the mainstream. It was founded by writers and artists Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle to address the lack of African-American representation on the page and behind the scenes. 30 years later, the imprint and its characters are still having an impact in both areas. New Talent Showcase #1: The Milestone Initiative does a great job of honoring the company’s past and its mission while pushing its characters into the future.

Writing – 5 Stars
Art – 4.5 Stars
Coloring – 4 Stars

Overall – 4.5 Stars

Written by; Ashley Allen, Cheryl Lynn Eaton, Jarred Lujan, Greg Burnham, Zipporah Smith, Julio Anta, Morgan Hampton, Jerome Rhett, Nathan Cayanan, Jordan Clark, Dorado Quick

Art by; Yasmin Flores Montanez, Atagun Ilhan, Kameron White, Marcus “Mas Smith, Jarod Pratt, Damion Hampton, Lucas Silviera, Andrea Rosales, Tiah Ankum, Petterson Oliveira, Gregory Maldonado, Miguel C. Hernandez, Charles Stewart III,

Colors by; Bryan Valenza, Bryan Valenza, Luis Guerrero, Luis Guerrero, Hi-Fi, Alex Gumaraes, Andrew Dalhouse, Christopher Sotomayor, Hi-Fi, Michael Atiyeh, Andrew Dalhouse, Nick Filardi

Letters by; Justin Birch, Jame, DC Hopkins

Published by; DC Comics

Author Profile

Christopher R. Ford

Writer, author, and blogger. Published author of three children's books and also writes for the boy Creators For The Culture. Part-time sneaker head, full time nerd.