ST. LOUIS – His movies inspired generations, his directing and producing are unmatched. East St. Louis native Reggie Hudlin has proven to Hollywood that having black narratives at the forefront of storytelling is crucial.
“When I first made House Party they said black teen movies won’t work, no one wants to see that, ” said Hudlin. “Then we made the movie and it made 10 times our money back. It was one of the most profitable movies of that decade”.
Before he created classic films like House Party in the 1990s or becoming the first Black producer for the Emmy Awards, Hudlin struck a cord by breathing life into one of the most successful superheroes of all time. He wrote the first 38 issues of volume 4 of “Black Panther” and continued to change how Hollywood viewed Black content.
“After writing for the Black Panther comic book I suggested that we should make the Black Panther into a movie. They said, we’ve never done a black superhero film, then boom it makes $1 billion,” said Hudlin.
Hudlin spoke honestly about his experiences in Hollywood and the entertainment industry’s long history of doubts when it comes to many black filmmakers, executives, and creators.
“It has been a challenge,” he said. I have been the “first” black man to do a lot in this business. You have to have mental discipline. You can not wait for someone to tell you can do it, you have to just do it.”
He explained while Black filmmakers are more celebrated in Hollywood in the 21st century, there’s still a lot of work to be done.
“I’m not discouraged when people say they don’t know about my ideas or work, that is always what I always hear right before I have a giant success,” said Hudlin.
Hudlin is not only a testament of strength and courage he’s a special beacon of hope that all black Americans are superheroes too.
Earlier this month the City of East St. Louis celebrated the success of Reggie Hudlin. Some members of the community took to social media and showed great honor to the modern Black Film Movement pioneer.
Today DC Comics released the digital edition of Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0, the expanded version of the comic that originally debuted at the Fandome event last year. Along with new story pages, the issue also features ads for the three forthcoming new Milestone Returns titles – Static, Icon & Rocket, and Hardware – that reveal their creative teams. The house ads also reveal that each series, announced as digital-first earlier this month, will be available same-day on the DC Universe Infinite service.
Check out the house ads featuring the newly-announced Milestone Returns creative teams, along with the descriptions for each series from DC Comics:
he new six-issue Static series will be written by Vita Ayala, with art by ChrisCross and Nikolas Draper-Ivey. Khary Randolph will provide covers for the series, which debuts in April.
IN THIS MONTHLY MINISERIES (20 PAGES PER ISSUE), BULLIED NERD VIRGIL IS GIFTED WITH INCREDIBLE ELECTROMAGNETIC POWERS IN THE WAKE OF THE BIG BANG. NOW HE FINDS HIMSELF CAUGHT BETWEEN AN OVER-MILITARIZED POLICE RESPONSE TO BLACK KIDS GETTING SPECIAL ABILITIES AND SOME OF THOSE KIDS WHO ARE USING THOSE POWERS IN DANGEROUS AND DESTRUCTIVE WAYS. BUT WHEN THE BULLIES WHO TERRORIZED HIM BEFORE THE BIG BANG SHOW UP WITH POWERS OF THEIR OWN, CAN STATIC BE THE HERO THAT DAKOTA NEEDS?
The new Icon & Rocket series, arriving in June, will be written by Reginald Hudlin & Leon Chills, with art by Doug Braithwaite and covers by Taurin Clarke.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SUPERHEROES ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE? WHEN RAQUEL ERVIN BROKE INTO THE HOME OF A WEALTHY BLACK LAWYER, SHE DIDN’T EXPECT TO LEARN THAT HE WAS A NEARLY OMNIPOTENT ALIEN, LOST IN DESPAIR OF EVER RETURNING HOME—AND HE DIDN’T EXPECT THAT SHE WOULD INSPIRE HIM TO EMERGE FROM THE SHADOWS AND BECOME A FORCE FOR CHANGE ON THE PLANET HE’S TRAPPED ON. WHAT STARTS OUT AS A SIMPLE REQUEST TO STOP THE DRUG TRAFFICKING IN HER NEIGHBORHOOD TURNS INTO A MISSION TO ELIMINATE THE DRUG TRADE WORLDWIDE. HOWEVER, THIS ACT OF HEROISM HAS UNEXPECTED CONSEQUENCES, MAKING THE PAIR THE TWO MOST WANTED CRIMINALS IN THE WORLD WHEN ACTUALLY STOPPING CRIME LEADS TO THE COLLAPSE OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY!
The third series, Hardware, will come from the creative team of Brandon Thomas, Denys Cowan, and Bill Sienkiewicz. Artist Mateus Mahanini will provide covers when the series arrives in August.
ALL HIS LIFE, YOUNG PRODIGY CURTIS METCALF WAS TOLD HE WAS SPECIAL, AND THAT HE WOULD SAVE THE WORLD. BUT IT TURNS OUT THAT ALVA INDUSTRIES WANTED HIS BEAUTIFUL MIND FOR SOMETHING A LOT LESS NOBLE THAN THAT—AND HIS TECHNOLOGY HAS MADE HIM THE FALL GUY FOR THE TRAGEDY OF THE BIG BANG. BUT CURTIS IS SMART ENOUGH TO NOT GO OUT LIKE THAT—AND SMART ENOUGH TO STEAL HIS INVENTIONS BACK FROM ALVA AND START THE PROCESS OF REMAKING THE WORLD HIS WAY.
The creative teams feature a mix of new talent and returning Milestone creators, signaling that the Milestone Returns initiative will be as much about pushing the imprint forward as celebrating its history. The decision to release each series same-day on DCU Infinite is also a bold one, and, along with today’s earlier news about the Batman/FortNite crossover also being available same-day on the service, is further incentive to drive new subscribers to the service.
The first issue of the new, monthly six-issue Static miniseries arrives digitally and on DC Universe Infinite on Monday, April 12th.
When Marvel Comics first launched the character of Black Panther, it was in the July 1966 issue of “Fantastic Four.” As explained in this exclusive clip from the upcoming Disney Plus documentary “Marvel’s Behind the Mask,” premiering Feb. 12, the character of T’Challa, the King of Wakanda, was presented just like any other Marvel superhero — attention wasn’t paid to the color of his skin, but rather to the supreme quality of his abilities.
“The first Black superhero, Black Panther, comes out perfect,” says writer-director Reginald Hudlin, who wrote a run of Black Panther comics in the 2000s. “He’s this cool, elegant, handsome guy who’s just got it on lock.”
But as the clip also demonstrates, there’s one essential element of Black Panther that was glaringly incorrect: His skin is grey, not brown.
“They got so much right, as far as making it just this inevitability that there’d be a Black superhero,” “Behind the Mask” director Michael Jacobs tells Variety. “And yet they still hadn’t caught up yet in, like, just the pure, functional side of making comics. It still wasn’t being produced in a way that represented the rich hue of a true brown color. We see that sort of back and forth along the way, throughout their history, trying to get the lived experience into the comic, but then also realizing the shortcomings of that when it hasn’t been fully worked out yet.”
As initially conceived, “Behind the Mask” was only going to be about the history of Black Panther and T’Challa in Marvel Comics, in anticipation of the release of the feature film “Black Panther.” But as Jacobs and producers Chris Gary and Ryan Simon quickly realized in their research, the full history of Marvel’s efforts to break ground with representation — in race, gender and sexual orientation — was much richer and more complicated than just a single character.
“It became really clear that there was a lot more that Marvel had done as a creator of content to address all the ways that people can be othered or outside of acceptance,” says Gary.
In “Behind the Mask,” for example, we see Marvel guru Stan Lee in his heyday ensuring that background characters in the comics represented the full gamut of racial and ethnic diversity, rather than just a sea of white faces. The comics also included many female heroes, and the relaunch of the X-Men in the 1970s became a clear metaphor for the LGBTQ experience in the U.S.
At the same time, however, Marvel’s first explicitly gay character, Northstar, wasn’t allowed to have a boyfriend for years, and at one point was revealed to be, no joke, part fairy. Many of the early female superheroes weren’t nearly as complex as their male counterparts, and they were often drawn as sexualized objects. And along with coloring Black characters as grey rather than brown, for years Marvel used yellow for the skin tone of its Asian characters.
The latter was an especially shocking discovery for Gary, who is Black and has children of Black and Asian heritage. “I don’t know how I would explain that to my kids,” he says. “That’s a conversation you don’t really want to have, but it’s a necessary conversation.”
Rather than shy away from its less than admirable history, the “Behind the Mask” filmmakers say Marvel’s executives were on board with a warts-and-all look at the company’s efforts with representation. “They were complete partners,” says Gary. “They accepted the fact that we were going to make some things uncomfortable.” The company even opened up its vault so the filmmakers could access the full range of its history.
“There were certain things that we needed to scan that weren’t part of the digital history, that were important to the storytelling,” says Simon. “We needed to get that older imagery out of the vault.”
None of the filmmakers counted themselves as die-hard comic book fans, but the experience of excavating through so much of Marvel’s history left them enormously appreciative for the people who worked to bring so many now-iconic superheroes to life.
“So much of the pop-culture imagination around Marvel is now through the movies,” says Jacobs. “This is a nice reminder that that intellectual property was created a long time ago by some really smart, intelligent people who had amazing ideas and amazing artistry and narrative strength. … They did fall into stereotypes, and they did make mistakes. But there was still something uniquely special about making these comic books and creating these characters.”
Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0 Arrives Digitally February 26 and in Comic Book Stores on May 25
Includes New Content Reintroducing the Events of the Big Bang and More
2021 “Milestone Mondays” Debuting in April with New Digital-First Miniseries: Static, Icon & Rocket, Hardware
BURBANK, CA (February 12, 2021) – Following 2020’s surprise panel at DC FanDome Hall of Heroes, DC today announced more details on the return of the fan-favorite Milestone universe of characters from the city of Dakota.
“Since the FanDome panel, Reggie [Hudlin], Denys [Cowan], and our editorial team have been working incredibly hard to bring this new Milestone to life,” said DC publisher and chief creative officer Jim Lee. “It’s been exciting to see fresh and contemporary takes on the Dakota universe coming together; I think that both new fans and old will be pleased with the results.”
In addition to being one of the co-founders of Milestone Media, Denys Cowan is a legendary comic book artist with a prolific DC pedigree, providing art for series such as The Question, The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage, Batman Black & White, and Dominique Laveau: Voodoo Child. Reginald “Reggie” Hudlin is a partner in Milestone Media, as well as an Oscar- and Emmy-nominated film and television producer and director. His comic book credits include award-winning runs on Black Panther and Spider-Man for Marvel.
Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0
The excitement kicks off February 26 with a digital-first “extended cut” of the Milestone Returns #0 one-shot. Originally available only during 2020’s DC FanDome Hall of Heroes and Explore the Multiverse, this updated edition also arrives in comic book stores on May 25. Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0 combines the original 17-page comic with an additional 24 pages of completely new material written by Reginald Hudlin and drawn by artists Denys Cowan, Nikolas Draper-Ivey, Bill Sienkiewicz, and more.
This added content includes a retelling of the events of the Big Bang, the police-brutality protest that unleashed a sudden wave of superpowers in the city of Dakota. This $4.99 “director’s cut” also features content introducing the full new creative teams behind Static, Icon & Rocket, and Hardware, the digital-first series spawned by this new Big Bang, along with a reveal of their issue #1 covers.
“The response from fans after the DC FanDome panel was overwhelming, and that makes this news even more exciting for Denys and me,” said Hudlin. “Introducing these ‘seasons’ of Static, Icon, Rocket, and Hardware is just the beginning. There will be more stories with these favorite characters to come, and fans will see appearances from the legendary Blood Syndicate, setting the stage for an explosive Milestone event later in the year.”
In addition, DC’s future plans include the long-awaited launch of Earth M, a new line of comics conceived by Cowan and Hudlin, which will include the return of Duo, introduced to readers in Milestone Returns “#0, and other characters who will also appear in Milestone comics.
FullFuStatic Digital-First Miniseries
Following in April, fans can expect new adventures of Dakota teenager Virgil Hawkins in a six-issue Static digital-first series.
In this monthly miniseries (20 pages per issue), bullied nerd Virgil is gifted with incredible electromagnetic powers in the wake of the Big Bang. Now he finds himself caught between an over-militarized police response to Black kids getting special abilities and some of those kids who are using those powers in dangerous and destructive ways. But when the bullies who terrorized him before the Big Bang show up with powers of their own, can Static be the hero that Dakota needs?
Static launches Monday, April 12. Each 20-page issue will be available on participating digital platforms for $3.99.
Icon & Rocket Digital-First Miniseries
The return of Augustus Freeman and Raquel Ervin is also in the works, with a new series featuring Icon and Rocket.
What happens when superheroes actually make a difference? When Raquel Ervin broke into the home of a wealthy Black lawyer, she didn’t expect to learn that he was a nearly omnipotent alien, lost in despair of ever returning home—and he didn’t expect that she would inspire him to emerge from the shadows and become a force for change on the planet he’s trapped on. What starts out as a simple request to stop the drug trafficking in her neighborhood turns into a mission to eliminate the drug trade worldwide. However, this act of heroism has unexpected consequences, making the pair the two most wanted criminals in the world when actually stopping crime leads to the collapse of the global economy!
The debut issue of this six-issue monthly series (20 pages each) arrives June 21 for $3.99 per issue.
Hardware Digital-First Miniseries
The relaunch of Milestone would not be complete without some mention of Curtis Metcalf, and beginning August 23, the first wave of new Milestone stories climaxes with the return of Hardware in a new digital-first series. This six-issue monthly series features the return of legendary artist and Milestone cofounder Denys Cowan with Bill Sienkiewicz on the character that completes the foundation of Milestone and the Dakota universe, both past and present.
All his life, young prodigy Curtis Metcalf was told he was special, and that he would save the world. But it turns out that Alva Industries wanted his beautiful mind for something a lot less noble than that—and his technology has made him the fall guy for the tragedy of the Big Bang. But Curtis is smart enough to not go out like that—and smart enough to steal his inventions back from Alva and start the process of remaking the world his way.
“Bringing back Milestone and the Dakota universe with DC has been an amazing journey,” said Cowan. “Getting the chance to do Hardware again with Bill Sienkiewicz is a dream come true. It’s the book that Dwayne McDuffie and I did together at Milestone originally, and I’ve always felt a strong connection to Curtis Metcalf. We can’t wait to bring fans the new adventures of Hardware!”
New issues of this series will be available each month for $3.99.
For more information about DC and the World’s Greatest Super Heroes, please visit the DC website at www.dccomics.com, and follow on social media @DCComics and @thedcnation.
About Milestone Media
Milestone Media is a Black-owned content creation company that produces publishing, motion pictures, television, and other forms of entertainment. The three principals of the company are Denys Cowan, Reginald Hudlin, and Derek Dingle. For more information, go to www.milestone.media.
About DC
DC, a WarnerMedia Company, creates iconic characters, enduring stories, and immersive experiences that inspire and entertain audiences of every generation around the world and is one of the world’s largest publishers of comics and graphic novels. As a creative division, DC is charged with strategically integrating its stories and characters across film, television, consumer products, home entertainment, interactive games, and the DC UNIVERSE INFINITE digital subscription service and community engagement portal. For more information visit dccomics.com and dcuniverseinfinite.com
