Comic Review #5: Icon #1 (1993)

 

I've always been curious about Milestone Media the imprint that DC had during the early 1990s. Created by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle because they felt that minorities were not getting represented well in comic books. Yet if you were to listen to those comicsgate fuckheads that ONLY became a problem in 2017 when scary women ended up working at Marvel. I hate to be the bearer of bad news to social conservatives of today but the issues people have been talking about have been issues for decades, which is really sad as fuck you know? This is also a great comic to show the comicsgate crowd who would yell and scream about no politics in comics about how there were already politics in some comic stories way before fucking 2017 when you dumb shits shit all over the place.

I'll move away from comicsgate because I don't want to rant about them for another set of blog posts. I just want to talk about how much I really enjoyed Icon #1 (1993). I can't say if the quality of this series kept up but I can say that Dwayne McDuffie never got the appreciation that he should have. I'm glad he's getting more and more appreciation now but man it's a great shame that he died before that happened. I don't think I've gone away from a story he had some kind of hand in (He was also a part of the Justice League cartoon in the 2000s which was cool and good) that I didn't really enjoy. His first work that I'm aware of was Damage Control, I won't get too much into Damage Control because I clearly feel like talking about that series later on in this little column of mine. He worked on other Marvel projects like a Deathlok series before Milestone Media.

I'm sure there's a lot to the history of Milestone Media that I don't know so I'm just going to get into the meat and potatoes of this issue. Icon stars an alien who ends up crashing onto earth. This is pretty much the only thing he has in common with the Man of Steel, Superman. He is found by a black slave in America in 1839. Thankfully his space pod lets him change appearance and well what she sees is a black baby. He's still alive over one hundred and fifty four years later and is a pretty conservative lawyer. I guess doing boot straps for that long would cause anyone to become conservative you know?

In comes Raquel Erwin, a spunky teenager. She is brought to his house when her friends peer pressure her into going there to well rob Augustus Freeman IV (which is well Icon's alter ego and I can't think of a more 1800s name than that). Augustus does not take nice to being robbed and well makes sure that the robbers never do it again by showing off his super powers. Also uh scaring the shit out of them so they won't tell anyone. I do get the feeling that this will bite him in the buns later on. Raquel comes back a few days later to get him to use his powers to help and also let her become a superhero too. He even brings up how people need to PULL THEM UP BY THEIR BOOTSTRAPS and Raquel is all like "Yeah, that's easy when they already know how to fly!" I like this kid. This will probably be the ongoing thing for a little while, his conservatism vs her liberalism. She even gets several more digs in on him during this issue.

I really enjoyed Icon #1. I want to read more. I do not want to read this comic on the computer. I do not like digital comics. Or reading them from some cheap ass website. I want these comics in my collection. Hell just on THIS comic alone I want the rest of Milestones comics in my collection. Milestone lasted from 1993 to 1997, only four years, but there have been so many rumblings over the past years that DC really wants to bring them back, and I can easily see why. A LOT of people want more stories to involve individuals that aren't just white dudes. It's kinda sad to see them just languish in obscurity. Augustus and Raquel are already a lot of fun. It has some killer art from both Jimmy Palmiotti (on the cover) and M.D. Bright (inside the comic!). 

FINAL VERDICT: I totally recommend this comic book. I am so going to be on the look out for Milestone stuff on the internet and even around where I live. However I've collected comic from these stores for 17 going on 18 years and I've only seen one issue of Static (yes Static Shock, the animated character started here!). So not great on that. I imagine portnoyd will poo-poo this comic like a big turd.