13 Facts About Milestone Media

Milestone Media is a company best known for creating Milestone Comics, which were published and distributed by DC Comics and the Static Shock animated series.

Christopher Priest participated in the early planning stages of Milestone Media, and was originally slated to become the editor-in-chief of the new company, but left the endeavor for personal reasons before any of Milestone's titles were published.

All Milestone Media titles were set in a continuity dubbed the "Dakotaverse", referring to the fictional midwestern city of Dakota in which most of the early Milestone stories were set.

Milestone Media retained the copyright of their properties and had the final say on all merchandising and licensing deals pertaining to them.

Dwayne McDuffie said that DC held up this agreement even though some of Milestone Media's storylines made them "very uncomfortable" as they were from perspectives that DC weren't used to.

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In 1993, Milestone Media launched its first four titles: Hardware, Icon, Blood Syndicate and Static.

Year later, Milestone Media published its first company-wide crossover, Shadow War, which spawned two more titles: Shadow Cabinet and Xombi.

Milestone Media participated in an intercompany crossover with DC, called "Worlds Collide" in which Metropolis-based superheroes from the DC Universe and Dakota-based superheroes from the Dakotaverse interacted temporarily.

Milestone Media had several advantages in its publishing efforts: Their books were distributed and marketed by one of the "Big Two" comic book publishers, the comics industry had experienced remarkable increases in sales in preceding years, they featured the work of several well-known and critically acclaimed creators, they used a coloring process that gave their books a distinctive look, and they had the potential to appeal to an audience that was not being targeted by other publishers.

Milestone Media cancelled several of its lower-selling series in 1995 and 1996, and aborted plans for several mini-series.

Milestone Media shut down its comic book division in 1997, with some of the remaining ongoing series discontinued in mid-story.

Milestone Media's founders were joined in the company's formative years by young professionals who formed the early production team for the startup company.

The first two non-founder employees of Milestone Media were Matt Wayne, a script and comic writer who became editor, then managing editor; and Christine Gilliam, head of corporate communications.