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Milestone Compendium
Milestone Compendium Four
Static, Hardware, Blood Syndicate, and more. Read the original stories of the characters that became Milestone icons in this massive compendium.
The iconic Milestone line that helped define the 90's are now collected in a beautiful compendium. These brilliant and daring writers and artists brought their own experiences into comics that changed the game forever. Milestone ushered in a culturally diverse mix of superheroes, set in the fictional setting of Dakota, and ushered in the comics that inspired the hit TV series Static Shock. Read the original stories from the Milestone Universe today.
Collects: Blood Syndicate #28-32; Hardware #29-38; Icon #28-37; Static #26-31; Xombi #12-21; Shadow Cabinet #14-17; My Name is Holocaust #1-5; The Long, Hot Summer #1-3.
The iconic Milestone line that helped define the 90's are now collected in a beautiful compendium. These brilliant and daring writers and artists brought their own experiences into comics that changed the game forever. Milestone ushered in a culturally diverse mix of superheroes, set in the fictional setting of Dakota, and ushered in the comics that inspired the hit TV series Static Shock. Read the original stories from the Milestone Universe today.
Collects: Blood Syndicate #28-32; Hardware #29-38; Icon #28-37; Static #26-31; Xombi #12-21; Shadow Cabinet #14-17; My Name is Holocaust #1-5; The Long, Hot Summer #1-3.
- GenresComics
1304 pages, Paperback
First published June 17, 2025
1 person is currently reading
15 people want to read
About the author
Dwayne McDuffie
429 books71 followersDwayne McDuffie was an American writer of comic books and television. His notable works included creating the animated series Static Shock, writing and producing the animated series Justice League Unlimited, and co-founding the comic book company Milestone Media.
He co-hosted a radio comedy program, and also wrote under a pseudonym for stand-up comedians and late-night television comedy programs. While working as a copy-editor for a financial magazine, a friend got him an interview for an assistant editor position at Marvel Comics.
While on staff at Marvel as Bob Budiansky's assistant on special projects, McDuffie also scripted stories for the company. His first major work was Damage Control, a series about the company that shows up between issues and tidies up the mess left by the latest round of superhero/supervillain battles. While an editor at Marvel, he submitted a spoof proposal for a comic entitled Teenage Negro Ninja Thrasher in response to Marvel's treatment of its black characters. Becoming a freelancer in early 1990, McDuffie followed that with dozens of various comics titles for Marvel comics, DC Comics, and Archie Comics.
In 1992, wanting to express a multi-cultural sensibility that he felt was missing in comic books, McDuffie co-founded Milestone Media, a comic book company owned by African-Americans.
After Milestone had ceased publishing new comics, Static was developed into an animated series Static Shock. McDuffie was hired to write and story-edit on the series, writing 11 episodes.
McDuffie was hired as a staff writer for the animated series Justice League and was promoted to story editor and producer as the series became Justice League Unlimited. During the entire run of the animated series, McDuffie wrote, produced, or story-edited 69 out of the 91 episodes. McDuffie also wrote the story for the video game Justice League Heroes.
McDuffie was hired to help revamp and story-edit Cartoon Network's popular animated Ben 10 franchise with Ben 10: Alien Force, continuing the adventures of the ten-year-old title character into his mid and late teenage years. During the run of the series, McDuffie wrote episode 1-3, 14, 25-28, 45 and 46 and/or story-edited all forty-six episodes.
On February 22, 2011, McDuffie died from complications due to a surgical procedure performed the previous evening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_M...
He co-hosted a radio comedy program, and also wrote under a pseudonym for stand-up comedians and late-night television comedy programs. While working as a copy-editor for a financial magazine, a friend got him an interview for an assistant editor position at Marvel Comics.
While on staff at Marvel as Bob Budiansky's assistant on special projects, McDuffie also scripted stories for the company. His first major work was Damage Control, a series about the company that shows up between issues and tidies up the mess left by the latest round of superhero/supervillain battles. While an editor at Marvel, he submitted a spoof proposal for a comic entitled Teenage Negro Ninja Thrasher in response to Marvel's treatment of its black characters. Becoming a freelancer in early 1990, McDuffie followed that with dozens of various comics titles for Marvel comics, DC Comics, and Archie Comics.
In 1992, wanting to express a multi-cultural sensibility that he felt was missing in comic books, McDuffie co-founded Milestone Media, a comic book company owned by African-Americans.
After Milestone had ceased publishing new comics, Static was developed into an animated series Static Shock. McDuffie was hired to write and story-edit on the series, writing 11 episodes.
McDuffie was hired as a staff writer for the animated series Justice League and was promoted to story editor and producer as the series became Justice League Unlimited. During the entire run of the animated series, McDuffie wrote, produced, or story-edited 69 out of the 91 episodes. McDuffie also wrote the story for the video game Justice League Heroes.
McDuffie was hired to help revamp and story-edit Cartoon Network's popular animated Ben 10 franchise with Ben 10: Alien Force, continuing the adventures of the ten-year-old title character into his mid and late teenage years. During the run of the series, McDuffie wrote episode 1-3, 14, 25-28, 45 and 46 and/or story-edited all forty-six episodes.
On February 22, 2011, McDuffie died from complications due to a surgical procedure performed the previous evening.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_M...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 21, 2025
After four volumes and more than 200 issues & over 5000 pages I'm still amazed by all of this and I want more.
These compendiums are such a fantastic way to discover these stories. Multiple different comic titles that interact with each other, collected in reading order, just as if I was buying monthly comics. And each of these tomes collect more than 50 issues.
Not a single of these titles is bad, quite the opposite in fact. Sure there's some filler issues with guest writers that are unnecessary, but the (vast) majority of story arcs, plot twists and character developments are intriguing, surprising and a lot of fun. Everything is consistent and well thought out.
Let's look at this volume a bit closer without diving into too much spoilers:
My Name is Holocaust: The book opens with this 5 issue mini series, that spins out of Blood Syndicate. I haven't read about these characters in over a year and I'm almost immediately caught up. The series is fantastic. There's ties to the Shadow Cabinet, the Mayor and all the other series. The ending of this offers a cool twist, which ties back to the name of the mini itself.
The Long Hot Summer: This is the summer event, which was three issues long and tied into the entire Milestone Universe and all of its titles. The event is incredibly simple and not very creative. There's fun interactions between characters of different titles, but nothing major happens here in my opinion.
Xombi: Xombi is back! The first eleven issues were collected in Vol. 1, which I've read almost two years ago. Fortunately it was super easy to get back into this series. It has the least amount of action among all of the Milestone titles, but it's supplemented with the typical Vertigo style weirdness. It reminded me a lot of Sandman, in the best way.
Kobalt: The Batman & Robin of the Milestone universe, that were introduced in Vol. 3. I love this title, but sadly only 2 issues are printed here, before the series was cancelled. The ending is not quite satisfying, but at least the story didn't end in the middle of a fight.
Shadow Cabinet: This one is weird, because the title features a group that has powers far beyond anything other people could counter. So it's all about the interal struggles, which is driven to an open warfare in this volume. The characters here don't get to shine enough and I can't understand the motivation behind their actions fully.
Static: I disliked this the most out of the big four titles (which are Hardware, Static, Icon & Blood Syndicate) in the previous three volumes. The storyline in this volume however, really intrigued me and I was fully on board with the double romance and the tragedy regarding Larry. Great stuff.
Icon: This was my favourite series among the whole Milestone Universe thus far and this volume did not change my mind. The duo of Icon and Rocket is amazing and the new component of Icon's Homeplanet and the trial held there is so much fun. Rocket gains new powers and solves the crisis in a unique way. More of this please!
Blood Syndicate: The roster keeps changing and the book focuses on different members in each story/issue. This is the bread & butter of a good team book and it works really well here. The group is quite powerful, but faced with a lot of real world problems and supernatural enemies, that keeps them on their toes. Frequent disagreements among the group is added into the mix and the stories never get boring.
Hardware: The protagonist was forced into a stalemate in the previous volume, which gets resolved here in the most spectacular way, by having the most surprising plot twist in this entire volume. The writers are aware, that a dude in an armour fighting bad guys makes for good action, but boring stores and manage to keep the status quo fluid, which makes this book very interesting and dynamic.
As a whole, this is an incredibly strong lineup, barely diluted by a crossover storyline that slightly overstayed its welcome. It's sad to see some stories end and I know that the whole Universe is almost at its end before the company that was putting out these stories folded.
I do hope DC does finish the line as I'm keen to keep going until the end and I recommend anyone interested in comics to give Vol. 1 a try. These volumes are huge and offer an incredible value for their price!
These compendiums are such a fantastic way to discover these stories. Multiple different comic titles that interact with each other, collected in reading order, just as if I was buying monthly comics. And each of these tomes collect more than 50 issues.
Not a single of these titles is bad, quite the opposite in fact. Sure there's some filler issues with guest writers that are unnecessary, but the (vast) majority of story arcs, plot twists and character developments are intriguing, surprising and a lot of fun. Everything is consistent and well thought out.
Let's look at this volume a bit closer without diving into too much spoilers:
My Name is Holocaust: The book opens with this 5 issue mini series, that spins out of Blood Syndicate. I haven't read about these characters in over a year and I'm almost immediately caught up. The series is fantastic. There's ties to the Shadow Cabinet, the Mayor and all the other series. The ending of this offers a cool twist, which ties back to the name of the mini itself.
The Long Hot Summer: This is the summer event, which was three issues long and tied into the entire Milestone Universe and all of its titles. The event is incredibly simple and not very creative. There's fun interactions between characters of different titles, but nothing major happens here in my opinion.
Xombi: Xombi is back! The first eleven issues were collected in Vol. 1, which I've read almost two years ago. Fortunately it was super easy to get back into this series. It has the least amount of action among all of the Milestone titles, but it's supplemented with the typical Vertigo style weirdness. It reminded me a lot of Sandman, in the best way.
Kobalt: The Batman & Robin of the Milestone universe, that were introduced in Vol. 3. I love this title, but sadly only 2 issues are printed here, before the series was cancelled. The ending is not quite satisfying, but at least the story didn't end in the middle of a fight.
Shadow Cabinet: This one is weird, because the title features a group that has powers far beyond anything other people could counter. So it's all about the interal struggles, which is driven to an open warfare in this volume. The characters here don't get to shine enough and I can't understand the motivation behind their actions fully.
Static: I disliked this the most out of the big four titles (which are Hardware, Static, Icon & Blood Syndicate) in the previous three volumes. The storyline in this volume however, really intrigued me and I was fully on board with the double romance and the tragedy regarding Larry. Great stuff.
Icon: This was my favourite series among the whole Milestone Universe thus far and this volume did not change my mind. The duo of Icon and Rocket is amazing and the new component of Icon's Homeplanet and the trial held there is so much fun. Rocket gains new powers and solves the crisis in a unique way. More of this please!
Blood Syndicate: The roster keeps changing and the book focuses on different members in each story/issue. This is the bread & butter of a good team book and it works really well here. The group is quite powerful, but faced with a lot of real world problems and supernatural enemies, that keeps them on their toes. Frequent disagreements among the group is added into the mix and the stories never get boring.
Hardware: The protagonist was forced into a stalemate in the previous volume, which gets resolved here in the most spectacular way, by having the most surprising plot twist in this entire volume. The writers are aware, that a dude in an armour fighting bad guys makes for good action, but boring stores and manage to keep the status quo fluid, which makes this book very interesting and dynamic.
As a whole, this is an incredibly strong lineup, barely diluted by a crossover storyline that slightly overstayed its welcome. It's sad to see some stories end and I know that the whole Universe is almost at its end before the company that was putting out these stories folded.
I do hope DC does finish the line as I'm keen to keep going until the end and I recommend anyone interested in comics to give Vol. 1 a try. These volumes are huge and offer an incredible value for their price!
Displaying 1 of 1 review