The Book I'm About to Read: Hardware: The Man in the Machine by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan

Milestone Comics. Founded in 1993. Closed down in 1997. In between, they published 255 comic books (by my count--not confirmed). I have some issues of every series they published, but only have complete runs of two of them (Shadow Cabinet and Xombi, for the record). I have often regretted not buying every issue when it came out, and have made up for it by buying back issues at Half-Price Books whenever I spotted them. Well...back when I left my house I did that, anyway. But I was beginning to think that I would never track all of them down. And then I saw this:

 

Yep. Milestone is back...courtesy of ComiXology. In fact, right now you can buy 

Hardware: The Man in the Machine (1-8) 

Icon: A Hero's Welcome (1-8) 

Static Shock (2011-2012) Vol. 1: Supercharged (1-8) 

Static Shock!: Rebirth of the Cool (2000) #1 

Static Shock Special (2011) #1 

And even though it's not a Milestone Comics release per se (since the label no longer existed at the time), you can also get Xombi (2011) 1-6. 

And let's not forget the 2010/2011 Justice League of America: When Worlds Collide 7 issue crossover between the JLA and some of the Milestone heroes. 

ComiXology isn't making it easy on you. If you search for "Milestone," you don't get any of this stuff. But if you keep your eyes peeled, you should be seeing more Milestone releases in the next few months...and an all-new Static Shock book in 2021.

P.S. Danger Will Robinson! I have just finished reading the first three issues of the When Worlds Collide, and I must say...it is just SHIT. The Milestone heroes who appear in it have nothing to do with the real Milestone heroes. In fact, they could have been pretty much anybody. It's possible that I will change my mind after I've read the rest of this thing, but I sincerely doubt it. If you love the Milestone folks, you might want to give this one a pass. I wish that I had done so.

P.P.S. I'm still working my way through Hardware, but I bought and finished Icon: A Hero's Welcome, and it was definitely worth both the time and the dime. There were a few off / cornball moments, but for the most part this was a really well-written comic book that showed virtually no signs of being dated. And when I finished, much to my surprise ComiXology offered me a chance to buy Volume 2: The Mothership Connection. It was a for-me pricey $16.99, but I still would have immediately gone for it, as Volume I was so good and left me wanting to keep on keeping on, but I was put off by the fact that Volume 2 not only does not pick up with issue 9, it doesn't pick up until issue 13, and then it goes to 19-22, 24-26 and 30. What the fuck, man? Sigh. I think I'm going to wait for a sale and temper my disappointment with some saved bucks. There's always a sale if you just wait long enough. Watch this space.

P.P.P.S. It took me a lot longer than it should have, but I finally finished the Hardware collection. And? Man, it was really good. As good as Icon was, Hardware was twice as good. It was harder for me to read, though. For one thing, I had a physical copy of this collection, and I don't know if it was because of age or what, but the type was kind of blurry, which meant that I couldn't read this at night (or in the middle of the night when I wake up from troubled dreams), which is when a lot of my ancillary reading gets done. I needed strong light. Which is why it might be a good idea to go e-version on this...and by coincidence, you can score from ComiXology right now for $10. Anyway...these first 8 issues present quite a unique arc for a superhero. In the first several issues, I kept wondering, Am I supposed to like this guy? Because he was not only brutal, he seemed to be completely okay with collateral damage...in fact, it barely seemed to register on him that he was killing people who were relatively innocent in order to achieve his main objective. (No spoilers.) But then he began to evolve a bit, and in a very surreal issue #8 it all came crashing down in a very interesting and intelligent way. There was absolutely nothing that was dated in this comic book, either. And the art...well. It's not your typical pretty boy stuff, but it's not that vapid ugly art, either. If you love Bill  Sienkiewicz, then I'll need say nothing more than that it reminds me of some of his work...right after he stopped trying to be Neal Adams but before he became the Sienkiewicz we now know and love. Which I don't mean as any sort of lack of respect for Denys Cowan. He kicks ass, and he is his own man. Just sayin', sir. Anyway...even if you're not interested in the Milestone wagon, you should grab ahold of this thing. Anybody who has any affection for comic books would be thrilled (and enriched) by reading this collection.

Unfortunately, I only had a few more Hardware issues in my possession:

That's #10, #11, #28, and #36. Not such a great showing for a comic book that went 50 issues. Hopefully I can remedy that via ComiXology in the near future. Reading these issues was a little disorienting, of course, what with the huge gaps. Looks like Hardware was heading into quite a different direction somewhere around #36, though...an international kind of thing. Not sure that I would have been up for that, but hey...what a great cover, eh?