Dwayne McDuffie was born on February 20 1962 in Detroit. It was following Mr. McDuffie's death that Keegan-Michael Key of Key & Peele fame learned he was his half-brother through their father. Like many young boys in the Seventies, Dwayne McDuffie read comic books. He attended the Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He later attended the University of Michigan, where he received a degree in English, and then a master's degree in physics at the same school. He moved to New York City where he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. He was a copy editor at Investment Dealers Digest when a friend recommended him for a job as an assistant editor at Marvel Comics.
At Marvel Dwayne McDuffie wrote the limited series Damage Control, the limited series Deathlok, and specials and one-shots related to such characters as She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Man. He later wrote a few issues of The Demon for DC Comics and a few issues of Back to the Future: Forward to the Future for Harvey Comics. It would be in 1993 that Dwayne McDuffie would make his mark in comic book history with the founding of Milestone Media.
Milestone Media was founded in 1993 by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, and Derek T. Dingle, with the goal of addressing the lack of diversity in American comic books at that time. Dwayne McDuffie served as the editor-in-chief at Milestone and also created several of its characters. Milestone Media's titles were published through DC Comics, although Milestone retained full ownership of their characters. Dwayne McDuffie co-created several of Milestone's most popular characters, including Hardware, Blood Syndicate, Icon, Static, and The Shadow Cabinet. Dwayne McDuffie also wrote the Milestone's titles Hardware and Icon.
Milestone Media was a major break from previous comic book companies in that they had people of colour had much greater representation there than any other comic book company at the time. Hardware, Icon, and Static were all Black. Xombi was Korean American. Kobalt was of Cuban descent. Both Blood Syndicate and The Shadow Cabinet featured characters of various ethnicities and sexual orientations. What is more, the various Milestone titles, particularly Icon, often addressed real world issues. Icon presented a conflict before the more economically and socially conservative Icon and his more progressive sidekick Rocket. In the pages of Icon, Rocket became the first unwed mother in the history of comic books. Other topics covered by Milestone Media's title included drug addiction, alcoholism, gang warfare, sexuality, and, as might be expected racism.
Sadly, Milestone Media was founded at a time when there was a boom in new comic book publishers. Between the late Eighties and the early Nineties such companies as Malibu Comics, Valiant Comics, Image, and yet others were founded. Most of these publishers introduced their own lines of superheroes. As a result, there was a glut on the market of new superhero titles. Milestone's chances may have also been hurt by the speculator boom of the Nineties, whereby speculators would buy various titles in hopes that they would be valuable later. The speculator boom peaked just as Milestone was founded and then ended only a few years later. As a result, comic book sales dropped dramatically. With sales of its titles in decline, Milestone Media ceased publishing comic books in 1997, although the company still exists today as a licensing company for its characters.
It would be Milestone Media that would lead Dwayne McDuffie into animation. Even though Static had ended its run in 1997, the character of Static was licensed for the animation Static Shock in 2000. Michael McDuffie would go onto write episodes not only of Static Shock, but Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, various Ben 10 series, and Young Justice. He served as a producer on Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Ben 1: Ultimate Alien. He also wrote direct-to-video features for DC comics, including Justice League: Starcrossed, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, All-Star Superman, and Justice League: Doom. He would return to comic books, writing the mini-series Beyond for Marvel, as well as Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Fantastic Four, and Justice League of America.
During his lifetime Dwayne McDuffie received nominations for the Eisner Award for Best Writer, Best Editor, and Best Continuing Series. He won the Golden Apple Award from the Roeper School (his alma mater) for "use of popular art to promote and advance human worth and dignity." He won the Humanitas Award for in Children's Animation for the Static Shock episode "Jimmy." Two awards are named for him, the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics and the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids' Comics.
Both as a founder of Milestone Media and as a writer, Dwayne McDuffie did much to advance diversity in comic books. Even after the introduction of several important African American characters in the Seventies (The Falcon and Luke Cage at Marvel, John Stewart and Black Lightning at DC), there were still few Black superheroes to be found in comic books in the early Nineties. There were also few Asian, Latino, or Native American superheroes. In co-founding Milestone Media, Dwayne McDuffie did much to change that. He wrote Black characters and characters of other ethnicities as human beings, not caricatures or stereotypes. What is more, Dwayne McDuffie's characters were ones that anyone could identify with, regardless of ethnicity. Hardware is an inventor who found he was being used by his criminal patron. Static is an intelligent teenager and pop culture geek who just happened to get superpowers. Rocket is a teenage aspiring writer who fell in with the wrong crowd until she met Icon. In writing characters that were wholly relatable, often dealing with issues that the average person might face in their everyday life, Dwayne McDuffie helped advance diversity in comic books in a way that few writers before him had.
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