by Josh Crawley

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Dwayne McDuffie. Art by Denys Cowan.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about the loss of Dwayne McDuffie. I didn’t have the chance to meet him, and I didn’t correspond with him in any way, save for a few emails ten or eleven years ago. I was just someone emailing him out of the blue wondering about the copyrights and trademarks listed in Milestone comics (frequently referred to as an imprint of DC Comics, when the relationship was really about distribution), and he was nothing but kind and helpful. While I’m hoping my friend Wayne Markley will be writing a nice remembrance for this blog, it looks like I just have to talk about his work.

I’m sure I read some of McDuffie’s work in the 90s, but I’m pretty sure it was a random issue of Damage Control , an issue of Deathlok, and maybe a handful of other comics (many years later we would see his Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers pitch from that time period, mocking the lack of diversity in Marvel’s black characters). The first time I really read a chunk of his work would have been the Static Shock: Return of the Cool miniseries in 2001. While I didn’t know much at all about the Milestone Universe at that point, I would end up (and still am) searching out more of the Milestone comics, especially Hardware (sorry, Static). Admittedly, one of the things that initially drew me to Hardware was his visual design by Denys Cowan, but after reading the first 25 or 30 issues, McDuffie’s writing was just as important to me. Even my first time reading them, I noticed something lacking when McDuffie wasn’t writing them. That isn’t to put down the other writers, though; McDuffie’s work is just that great.

McDuffie's proposal for Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers

McDuffie’s great work isn’t just in comics, though. Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited both stand as testament to his skill at telling stories in other media. He would continue working for Warner Bros on their acclaimed direct-to-video movies, such as the amazing Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Combined with his great writing on Fantastic Four, that movie made me realize he would be the perfect choice to pen a major motion Fantastic Four movie. He was just that diverse of a talent.

Hardware

While I didn’t know McDuffie, I think that’s something he’d like to be remembered for: the diversity of his work, and what it represents.

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Josh Crawley may or may not be the keyboardist for Everclear. He strongly suggests you not bet that he is.

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