Dwayne McDuffie, Comic Book Legend, Passes Away

Sad news hitting the comic book ‘verse today. Dwayne McDuffie, best known as co-founder of Milestone Comics and creator of Static Shock passed away today from complications from a surgical procedure performed Monday night, Comic Book Resources is reporting. It’s especially sad to note that today is the North American release of the animated All-Star Superman for which McDuffie wrote the script.

McDuffie was  the creator of Damage Control for Marvel,  an honest look at how we’d react to superheroes in a “real” world as well as the comic book, Icon, which spun an interesting twist on the hero/sidekick dynamic. He also played an important role in the lives of many young super hero fans, myself included, with his work as writer for the animated Justice League series and story editor on Justice League Unlimited. The popular blog, DC Woman Kicking Ass sums up his impact nicely,

I’ve told this story before, but I will tell it again. When the Hostess cupcakes promotion happened last fall featuring Batman, Superman, Flash and Green Lantern, my friend showed her son the box. He took one look at it and said, “that’s not the Green Lantern, the Green Lantern is black.”

And he is black, if the incarnation of the Green Lantern you’re most familiar with is John Stewart, the featured Green Lantern on JLU. A generation of fans have grown up with comic books and comic adaptions that owe something to Dwayne McDuffie. His understanding of fans needing to hear about characters of all races and genders was an important voice in comic books.

I mentioned earlier McDuffie wrote the script for All-Star Superman (review coming tonight!) but he also penned another DC Animated film, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Along with those movies he was also a writer for the Static Shock animated series, Teen Titans and writer/producer for Ben 10.

In comics, besides his co-founding of Milestone Comics he also had impressive runs on both the Fantastic Four and Justice League of America. Basically, any comic book fan and particularly fans of cape and cowl stories have a lot to thank Dwayne McDuffie for. Today marks a sad day but also a day to go back and review a great career in comics. I’ll leave you with these words from Dan Didio, co-publisher of DC Comics, but if you have any comments about the life and career of Dwayne McDuffie please share them at the end of this post.

Dwayne McDuffie left a lasting legacy on the world of comics that many writers can only aspire to. He will not only be remembered as the extremely gifted writer whose scripts have been realized as comic books, in television shows and on the silver screen, but as the creator or co-creator of so many of the much-loved Milestone characters, including Static Shock. The industry has lost a true talent.
Our sincerest condolences go out to the family and many friends he leaves behind.

source: CBR via io9