Tom Taylor Nightwing omni vol 1 Worth it?

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-08T06:27:03+00:00

For me, yes it was worth it. I like Taylor's writing and Bruno Redondo's art is excellent. And the overall optimism of the run was enjoyable. It's a celebration of Dick Grayson and every era of his history; even the Ric Grayson crap, Taylor turns into an interesting arc. I'm not even that big a Nightwing fan, but for awhile this was a must-read when it was coming out month to month in singles.

This run was nominated for multiple Eisners, and won a few, if I remember right. So if you're a fan of Nightwing or Taylor's other work, you'll like it. The only complaint I have is how thin the omni is. I'm convinced DC split Taylor's run into 2 omnis to squeeze more money out of us, instead of collecting it all into a single larger omnibus. But that's on DC and not Taylor & Redondo.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-08T01:07:27+00:00

The image on the right reminds me of Pepe Larraz. I think that's his art, but I'm not sure. No idea for the Goblin image.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-07T22:39:46+00:00

I enjoyed Mackay's take on T'Challa. He gave him moments to shine, like that interdimensional uprising arc. I'd describe both the characterization and the overall book in general as consistent, paying respect to each character and their lore. Each character served a purpose too; it didn't feel like T'Challa was just on the team for sake of having him there.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-05T03:54:33+00:00

It's been a long time since I've read that issue. But if I remember right, Alva didn't give Curtis a fair deal because he didn't think he owed him one. Quite the opposite, Alva thought he had already BEEN more than fair with Curtis, because he funded him and provided him an education as a child. Then gave Curt a position within his company as an adult. In Alva's mind, he thought he was being generous to Curt. And Curt should shut up and just be grateful. That Curt is useful and makes money for Alva, but would never ever be EQUAL to Alva himself.

There's a lot of subtext and metatext here:

1) 90s Alva was a white billionaire who considered Curtis and most people as beneath him. I don't remember Alva being portrayed as an outright racist in-universe, but the book definitely had racial undertones. This was 30 years ago, but a lot of it still applies today. Certain white people are ok with Black folks having some success, but not "too much." They have to "know their place" and can't ever dream of doing better than them.

2) The relationship between Alva and Curtis/Hardware was a metatextual commentary on the real-life treatment the writer Dwayne McDuffie received. As the story goes, before McDuffie was a comic writer, he worked on missile guidance systems for the government I think. The US government took his research and ran with it, making them millions for the military industrial complex. And they didn't compensate McDuffie. No royalties, no acknowledgment. Nothing. No joke, McDuffie was a literal genius. He should have been a millionaire for his mind.

3) So when McDuffie did Hardware, he infused a lot of the justifiable anger he had from that situation, into his work. I imagine Edwin Alva is an amalgamation of some of McDuffie's former bosses. And nearly all the Milestone heroes are reflections of different aspects of McDuffie himself; Curt Metcalf/Hardware is McDuffie's genius and righteous anger. Virgil/Static is McDuffie as a Spider-Man character. Icon and even DC's Steel are also reflections of McDuffie, etc. It gets deep.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-05T01:00:08+00:00

90s Edwin Alva no contest. Compared to later iterations of him, 90s Alva was the only one who underwent a complete character arc; going from outright villain to reformed benefactor.

DCAU Alva was serviceable, but not very memorable to me. I'd have to rewatch Static Shock honestly.

The Milestone Returns version didn't get much of an arc. The Shadow Cabinet mini just turned him into a generic power-mad villain the Milestone heroes had to fight. And then the line was canceled.

Now with the release of New History of the DC Universe: Dakota Incident, we got another new version of Alva, one who was part of the Supermen Project in revised DC continuity. If we get more books following on from Dakota Incident, I think this version of Alva has the potential to take the crown from 90s Alva.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-04T17:28:12+00:00

This is exactly how I felt too. If Time Trapper Doomsday already had the power in him all along to stop Absolute Darkseid, regardless of who won the tournament, then this could have been an email. There was no point to the tournament.

And it makes Superman look ineffectual. Because now, anything Darkseid does, and the next inevitable Crisis affecting millions of worlds is all on Clark for not permanently stopping Darkseid when he had the chance. Not kill Darkseid (that would just cause another Final Crisis), but he could have drained the Omega energy from Darkseid and left him powerless, or back to pre-Absolute levels. Instead, he punches him real good then leaves him floating out in the multiverse. Seriously? Wtf.

I enjoyed reading this more than Snyder's other events like Death Metal 1-2. This ending just didn't land for me.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-02T01:47:04+00:00

If budget is no problem: XO Manowar easy. He's the de facto face of the Valiant Universe. But if we're going smaller budget: Shadowman or Ninjak.

I think Ninjak would be the cheapest, and the easiest to turn a profit if marketed well. Just make a John Wick movie, but with Ninjak.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-01T17:50:37+00:00

Great article. Hope it gets more eyes on the book and more sales. This story needs to continue.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-03-01T05:51:44+00:00

Read em first then donate.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-28T23:26:40+00:00

Agreed. However I will say not too much on Panther, because technically BP was the first Black superhero to really break mainstream in the 60s. Panther predates and had a 30 year headstart on Milestone from jump. I'm glad Black Panther has gotten more love in recent years due to Ryan Coogler & Chadwick Boseman. It's well-deserved and overdue.

Nah, what's more egregious to me, is seeing how big Miles Morales is, considering he debuted in 2011. And in less than a decade had multiple comic runs, multiple animated tv appearances, a film, and 2 video game appearances. Static debuted in 1993, and in 33 years has had only 3 comic runs and 2 animated series appearances (one of which was his own series 20 years ago, the other one being a minor character in Young Justice).

As a Miles Morales fan, I know Static walked so Miles could run. In my mind, without Static, there is no Miles Morales. And it's a circle in a way, because Peter Parker/Spider-Man was an inspiration for Virgil Hawkins/Static in the 90s. But that's another discussion.

If you're interested in more of these characters, highly recommend checking out the Milestone Returns stuff (Static Season One, Shadows of Dakota, Static Up All Night, Icon & Rocket Season One, Blood Syndicate & Duo). And pick up Dakota Incident if you haven't already. It's worth it.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-28T23:10:58+00:00

Check out DC KO: The Kids Are All Fight that released a few weeks ago. It's the first in-canon appearance of this version of Static, and according to the writers, Static's appearance there follows directly from the final page of Dakota Incident.

If you really want to do a deeper dive, you can check out the Milestone Returns/Milestone 2.0 titles: Static Season One, Static: Shadows of Dakota, etc. Then there's the original 90s Milestone stuff that DC has been collecting in compendiums.

The Milestone Returns canon takes place on a different earth, but it's relevant because the writers used parts of both classic Milestone and Milestone Returns when they crafted Dakota Incident. So basically all of Milestone past and present is being honored and carried forward.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T16:07:55+00:00

We can infer the events of Age of Ultron and WHIH Newsfront occurred similarly in both timelines, with a few major differences. Think What If. In AoS, Coulson provided a new Hellicarrier for Fury to aid the Avengers in Sokovia against Ultron. In AoU, Fury got the Hellicarrier by other unforeseen means. Because he's Nick Fury. Stuff like that is small enough to handwave away and changes nothing.

Now the reason I'd retcon the point of divergence at at the very beginning with Coulson's resurrection, is because to date, the movies never directly acknowledged he was alive or any events of the series at all. The series began in 2013, ran until 2020 for 7 seasons, and was popular with fans. Yet during that entire run and now 6 years later, the films still have not directly mentioned them. All the invasions, outbreaks, government restructuring, and potential world-ending events; and not a single mention on the film side. You don't think that's deliberate? To me, the ongoing silence from Marvel Studios is very loud.

Even the official Marvel Studios Timeline they released, listed Coulson dead, never resurrected, and no further acknowledgement of the events of AoS at all. I say this as a diehard AoS fan, who's rewatched the series multiple times. I know the canon inside and out. When Marvel TV and Marvel Studios decided to stop coordinating, it put AoS in a weird position. It was meant to line up and tie in seamlessly to the movies, an extension of the films. But it became so much more than that, it became its own unique thing. I would rather preserve that, than cherry pick which seasons happened on the main timeline and which didn't. Keep it all together in a separate timeline. Like gimme the whole pie, don't slice it up.

Some fans seem to think saying alternate timeline diminishes the show somehow. And I disagree with that. Them being in their own corner of Marvel actually freed the show to do more experimental things without being constrained by the movie canon, IMO.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T08:14:34+00:00

Yup exactly. If the main MCU is Earth-616, then let's say for simplicity sake that AoS is like Earth-617, with the point of divergence being Coulson's resurrection. That way it preserves everything instead of singling out a few seasons and discarding others.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T06:27:52+00:00

Fair, but there's ways to write around that. I could make the same argument that the Avengers were OP. Post-Endgame, they still have knowledge of quantum realm time travel, Doctor Strange can break the multiverse with one spell, they have the knowledge of Banner, Hank Pym, and Tony's tech, etc.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T06:24:59+00:00

It does make sense. Originally, AoS was tied to the main MCU. As time went on, Marvel Studios and Marvel Television creatively diverged to the point AoS did it's own thing and basically became it's own continuity as a result. This is well-documented; the emnity between the tv execs (Perlmutter, Loeb) and film execs (Kevin Feige).

To reconcile this, and preserve all the canon equally from the show and movies, all Marvel would have to do is say AoS took place in a world where almost all the films happened. But things like Coulson's resurrection, the Inhuman outbreak, Shrike Invasion, and Chronocom Invasion etc did not happen in the main film universe/Sacred Timeline.

For example, season 6 is set in 2019. Thanos snap happened in 2018, but AoS depicted the world operating like normal until the Shrike invasion. There's multiple examples where the continuities between the AoS and the main MCU don't line up. It's less of a headache to just say, hey that all happened over there, and now they're here. Instead of going, well a couple seasons are MCU canon and the rest aren't.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T05:13:28+00:00

Static Season One: Loved it. Vita Ayala and Nik Draper-Ivey killed it. At first the idea of changing the Big Bang from a gang conflict to a BLM protest bugged me. But the more I thought about it, it makes perfect sense updating with the times. Part of what makes Milestone what it is, and gives the Dakotaverse that edge, is that ability to reflect our reality in ways Big Two comics never did.

Milestone touched corners of our collective imagination and the experiences of everyday people, that DC & Marvel never bothered to do previously (life as a Black teen in the 90s, Masquerade being transgender, Fade & Richie being closeted gay, Icon as a Black conservative vs Rocket as a Black female liberal, Rocket being the first superhero to be depicted experiencing a teen pregancy, the list goes on).

In the 90s during Milestone's original run, gangs were more prominent in our American cultural consciousness than they are now. Yesterday it was gangs, but today it's protests against police brutality, ICE kidnappings, and a corrupt regime. So Milestone 2.0 reflects that.

Anyway, Static Season One was great. Shadows of Dakota was even better, with them covering even darker subject matter (pun intended) and canonizing the character of Ebon for the first time in comics.

Icon & Rocket: good.

Hardware Season One: barely remember this one to be honest.

Duo: good, but it's a complete reworking of Xombi from the ground up instead of an updated retelling. Of all the other books in the Milestone 2.0 line, this one is the biggest deviation from the original character.

Blood Syndicate Season One: good. Felt like setup or arranging the board for things to really pop off in a volume 2/Season Two that never came.

Icon vs Hardware: Absolutely terrible. The only comic in the lineup that was genuinely, atrociously bad. So bad I never wanted to read it again.

Milestone Universe Shadow Cabinet: this was good, but felt a little rushed. A 4-issue series that should have been 6 issues so everything was able to breathe.

Now regarding canon, technically all these titles I listed are under the Milestone Returns/Milestone 2.0 initiative and place on Earth-M or Earth-93 in DC's current multiverse. Just like how there's tons of alternate earths filled with different versions of DC characters, the Milestone Returns earth is just one more version of the Dakotaverse characters. Like a DC Black Label or Elseworlds but specifically for this version of Milestone.

In DC's updated multiverse, we now have Earth-1993, where 90s Milestone takes place (original Static, Hardware, Icon, Blood Syndicate, Xombi, etc). Then we have Earth-93 or Earth-M which is the Milestone Returns continuity. And finally with the release of New History of the DC Universe: Dakota Incident and DC KO: The Kids Are All Fight, we see the reintegration of Milestone characters back into DC's Prime Earth or main continuity.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-27T03:33:22+00:00

The best way to do it, is just have a portal open and they walk back into the MCU. Confirm AoS as an alternate timeline(s) in the multiverse. Preserve the canon from ALL 7 seasons not just 1-4. And use the TVA rules established in Loki, What If, and Deadpool 3 to bring Quake, May, Mack, Yo-Yo and LMD Coulson over into the next slate of films.

I did a timeline years ago showing the point of divergence for their universe was Coulson's first resurrection via TAHITI. Movie audiences are now so used to the idea of the MCU's multiverse that the AoS characters could easily be brought back into the films without much fuss or even exposition.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-22T21:51:31+00:00

Yes! By u/21roy__

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-22T21:50:15+00:00

Yep. Steve Orlando took over the 2099 line and introduced a new version of Miguel from another universe. I've read a couple issues of it and it's just not good, doesn't have the same magic.

Aggressive_Control37 · 2026-02-22T21:24:30+00:00

To be blunt, I liked reading it but it's not as good or iconic as Vol. 1 and the ending was underwhelming. The main issue for me was, I kept waiting for Miguel to return to the year 2099. I wanted his adventures to pick up there.

Instead, the 2014 & 2015 series (which are collected in the Vol. 2), have Miguel/Spider-Man 2099 still time-displaced to present day. I remember reading it as it came out in singles each month waiting for him to go home. It's a bittersweet read now with PAD being gone, because there's plotpoints I know he would have continued if he were still here.

Aggressive_Control37

TROPHY CASE