Icon & Rocket: Season One #2

History

The series emerged from a years-long effort to revive Milestone Media — the Black-owned publisher co-founded in 1993 by Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, Derek Dingle, and Christopher Priest — under the creative stewardship of Reginald Hudlin and the imprint's surviving principals, with DC Comics handling publication. Issue #2 was written by Hudlin (whose prior Milestone partnership with the late McDuffie informed his affection for the characters) alongside co-writer Leon Chills, who described this as his first comic-writing credit, with pencils by Doug Braithwaite, inks by Andrew Currie, colors by Brad Anderson, and letters by AndWorld Design; the cover was by Taurin Clarke, with a card-stock variant by Braithwaite. Hudlin has noted that Xiomara was a new character created specifically for this relaunch, conceived in part because he wanted to give Icon a romantic dimension he had never previously been afforded in print, drawing on his earlier experience pairing characters romantically when he wrote Black Panther's marriage to Storm at Marvel.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published August 24, 2021 by DC Comics under the Milestone Media imprint, as the second of six issues in the limited series (on sale between July 2021 and March 2022).
• First appearance of Xiomara Collins (Earth M): a superpowered attorney and member of the clandestine organization known as the Love Corps, who possesses superhuman durability, speed, telekinesis, and telepathy; her costume colors are based on the Brazilian flag.
• First appearance of Benedict Lord (Earth M): an alien terrorist and recurring adversary of Icon who, per writer Hudlin, had defeated Icon in a past encounter and is established in this issue as a formidable new threat equipped to counter Icon's alien technology.
• The issue features a Civil War-era flashback in which Augustus Freeman (Icon), while still enslaved, comes into his powers and kills Confederate president Jefferson Davis — a story beat Hudlin discussed publicly as a deliberate statement about heroes solving real historical problems rather than abstract ones.
• The present-day storyline shows Icon and Rocket operating openly in Dakota's Paris Island neighborhood, where a reporter notes crime has dropped 65 percent, while an NSA agent confronts Freeman at his law offices and warns of consequences if the duo continues acting publicly.
• Written by Reginald Hudlin and (from issue #3 onward, though Hudlin solo-wrote issues #1–2) Leon Chills; art by Doug Braithwaite (pencils) and Andrew Currie (inks); colors by Brad Anderson; letters by AndWorld Design; main cover by Taurin Clarke.
• The complete six-issue series was collected in a trade paperback (ISBN 978-1779515520), released August 2, 2022, which also includes Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition #0.
• Xiomara Collins was designed by Hudlin as Icon's first significant romantic interest in the character's publishing history, with her introduction intended to give Icon a personal dimension beyond his mentor relationship with Rocket.

Cast · 6 characters

Full credits

Variants (1)