10 People Who Changed The Comic Book Industry Forever

8. Dwayne McDuffie

DC Comics/John Paul Leon

Dwayne McDuffie was one of the finest comic book creators of our time, and a key influencer in hammering home to comics companies that representation matters.

McDuffie, along with co-founders Denys Cowan, Derek Dingle and Michael Davis, founded Milestone Media in 1993. Created with the intent of making a universe more diverse in nature than either one of the big two were offering, Milestone birthed characters like Static (the later star of the Static Shock TV show), Icon, Rocket and Xombi. At first situated in the Dakotaverse, DC saw fit to bring McDuffie and Cowan's creations into the mainstream DCU, further illustrating the influence Milestone Media had in its day.

McDuffie himself was right at the centre of DC during the millennium, contributing heavily to the DC Animated Universe in Static Shock, Justice League and Justice League: Unlimited, and also in the comics themselves, through Firestorm, Justice League (again), and more. McDuffie's productions offered an introduction to the medium for a great many people, and with talk of a Justice League reunion in recent months, it's clear as day for all to see.

The writer sadly passed away in 2011, but his legacy lives on through Milestone and in the soon to be realised Dwayne McDuffie foundation, which you can contribute to here.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.