I remember buying the original Milestone Comics when they first debuted. Was that really 30 years ago?!? Crap, I’m old.

This issue opens with a 35-page story called UNIVERSAL BEINGS, which is written by Evan Narcisse and drawn in alternating pages by Atagun Ilhan and homophobe Chris Cross. A new version of a character called Rift, who was responsible for original Milestone’s crossover with the mainstream DC Universe back in the day, is now responsible for the crossover of original Milestone with new Milestone. And I’ll just that the story is…ambitious, I guess? I mean, a lot happens, but it feels crowded. I thought, based on the cover, that it was just going to be the two versions of Static teaming up, but this is almost the entire roster of each universe. To do that justice needs more than a single normal-sized story.

The gist of it is that the heroes from new Milestone start disappearing and reappearing in original Milestone. And not only have they switched universes, but they also switched time periods, so it’s 1993 in original Milestone, but at first they don’t know that. So new Icon and Rocket show up in Paris Island looking for the Blood Syndicate from their universe, but encounter the original Blood Syndicate who think they’re the Icon and Rocket from their universe, new Static meets old Hardware and thinks he’s the new Hardware, and so on. There’s lots of confusion. Dharma of the Shadow Cabinet figures out what’s going on and gathers all the heroes together and explains it to him, while Holocaust has managed to capture Risk and plots to use him to…take over both universes. Or something. I don’t know, it was hard to follow. There’s a bunch of fighting and in the end, the good guys win and the universes split again.

One of the problems here, in addition to not having the space to tell such a massive story, is that the new Milestone characters are still being established, we the readers are still learning about all the ways they’re different from the original versions, so a crossover like this is too soon. There are some good little character bits in the story, as people meet their counterparts. New Rocket is shocked to find out that original Rocket has a child, original Static is surprised to learn that new Static doesn’t hide his powers from his parents. New Hardware and Icon don’t trust each other like original Hardware and Icon did. Original Blood Syndicate is surprised to see new Tech-9 is alive, while new Tech-9 is surprised to learn that original Flashback was a crackhead. But overall the story just doesn’t work for me like it should.

This is followed by STATIC BEYOND, a 12-page story written and drawn by Nikolas Draper-Ivey. It’s set in the Batman Beyond universe, where a now-adult version of original Static comes to Neo-Gotham to help out Terry, the new young Batman. The story is decent, but I was never into Batman Beyond, so I wasn’t that interested.

ICON FOREVER is written by Stephanie Williams and drawn by Yasmin Flores Montanez. This 8-page story takes place in the future of original Milestone that was shown in the Milestone Forever comics, where we see that Raquel has taken on the mantle of Icon, and her son Amistad is now going to college.

And BLOOD SYNDICATE: EPILOGUE is a 10-page story, following up the events of the end of Blood Syndicate Season 1, as the team is working to solidify their control of Paris Island, and fighting off the last remaining loyal members of Holocaust’s gang. It also introduces us to new Milestone’s version of Dharma. This is written by Geoffrey Thorne and drawn by Sean Damien Hill, and is the best story in this book.

An underwhelming issue for such a “milestone” occasion. Chacebook rating: THREE STARS

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