Since the inception of the comic industry, there have been various Black creators, yet none are as synonymous with race and creativity as Dwayne McDuffie. Responsible for the creation of Milestone comics in the 90s, McDuffie made a conscious effort to change the representation of Black characters in a predominately white industry. Given the number of creators opting to achieve similar ends in the modern comic landscape, it's impossible to overstate his influence in the business.
The difference between McDuffie and his slew of successors is the nuance he employed when developing characters. Instead of having Black characters occupy the same bedraggled background and congruent ideology, McDuffie provided disparate socioeconomic backgrounds and political perspectives for his characters. His character Icon, an interpolation on Superman, is still, to my knowledge, the only Black conservative in comic books. McDuffie presented the real world of Blackness in America by eschewing the picturesque vision of racial solidarity that writers typically employ. McDuffie's humanized his Black characters by providing them ample contrasts in ways modern creators fail to.
In the video linked above, McDuffie offers some of the most compelling and stark insights he's accrued as a Black writer in comics. The video is over a decade old and is as relevant as the day it was posted.
