DWAYNE
McDUFFIE
(February
20, 1962-February 21, 2011)
Notable
Roles: Producer, writer, editor
A
Michigan native, McDuffie graduated the Roeper
School and the University of Michigan
before moving to New York to attend New York
University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
After working as a copy editor at Investment Dealer’s
Digest, McDuffie went on to work for Marvel
Comics as assistant to editor Bob
Budiansky. There, he helped develop the company’s first superhero trading
cards set before getting his first major writing work published in the pages of
Damage
Control. After becoming an editor, he submitted a spoof proposal for a
series called Teenage Negro
Ninja Thrashers after becoming dissatisfied with the number and
treatment of Marvel’s Black characters. Going freelance in 1990, McDuffie
continued to write for Marvel alongside DC
Comics, Archie Comics and Harvey Comics, where he
wrote the comic spin-off of the Back
to the Future cartoon. Along
with Denys Cowan, Michael
Davis, Derek
T. Dingle and Christopher
Priest (who left in the early planning stages for personal reasons), he
founded Milestone Media to bring the
multicultural sensibility they felt missing from comic books. They debuted
Milestone Comics in 1993, published through DC Comics, that introduced the
interconnected “Dakotaverse”,
named for the fictional city of Dakota
where most of their stories were set. Populating it were the African-American Static, Icon and Hardware; the
Asian-American Xombi;
and the group Blood
Syndicate comprised of various ethnicities. A victim of both the comic bust
and near-sighted retailer perception, Milestone ceased operations in 1997 and
became primarily a licensing company. Static was adapted
into the animated series Static
Shock, on which McDuffie served as story editor and wrote 11 episodes.
He also wrote for Teen
Titans and What’s
New, Scooby-Doo? while serving as a staff writer on Justice League;
where he was later promoted to story editor and producer when the series became
Justice League
Unlimited. Additionally, he wrote the story for the video game Justice League Heroes and
several direct-to-DVD DC animated movies. Along with returning to comic work
with Beyond!,
Fantastic
Four vol. 1, and Justice
League of America vol. 2,
McDuffie was hired to revamp and story edit the Ben 10 franchise for Cartoon Network, resulting in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. During
his career, he was nominated for several Eisner
Awards, Daytime Emmy Awards, and
won a Golden Apple
Award, The Humanitas Prize,
an Inkpot Award, and a Writers Guild of America Award, as well as
voted Favorite Breakout Talent in Wizard
Magazine’s Fan Awards. In 2011,
McDuffie died of complications from emergency heart surgery. Several tributes
came after his death: Justice
League: Doom, Ultimate Alien’s final episode and the spin-off video game were
dedicated to his memory; a diner named “McDuffie’s” appeared in Green
Lantern: The Animated Series; Ultimate Spider-Man introduced
the new CEO of Damage
Control named “Mac” with a dedication in the same episode; the 2011 Static
Shock comic reboot had the titular character attending a high school
named for McDuffie; new DC Comics character and brief TV star Naomi was
given the last name “McDuffie”; and the Dwayne
McDuffie Award for Diversity and Comics and The
Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics were started in his honor.
Back to the Future (comic)
What’s New, Scooby-Doo?
Ben 10: Omniverse
