the wise son.

Robin Watching: 1765/∞

Duke Thomas as Batman/The Final Knight

Image Source

in simple broadstrokes, as simply and fundamentally I can break it down, Duke Thomas has the power to absorb and redistribute both light and shadow for a variety of effects.

he typically absorbs light through the eyes and uses it to perform different visual abilities (precognition, recognition, telescopic vision, x-ray vision, etc)....

conversely, he tends to absorb shadow with his body and uses it to cloak his allies, augment his melee, defend himself, or to terrify and disorient his opponents.

Duke also has a couple important passive abilities that are not fully confirmed or understood. his biological father is an Immortal named Gnomon, who implied that Duke may have similar immortality, and we also know that Duke makes other metahumans more powerful in his presence.

Batman: Urban Legends #8 - “The Fearful” (2021)

panel x panel

Future State: The Signal

"outsiders" The Next Batman #3 written by Brandon Thomas, pencils by Sumit Kumar, inks by Raul Fernandez + Sumit Kumat, and colors by Jordie Bellaire

Hardware

[Pin-up from Milestone Forever #1 (February 3, 2010)]

Saturday Series Spotlight: Icon

Raquel Ervin was an outspoken, liberal-minded, idealistic teenager that wanted to change the world as a writer but was a little bit too easy to get talked into dumb decisions by her friends. Including when they convinced her to try to rob a house of a rich lawyer, Augustus Freeman IV. Raquel discovered that the guy had superpowers. You see, Augustus’ real name is Arnus, he is an alien whose ship crashed on Earth in 1839 and his ship saved his life by basically making his body be reborn as a child based on the first intelligent being to touch the ship - a black slave woman. Augustus has lived through slavery, civil war, Jim Crow and civil rights movement, hiding his immortality by posing as his sons and eventually amassing himself a good life. Until the day Raquel showed up. Or rather the day she showed up again, a few days later. She tried to convince Augustus that with his powers he could become a hero and set up a positive example to the black community of Dakota. 

Augustus became a superhero Icon and Raquel used his technology to become his sidekick, Rocket. Together they faced equally fantastic problems like aliens or superpowered criminals (sharing an arch-nemesis with Static in fire-powered crimelord, Holocaust). But they also tackled all kinds of political issues, like police brutality, teen pregnancy or reproductive rights. And even some meta-commentaries like when they got to meet Buck Wild, the Mercenary Hero - a character through which Dwayne McDuffie voiced his many, many issues with Luke Cage. It should be noted that while Icon is a titular character, McDuffie admitted it is Raquel who is the real protagonist.

Icon remains a classic to this day and is considered McDuffie’s Opus Magnum, even if Static outshines the series in popularity. Hell, even Alan Moore, who hates that superhero comics keep existing at all after Watchmen, has praised Icon as an incredibly creative title. Sadly you cannot get this book legally right now - there are no ComiXology issues or trade collections. This will hopefully change with the planned return of Milestone Media - the last picture above is one of the teasers for it - which promises both returns of the characters and reprints of classic comics. The relaunch has been caught in a lawsuit that pushed it back four years, but it appears to have been settled. Here is hoping it means more people will be able to soon read both classic and new adventures of Icon and Rocket.

Maestro #1 (2020)