When people think "Milestone Media" they probably think of Static, but the once great comic book publishing company offered many more fascinating characters like Icon, Rocket, The Blood Syndicate, and today's Z-Lister! And so let me introduce you to Milestone/DC Comic's Hardware.
Created by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan in 1993 and first appearing in "Hardware #1", this character would be one of many to fluff-up Milestone Media. Milestone was an imprint over at DC Comics that was founded by Dwayne and Denys, as well as Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle. The men believed minorities to be severely underused in comic books during that time and used Milestone as a platform to launch interesting characters. One of these characters being Hardware.
Curtis Metcalf was a child prodigy discovered at age 13 by the CEO of Alva Industries, Edwin Alva. Edwin saw the potential of Curtis and put him in the "Better Chance" program, which helped the African-American community by putting the smarter students in prep schools. Curt graduated at 15 and got his first college degree at age 16. After earning six other degrees, Curt was asked to work at Alva Industries in return for helping him pay through college. He was given his own lab, a large budget, and all the time he needed to test his new inventions. Inventions that made a lot of money for Alva Industries.
When he reached adulthood, Curtis asked Edwin Alva for shared profits of his inventions. However, Alva made it very clear that his years with the company did not change his importance. "You are not respected, Curtis. You are simply useful". Additionally, part of Curt's contract insisted he could not work for any other manufacturing company. Curtis hacked into Alva's accounts to find some sort of leverage to use on him, but what he found was much worse. It took Curt two weeks to put it all together, but it turned out Edwin had connections to drug money, political bribery, and illegal weapon sales to foreign nations. This man who had build Curtis up from the ground had not only turned out to be a bad boss, but a criminal mastermind.
Curtis attempted to email his findings to the FBI and the SEC, but had no results. Alva's connections made him untouchable for any government branch. The only thing that could hurt Alva would be his own weapons. Curtis created a weapon bunker below his lab and created a suit of armor and equipment. Using his hacking abilities, Curtis could follow any criminal plot Alva had planned and be there to stop it. Curtis became a man of mystery lurking around every corner to stop Alva's crimes with his own technology. Curtis became known as Hardware. "He turned the city upside down looking for Hardware. I live in his basement".
Hardware's cast of characters also includes his girlfriend Barraki Young, a super-human mob enforcer/undercover cop known as Harm, a teleporting villain known as Transit, and a hit-man who can clone himself named Reprise. Hardware's sidekick is Tiffany Evans who was given technology and named Technique by Alva to defeat Hardware. Surprisingly, Technique did defeat Hardware only to join him in his crusade against Alva. Hardware's series also spawned the character Deathwish who had been the only surviving member of the sexual assault/murder of his family. He became a vigilante obsessed with sex related crimes. He was also a pre-op transsexual and had a 4-issue miniseries.
Using his invention "Shell Forge" Curtis covers his body in a material that is skin-tight and damage resistant. The Shell not only stretches with his body, but enhances the force behind movements simulating super-strength. The suit can also be programmed with body movements based on martial arts moves. This means he can program a fighting technique he has never practiced and the suit can guide his body to perform that move. His external armor is operated by nano-machines within the armor and directed by a program called DOBIE. DOBIE allows Hardware to make suit commands by using voice orders and eye movement. The suit comes with a voice synthesizer, various detection equipment, a universal communicator, a police radio, a sound enhancer, it can adjust to different environments like sea or space and can camouflage, jet boots, self-repairing units, and an inertia winder that can absorb and store kinetic energy. The inertia winder can also match his suit's weight to his own body weight, allowing him the speed, agility and dexterity of an unarmored man. He has a liquid metal lock pick, a sonic blasting drill, and his signature Omnicannon. The Omnicannon fires air blasts, but is used with a number of special shells including: Tear gas, standard explosives, flames, flash bangs, armor piercing spears, armor-eating nanobots, ice blasts, adhesives, knockout gas, and a few others. He has a Plasma Whip, Retractable Sword, an Energy Shield, and a Plasma Laser that creates vaporizing punches, and a few other weapons. Oh, and he has a flying car.
With a armory so vast and a story so personal, you're probably wondering why you've never heard of Hardware. Well, even after the Milestone characters folded into DC Comics the company never really made a big deal out them in advertisements. While characters created at Wildstorm got cartoons and reappearances in DC's New 52, Milestone only had a Static cartoon and a few of their characters appear in "Young Justice". But Hardware never appeared outside of comics, with his most recent appearance being in the short-lived "Static" comic book. His lack of appearance-as well as the rest of Milestone-may be an issue of internal affairs and ownership rights over at DC Comics seeing as how McDuffie passed a few years ago. I really like Hardware, I always knew he was around, but when I started reading about him I really saw the potential of the character from the standpoint of his creators. Here we have an African-American character who was taken to a bright and shiny home in return for his creativity and his alliance only for him to use the tools given to him to fight the very person who betrayed him. There are layers in that concept.
In 2011, DC Comics swapped The Martian Manhunter out for Cyborg in their Justice League book. A. To give the League a tech-character and B. to give the League a black person. After all this research I really think Hardware would have been a better fit for that part. He's techy, he's Black, he's older and wiser and has a pretty harsh origin. The only reason it was Cyborg was because he had been on TV and he was young, plus Hardware could have had right ownership problems. Nevertheless, having Hardware as the 7th member would have shown DC Comic's interest to reach out to their imprints. After all they used Vertigo and Wildstorm to their extent. Plus, if Hardware was the new 7th member than Cyborg could have remained on the Teen Titans title.
Sadly, they can't reset the past. I mean they can, but not literally. Hardware was just the character DC needed, but not the one they wanted to risk using. And now this awesome character sinks into obscurity while DC receives continuous flack by JL and TT fans alike for their use of Cyborg. But such is way of a comic book company who's only smart investments begin with "Super" and "Bat".
Thanks for reading!
Do you want to see Hardware in a new comic? Comment below!
Curtis Metcalf was a child prodigy discovered at age 13 by the CEO of Alva Industries, Edwin Alva. Edwin saw the potential of Curtis and put him in the "Better Chance" program, which helped the African-American community by putting the smarter students in prep schools. Curt graduated at 15 and got his first college degree at age 16. After earning six other degrees, Curt was asked to work at Alva Industries in return for helping him pay through college. He was given his own lab, a large budget, and all the time he needed to test his new inventions. Inventions that made a lot of money for Alva Industries.
When he reached adulthood, Curtis asked Edwin Alva for shared profits of his inventions. However, Alva made it very clear that his years with the company did not change his importance. "You are not respected, Curtis. You are simply useful". Additionally, part of Curt's contract insisted he could not work for any other manufacturing company. Curtis hacked into Alva's accounts to find some sort of leverage to use on him, but what he found was much worse. It took Curt two weeks to put it all together, but it turned out Edwin had connections to drug money, political bribery, and illegal weapon sales to foreign nations. This man who had build Curtis up from the ground had not only turned out to be a bad boss, but a criminal mastermind.
Curtis attempted to email his findings to the FBI and the SEC, but had no results. Alva's connections made him untouchable for any government branch. The only thing that could hurt Alva would be his own weapons. Curtis created a weapon bunker below his lab and created a suit of armor and equipment. Using his hacking abilities, Curtis could follow any criminal plot Alva had planned and be there to stop it. Curtis became a man of mystery lurking around every corner to stop Alva's crimes with his own technology. Curtis became known as Hardware. "He turned the city upside down looking for Hardware. I live in his basement".
Hardware's cast of characters also includes his girlfriend Barraki Young, a super-human mob enforcer/undercover cop known as Harm, a teleporting villain known as Transit, and a hit-man who can clone himself named Reprise. Hardware's sidekick is Tiffany Evans who was given technology and named Technique by Alva to defeat Hardware. Surprisingly, Technique did defeat Hardware only to join him in his crusade against Alva. Hardware's series also spawned the character Deathwish who had been the only surviving member of the sexual assault/murder of his family. He became a vigilante obsessed with sex related crimes. He was also a pre-op transsexual and had a 4-issue miniseries.
Using his invention "Shell Forge" Curtis covers his body in a material that is skin-tight and damage resistant. The Shell not only stretches with his body, but enhances the force behind movements simulating super-strength. The suit can also be programmed with body movements based on martial arts moves. This means he can program a fighting technique he has never practiced and the suit can guide his body to perform that move. His external armor is operated by nano-machines within the armor and directed by a program called DOBIE. DOBIE allows Hardware to make suit commands by using voice orders and eye movement. The suit comes with a voice synthesizer, various detection equipment, a universal communicator, a police radio, a sound enhancer, it can adjust to different environments like sea or space and can camouflage, jet boots, self-repairing units, and an inertia winder that can absorb and store kinetic energy. The inertia winder can also match his suit's weight to his own body weight, allowing him the speed, agility and dexterity of an unarmored man. He has a liquid metal lock pick, a sonic blasting drill, and his signature Omnicannon. The Omnicannon fires air blasts, but is used with a number of special shells including: Tear gas, standard explosives, flames, flash bangs, armor piercing spears, armor-eating nanobots, ice blasts, adhesives, knockout gas, and a few others. He has a Plasma Whip, Retractable Sword, an Energy Shield, and a Plasma Laser that creates vaporizing punches, and a few other weapons. Oh, and he has a flying car.
With a armory so vast and a story so personal, you're probably wondering why you've never heard of Hardware. Well, even after the Milestone characters folded into DC Comics the company never really made a big deal out them in advertisements. While characters created at Wildstorm got cartoons and reappearances in DC's New 52, Milestone only had a Static cartoon and a few of their characters appear in "Young Justice". But Hardware never appeared outside of comics, with his most recent appearance being in the short-lived "Static" comic book. His lack of appearance-as well as the rest of Milestone-may be an issue of internal affairs and ownership rights over at DC Comics seeing as how McDuffie passed a few years ago. I really like Hardware, I always knew he was around, but when I started reading about him I really saw the potential of the character from the standpoint of his creators. Here we have an African-American character who was taken to a bright and shiny home in return for his creativity and his alliance only for him to use the tools given to him to fight the very person who betrayed him. There are layers in that concept.
In 2011, DC Comics swapped The Martian Manhunter out for Cyborg in their Justice League book. A. To give the League a tech-character and B. to give the League a black person. After all this research I really think Hardware would have been a better fit for that part. He's techy, he's Black, he's older and wiser and has a pretty harsh origin. The only reason it was Cyborg was because he had been on TV and he was young, plus Hardware could have had right ownership problems. Nevertheless, having Hardware as the 7th member would have shown DC Comic's interest to reach out to their imprints. After all they used Vertigo and Wildstorm to their extent. Plus, if Hardware was the new 7th member than Cyborg could have remained on the Teen Titans title.
Sadly, they can't reset the past. I mean they can, but not literally. Hardware was just the character DC needed, but not the one they wanted to risk using. And now this awesome character sinks into obscurity while DC receives continuous flack by JL and TT fans alike for their use of Cyborg. But such is way of a comic book company who's only smart investments begin with "Super" and "Bat".
Thanks for reading!
Do you want to see Hardware in a new comic? Comment below!
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