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Blood Syndicate is back.
At the 2021 edition of DC Fandome Milestone co-founder Denys Cowan and Milestone partner Reggie Hudlin announced the 2022 return of the series and now DC has announced Blood Syndicate: Season One will launch on May 10.
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This six-issue series is written by Geoffrey Thorne (Green Lantern) and illustrated by Milestone veteran ChrisCross and Juan Castro.
According to Hudlin, Blood Syndicate is the “fourth pillar” of the recently revived Milestone Dakotaverse (joining Static, Hardware, and Icon & Rocket) and was “just a matter of time” says Hudlin in the announcement.
“Holocaust’s recruitment of ‘Bang Babies’ in Static Season One was a big hint that we’d eventually address the impact of the ‘Big Bang’ on Paris Island,” Hudlin continues. “Landing Geoffrey Thorne and ChrisCross as writer and artists for the series was pretty much the icing on the cake; they’re the perfect team for telling this story.”
Blood Syndicate: Season One reunites original Blood Syndicate members Tech-9, Wise Son, and Fade and returns to Paris Island, which DC describes as Dakota’s “densest and most impoverished borough,” and in what feels like a dynamic taken straight from real-world headlines is the community hardest hit by the “sickness, death, superpowers, and social upheavals” caused by the ‘Big Bang.’
Check out new character designs for Tech-9, Wise Son, and Fade:
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Originally published for 35 issues from 1993 to 1996 and created by the late Milestone co-founder Dwayne McDuffie, writer Ivan Velez Jr., and Cowan, the original Blood Syndicate team book starred a loosely affiliated ‘gang’ of superheroes, most of whom were former street gang members who gained powers during the Milestone ‘Big Bang’ origin event and used their powers for the greater good.
In the new series, original members Tech-9 and Wise Son have both returned from military tours of duty in Afghanistan to a Dakota that is very different from the one they left.
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According to DC, while Icon and Rocket have tackling the drug traffic and cleaning up the streets, other ‘Bang Babies’ – people who gained superpowers from the ‘Big Bang’ – are forming rival gang factions and Holocaust has recruited his own super-powered army to rule Paris Island “with an iron fist.”
The series examines the fallout of Holocaust’s increasing influence, Wise Son and Tech-9’s return from their military tours and what secrets they may be hiding, and when battle lines are drawn in their neighborhoods, which ‘Bang Babies’ on Paris Island “will rise up to fight back for their turf” and who will look to gain power beyond the streets of Paris Island.
Blood Syndicate: Season One #1 features a main cover Dexter Soy, plus an ‘OG’ (‘old school’) variant cover by ChrisCross, a ‘new school’ variant by Nikolas Draper-Ivey, and a 1-in-25 ratio variant cover by Juliet Nneka.
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During 2021’s Fandome, Cowan (Hardware: Season One (opens in new tab)) and Hudlin (Icon & Rocket: Season One (opens in new tab)) also confirmed that there are plans for ‘Season Two’ of each Milestone series and that their characters will appear in each other’s titles, reestablishing a shared Dakotaverse.
The characters will also appear in the Milestone anthology Milestones in History which was originally scheduled for February 15 as a part of DC’s Black History Month celebration, but has since been pushed back to June, as well as the Milestone Compendium One (opens in new tab) a 1300-page trade paperback published on February 1 collecting the original Blood Syndicate #1-12, Hardware #1 -12, Icon #1-10, Static #1-8, Xombi #1-8, and Shadow Cabinet #0.
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