Dave-El's Spinner Rack: New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident (And President Luthor?!)

Today's comic book post is wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

The post is happening in June.

For a book I bought in April.

That came out in February.  

The book is the New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident #1.

Spinning out of the pages of Mark Waid's New History of the DC Universe, this special recounts an heretofore untold moment in DC history, where a murder leads to an all-out war between the  U.S. government and the heroes of Dakota City!

What in the world is Dakota City?

Dakota City is the central locale for the heroes of the Milestone Comics imprint?

And what in the world is Milestone Comics?  

Milestone Comics, an off shoot of Milestone Media.was launhed in 1993 by a coalition of African-American artists and writers, such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, Derek T. Dingle and Christopher Priest. 

The Milestone books were published and distributed by DC Comics.  The line began with  four titles: 

Hardware

Icon

Blood Syndicate

Static

Static was the best known of these features, gaining an animated series called Static Shock produced by Bruce Timm as part of the DC Animated Universe.  Batman and the John Stewart Green Lantern made guest appearances.  

Due to various escalating pressures hitting the comic industry in the late 1990's, Milestone Comics was shuttered in 1997. But the characters were not forgotten.  In 2008,  the Milestone Universe and characters were revived and merged into the DC Universe proper. 

• Static joined the Teen Titans
• Static, Icon, Rocket and Hardware appeared in the Young Justice TV series
• Static got a new solo series as part of the New 52 launch in 2011 but only lasted 8 issues.   

The new special retells the history of Dakota City and its citizens within the reborn timeline of the mainline DC universe.  

Dakota City's Big Bang and the birth of the "Bang Babies", the super powered denizens of the city,  were first glimpsed in New History of the DC Universe #3. That same issue also mentions the disappearance of the Dakota City heroes.

So what happened to them? 

This story fills the gap between the "original" Dakotaverse events and the current DC continuity, explaining why its characters never appeared between the DC Rebirth and All In eras.

Things start to go bad for Dakota City with the murder of Edwin Alva, a man with a reputation as a philanthropic genius and the savior of Dakota City.

Alva was not as good a man as his pubic persona would suggest. He was also in deep and dirty with the U.S. government's Superman Project.  

The Dakato City super hero Hardware is framed for Alva's murder.

Which gives President Lex Luthor the excuse to-

Wait! Did I say "President Lex Luthor"? Yes. Yes I did. 

It was a thing. More on that thing later in the post.

Where was I?

Alva's murder gives President Lex Luthor the excuse to send in troops as well as a contingent of Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad to take control of Dakota City and seize it's metahuman population.

Any similarities to the real world and events in Minneapolis, MN under the Trump administrations is just a coincidence. WINK!

I couldn't also help but draw comparisons to historitcal accounts of white men marauding into black communities to engage in violence and wipe them off the map. Click here for my post on that subject.  

Dakota City has no intention to capitulate to President Luthor and his invading forces and chaos ensues.  

The Big Three from the Justice League (Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman) intervene to broker something of a truce. 

The brokered peace between Luthor and the heroes of Dakota City results in those heroes retreating from public life.   

It is a bad deal but it's the best the heroes can do to protect their city and their loved ones from Luthor's sinister agenda.  

And Lex Luthor may be the President but he can't stop being Lex Luthor. He not so subtly lets Static know that he's really Virgil Hawkins and Lex knows where his family lives.  

Nice family Virgil has; shame if something happened to them.

Some time after these events, tired of the oppression of Dakota City, Virgil asserts himself to stand up and have Static return to save his city.  

New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident #1 can be a complex read if you're not completely up to speed on these Milestone characters but it does present a compelling and seriously relevant narrative.   

NOW....

President Lex Luthor? 

Yeah, that is a thing that actually happened in the DC Universe.

Back in the year 2000, while the real United States was grappling with the question of Al Gore (Dull!) or George W. Bush (Dullard!) for President, Americans in the DC Universe had a 3rd option: Lex Luthor.

And I'll be damned but the storyline running in the Superman titles had the son of a bitch WIN! 

And the rest of the DC line had to follow along.  

Lex made it to the White House! 

He asked for the Oval Office to be steam cleaned as the previous occupant left it smelling like pork rinds.

Also the semen stains. 

President Luthor? Superman was SO happy about that.

Well, I'm glad this is just comic books! I mean, there is NO WAY in real life we would let a narcissistic criminal sociopath become President of the United States, am I right?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Whoops! Sorry.  Got carried away there a bit.

As I noted earlier, Lex Luthor can't stop being Lex Luthor and he got up to some bad shit.  Superman and Batman were about to bust him for it but President Lex got them designated as enemies of the state.

Don't worry. Superman and Batman came out on top and Lex Luthor got his ass impeached!

Hey, did you know that if you do let a narcissistic criminal sociopath become President of the United States, you don't have to put up with it? They can  be impeached for doing bad shit! Did you know? Did you know? Huh?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Sorry about that. 

I think I'm done for the day.