Dwayne McDuffie, born on February 20th, 1962, was a writer of comic books and animated television shows. McDuffie began his writing career working with Marvel Comics where he created Damage Control (a group formed to clean up the messes left behind by battles between heroes and villains) and created a new variation of Marvel’s Deathlok character. In the 1990s, McDuffie co-founded Milestone Media, the company behind the Milestone Comics imprint that originated such characters as Icon & Rocket, Hardware, and the beloved Static. In the 2000s, McDuffie began to work on animated television shows including Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Static Shock (the animated adaptation of the character Static). Tragically, McDuffie passed away just one day after his 49th birthday from complications after undergoing emergency heart surgery.