A New Frontier

I stopped buying monthly comic books a few months ago. That was a big deal for me if for no other reason than than I'd been making a semi-weekly trip to the comic shop for several years. It's not that I've given up on comics as that's certainly not the case. If anything, I'm more into them than ever. But that stoppage has freed up both time and money (but mostly time) to invest in reading either graphic novels or collected reprints of monthly comics. I enjoy having everything "right there". There's no waiting for next month's issue. There's no trying to figure out what I missed before I started picking up a title. Anyway, I've written about that before.

I've read some books I've really enjoyed. I liked DC's Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex. I also really enjoyed Superman: Secret Identity. Of course, I've also read some that I didn't care for like Son of Superman.

Most recently, I've been reading DC: The New Frontier. It was published a few years ago so I'm a little behind the game as I only found out about it recently. And that was only because of an email I received about the upcoming animated movie based on the book. I've got to say, the book(s) (it's actually published in two volumes) have blown me away. Here's why:

1. It's a great story. It spans several decades, weaving several generations of characters into a something that ultimately gives us the first incarnation of the Justice League. Characters that really don't interact...ever...are meeting under believable circumstances. Obviously, it's a comic book so I'm using a pretty loose interpretation of the term "believable". Still, it's impressive.


2. It's set during the mid-/late-fifties. Why is that a big deal? Well, first, it's about the time the Justice League was actually developed (1960). Several of the individual characters like the Hal Jordan Green Lantern (1959) and the Barry Allan Flash (1956) also debuted during that timeframe. In other words, it's not a modernized version of the characters. It's not taking place in some other dimension. The time feels real and there are plenty of semi-accurate historical tidbits.


3. More important than the time of the setting is the mood of the setting. The time period just fits, for lack of a better term. Space was a mystery. Communism was a threat. The heroes of the day were astronauts, test pilots, veterans not juiced up athletes or grandstanding celebrities. People had a genuine sense of duty and honor. I don't know. It's not like I was alive during the 1950s so maybe I'm just being nostalgic for a time that at least appears less murky than today.


4. It does justice to the characters. There seems to be a trend to make comic book characters...you know...trendy. They've been created and recreated to make them more human and more flawed...ordinary people with flaws. The thing with DC: The New Frontier is that, while the character still have flaws, these characters were, at their core, extraordinary even without the powers. If they weren't extraordinary...well, that's where the supervillians come from. Anyway, the heros (superpowered and otherwise) inspire courage which, I think, is what they're meant to do.


5. It introduced me to characters the I either a) didn't know about or b) was unfamiliar with. The Challengers of the Unknown. The Sea Devils. The Suicide Squad. I'll be looking them up.


6. The Flash and Green Lantern, awesome characters that tend to get overshadowed by Superman and Batman, save the day. The Flash is fast. Really, REALLY fast. Seriously.

There's good interview with Darwyn Cooke, the author and artist behind DC: The New Frontier, on the Comic Book Resource site. He hits on a lot the things I mentioned. After this, I will be checking out some of his other work.

Check out the trailer for the animated movie.