DC: The New Frontier
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DC: The New Frontier is the name of an Eisner, Harvey, and Shuster Award-winning six-issue comic book limited series written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke and published by DC Comics in 2003 and 2004.
The series was an epic DC super-hero crossover reminiscent of Kingdom Come and The Golden Age. Like The Golden Age, it sought to tell a story which bridged the gap between the end of the golden and the start of the silver age of comic books in the DC Universe.
The series did not carry the Elseworlds imprint, leaving the reader to decide how to handle its continuity. The story was set in the late 1950s (with a cameo by President Eisenhower and references to the atomic testing of that era) and presented Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and their contemporaries as active since the late 1930s and early 1940s, when their original stories were first published. In fact, the major characters are introduced in "The New Frontier" in the same order that DC originally published them, even down to the correct month and year in the story's timeline.
During the course of the story, these now much older characters encounter the new 1950s generation of heroes, such as the Barry Allen Flash and the Martian Manhunter, without reference to the concepts of Earth-One and Earth-Two which were introduced in the original comics (see Crisis on Infinite Earths for more on these concepts).
The star of the story was the young pilot Hal Jordan, who by the end of the series had become the new Green Lantern. Other characters that appeared in the book included King Faraday, the original Suicide Squad, the Challengers of the Unknown, Green Arrow, Wildcat and Slam Bradley, among many others.
The plot of the series concerns the mounting threat of an alien presence on Earth, with the final issue featuring dozens of characters from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s eras of DC Comics teaming up to defeat the threat.
The story drew inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period as well as from Tom Wolfe's novel The Right Stuff. Although the series provided a dynamic and vibrant reimagining of this era as one ushering in the Camelot of the Kennedy Administration, it also suffered from a number of historical inaccuracies, most notably identifying Dwight Eisenhower as President in 1952 and Senator Joseph McCarthy as the head of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Of course, Eisenhower did not take office until January 20, 1953, and McCarthy, as a Senator, could not have served on the HUAC.
The art style that was used is heavily influenced by the Jack Kirby style: the square fingers, square muscles and square jaws; Golden Age style, the simpiler clean lines of early comic books; and shares the influence of Superman animated series produced by Fleischer Studios as did the work of Bruce Timm on Batman: The Animated Series and other shows in the DC animated universe. Cooke had previously worked as an artist on several animated series.
In 2005 the series won an Eisner Award for "Best Limited Series."
An addendum of sorts appeared in Solo #5 (2005), an issue of short stories all written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. It starred a "New Frontier" style King Faraday and was set in late 1950s pre-revolutionary Cuba. Though the story featured no super-heroes or any previously established DC characters besides Faraday, it was titled Triangulation: A New Frontier Thriller and was also written and drawn by Cooke.
In June 2006, Warner Bros. writer and producer Stan Berkowitz said in an interview at The World's Finest (which was pulled, but the interview found its way to message boards across the internet) he was "writing a direct-to-video animated adaptation of (the) New Frontier epic. It will be feature length, rated PG-13 and Bruce Timm will be the executive producer. So far, it's been nothing but fun... a chance for me to revisit my youth and the Starro era."
DC Comics finally confirmed the film at the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con . Paul Levitz stated that Mr. Cooke would be part of the art team for the movie. [1]
[edit] Collections
The series has been collected in two softcover collections and one oversized hardcover edition. Notably, the hardcover collection includes 13 pages of new story by Cooke, expanding on the origins of Martian Manhunter and Flash and a six-page segement on the Suicide Squad.
- DC: The New Frontier: Volume One (collecting #1-3; ISBN 1-4012-0350-7)
- DC: The New Frontier: Volume Two (collecting #4-6; ISBN 1-4012-0461-9)
- DC: The New Frontier: Absolute Edition (collecting #1-6; ISBN 1-4012-1080-5) [2]
[edit] Merchandise
DC Direct is producing a line of action figures based on the series with first release in July 2006. The initial wave consists of Blackhawk, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman. The figures are being marketed as "JLA: The New Frontier."
[edit] References
- Fanboy Radio broadcast #346 (November 5, 2006)
