DC: The New Frontier
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DC: The New Frontier is 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 is an epic DC super-hero series 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 Age and the start of the Silver Age of comic books in the DC Universe.
Plot
The New Frontier is set in the late 1950s, with a cameo by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and references to the atomic testing of that era, and presents Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and their contemporaries as having been active since the late 1930s and early 1940s, when their original stories were first published. With the exception of Robin, the characters seen in The New Frontier are introduced in the same year and month that the characters were originally published by DC Comics.
During the course of the story, the older 1940s characters encounter the new 1950s generation of heroes, such as the Barry Allen version of the Flash and the Martian Manhunter, without reference to the concepts of Earth-One and Earth-Two that were introduced in the original comics.
The star of the story is the young pilot Hal Jordan, who by the end of the series becomes the new Green Lantern. Other characters appearing in the book include King Faraday, the original Suicide Squad, the Losers, the Challengers of the Unknown, Green Arrow, Wildcat and Slam Bradley, among 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 it.
The story draws inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period, as well as from Tom Wolfe's novel The Right Stuff, to provide a dynamic and vibrant reimagining of the era that ushered in the Kennedy Administration.
Contrary to actual events, Cooke depicts Dwight Eisenhower as President in 1952, and Senator Joseph McCarthy as the head of the House Un-American Activities Committee. (Eisenhower did not take office until January 20, 1953, and McCarthy could not serve on the HUAC because he was elected to the Senate, not the House of Representatives.) Also, reference is made to the U.S. Department of Energy, a cabinet-level department that did not exist until the 1970s.
Art Style
The art style has several influences: Jack Kirby's, with squared fingers, muscles and jaws; the simple clean lines of Golden Age-era comics; the more modern deco-aesthetics of the Superman animated series produced by Fleischer Studios, as well as the work of Bruce Timm on Batman: The Animated Series, and a number of other shows in the DC animated universe. Cooke had previously worked as an artist for many of the latter.
Awards
In 2005 the series won an Eisner Award for "Best Limited Series."
A brief addendum appeared in Solo #5 (2005), a collection of short stories written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke. One of the stories, featuring King Faraday, is set in pre-revolutionary Cuba and is titled "Triangulation: A New Frontier Thriller."
Film adaptation
Warner Bros. writer and
Ain't It Cool News has reported that Bones star David Boreanaz would be the voice of Hal Jordan with Brooke Shields the voice for Jordan's love interest, Carol Ferris. [2]
Kyle MacLachlan is slated to voice Superman,
Jeremy Sisto has been tapped to voice Batman,
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) [3]
Merchandise
DC Direct produced a line of action figures based on the series, released in July 2006. The initial wave consists of Blackhawk, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Superman, and Wonder Woman. New Frontier series 2 figures are to be released on December 12th, 2007. Figures included Batman, Dr. Fate, Martian Manhunter and The Flash.
References
- Fanboy Radio broadcast #346 (November 5, 2006)
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