DC: The New Frontier - VOL 01 [Paperback]

Very well done story. Particularly John Jones adapting to his new world and Hal Jordan's post war dealings.

There were a few reasons this didn't get a 5 star rating and none of them relate to story.

This could all have been collected in ONE book! You heard me DC. ONE BOOK! Crisis, The Return of Superman, Batman: The Long Halloween, Batman: Dark Victory were all as long or longer stories and they were collected under ONE COVER. $20.00 for each volume?!

I notice DC has been doing this lately with Batman: Hush and Superman: For Tomorrow. Only it's worse with those volumes! First they come out in 2 hardcovers then 2 tpbs! ONE VOLUME DC! ONE!!!!!!!!!!

If you wanted to milk us on this series you should have released all the parts in ONE hardcover then ONE trade paperback. ONE! Get it DC?! It was that worthy of a story. Not worthy of being broken up cheaply. ONE!!!!!!

This book is another high quality effort from Darwyn Cooke. It reminds me of the intelligent and mature tone of his previous effort, "Catwoman: Selina's Big Score" (which is also highly recommended by me).

"The New Frontier" is not as intense as "Selina's Big Score," but Frontier has a much larger all-encompassing story scope to cover.

Like "Selina's Big Score," Frontier is heavy on engrossing storyline, but light on costumed heroics, (Big Score had zero costumes, but cool street clothes). Frontier can go dozens and dozens of pages inbetween having conventional superhero scenes, in costumes. When the costume scenes do happen, (most notably in a great piece with the Flash!), then it is very entertaining.

Batman does some interesting sleuthing detective work, and though Wonder Woman and Superman are low on action, they are high on good character chemistry and tension. I especially enjoy the Darwyn Cooke version of an AMAZON-sized Wonder Woman who is taller than Superman.

What this book lacks in costumed action, it more than makes up for with heartfelt and sincere character development and motivation. There IS action in this book, but mostly involving characters in real world clothing and uniforms, not costumes.

This book is great for adult fans of the DC universe, who will enjoy all of the insider references, but young comic book readers may not comprehend the more subtle aspects of Darwyn Cooke's comic book writing for grownups, which occupies most of this book.

Me being more of a Marvel fan since childhood, I learned a few things about a few characters that I had not known about before, though, I think that is the whole point of this overall storyline, to fill in unknown gaps of what these superheroes were up to during the 1950's, before the Silver Age of comics began in the early 1960's.

Cooke's wonderful distillation of the Silver Age heroes, with a nod to the Golden Age and timely references about empty-headed patriotism deserves either the big screen treatment, or even better, a mini-series on one of the better cable stations.

The heroes here -- Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc. -- have a darkness that owes a lot to Frank Miller's seminal Dark Knight Returns series, but also to the tortured navel-gazing of Marvel's mutant heroes. Cooke's Dick Tracy-esque art style is warm and inviting, like a Norman Rockwell painting that captures a long forgotten America that probably didn't exist but we seem to miss anyway.

That said, his attempt to juggle so many characters means we lose out on a lot of well-needed character development, which stunts some of the story arcs. The proto-feminist Wonder Woman who encourages Vietnamese women to take revenge on their male captors is sent to the sidelines early on in the story; we are introduced to Aquaman with a great spread, but then he does nothing until the last few pages.

Ultimately, this is the story of three characters, Hal Jordan, The Flash and the Martian Manhunter, but in attempting to tell a giant story that encompasses the whole DC Universe, they too get short shrift.

By all means purchase both volumes, read them, put them in your library and, if possible, buy them repeatedly as gifts for the children of friends and relatives who read comics.