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| Tuesday, June 12, 2007 09:10 PM |
| A New Frontier |
 by Fëanor |
I'll admit it. I bought the graphic novel DC: The New Frontier, Volume 1 based almost entirely on the cover art, which I will reproduce below, as stolen from Amazon.com:
From this cover, I got the impression that this would be a fun, '50s-style romp through the pasts of some of the big name DC superheroes. When I got to the end of the first story in the book, wherein a Native American soldier during WWII gets revenge for the death of his squad by popping the pins off two grenades and jumping with them down the throat of a giant killer dinosaur, I realized I might have been mistaken.
New Frontier - written and illustrated, both marvelously, by the amazing Darwyn Cooke - begins at the end of WWII and works its way forward to as far as 1957, telling as it goes pieces of the stories of well known and lesser known heroes of the DC Universe. While the Losers and the Suicide Squad get a lot of space, one of the characters we see the most of is Hal Jordan - but, interestingly enough, by the end of the book, he has yet to become the Green Lantern. Instead we see him as a regular human being. We see him as a child, trying to get an autograph from Chuck Yeager. We see him during the conflict in Korea, trying somehow to avoid killing anyone. And we see him later, trying to deal of what he did do, and with his own suicidal impulses.
Batman and Superman appear, but mostly as larger figures moving in the background. They are the men representing the opposite sides of the registration debate. Yes, this book includes DC's own version of Marvel's Civil War - an argument over whether superheroes should be registered or not (though this was written well before the Civil War series, I might add). But here the debate takes place in the context of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and the House Unamerican Activities Committee. When the US government demands that the masked heroes unmask and reveal their secret identities, many of them retire. But Superman stays on as a champion of registration and, as in Miller's Dark Knight, becomes the pawn of the American government. When he tries to bring in the Batman, the dark knight manages, with the help of a Kryptonite bomb, to disable him long enough to escape and continue fighting crime his own way - from the shadows. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman takes the side of the American military and Superman, but finds her conviction shaken by what she sees in Vietnam.
Another relatively major character in these stories is the Martian Manhunter, whom we follow as he tries to make sense of America and its people. The Wildcat gets a cameo, though it's during his boxing days, and Cat Woman also appears, though as just plain old Selina. Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane get short parts, and Barry Allen's Flash gets to play hero in one memorable short story.
Besides one-shots like the Flash's story, the book also follows various developing, over-arching stories which promise to have their conclusion in New Frontier Volume 2. But what the book is really about is America of the '40s and '50s, and how desperately it needed heroes. It tells this story with great feeling, subtlety, wisdom, and beauty. The art is fantastic, the dialogue and narration clever and effective. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. One thing though: I suggest coming into it with some knowledge of the DCU - like, the secret identities of all the major heroes. If you have information like that in the back of your mind, certain scenes will take on a lot more resonance. For instance, when the little kid asking for Chuck Yeager's autograph reveals that his name is Hal Jordan, it should really mean something to you. |
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