DC: The New Frontier - VOL 02

"Mr. Cooke's drawings are striking, and his plot makes good use of DC's diverse characters."—THE NEW YORK TIMES"Using a classic style, Cooke creates a classic of his own."—THE ONIONDarwyn Cooke's epic chronicle of DC's Silver Age concludes in this volume collecting issues #4-6 of the miniseries! It's a mystery in space as Superman, the Suicide Squad, and the Challengers of the Unknown encounter a frightening extraterrestrial lifeform! This volume also features sketchbook material by Cooke!

Grade 8 Up–A '50s-style comic with modern-day sensibilities. A group of astronauts, most of whom know each other from World War II or Korea, make tentative steps into outer space. In a secondary story line, a black man takes revenge on the KKK, which killed his family, but then is himself murdered. As the scientists explore, a huge alien army waits in orbit to invade Earth. One alien falls to Earth and watches TV reports, trying to grasp American culture. Soon enough, humans and aliens collide, and the Justice League is there to save everything. The social-commentary subplots, of late-'50s civil rights and of Cold War paranoia, are the most powerful elements here. However, too often the most interesting story line is left undeveloped: Green Lantern, lost in the desert for four years, the black man avenging his family, war veterans visiting the graves of their comrades–all these threads are overshadowed by yammering astronauts and their love triangles. Buy this one only if the first volume is popular.–John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
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Starred Review. The versions of the classic DC Comics heroes that baby boomers grew up reading were developed during comics' "Silver Age," from 1956 through the 1960s; after that time, superhero comics aimed at older, more jaded readers turned "grim and gritty." Writer/artist Cooke attempts to recapture the Silver Age's heroic and optimistic ideals within the more sophisticated vision of contemporary comics. His strategy is to portray DC's 1950s heroes in the context of postwar American culture. Hence, Cooke links the virtual disappearance of superheroes early in that decade to McCarthy-era witch-hunts and connects the Klan's murder of an African-American superhero to detective John Jones's fears of being exposed as an illegal alien—from Mars. Later, he successfully parallels the formation of the Justice League with President Kennedy's "New Frontier," both embodying a new idealism to cope with a dangerous world. The simple, handsome, expressive figures recall not only the work of animator Bruce Timm, but also art by such comics masters as Jack Kirby and Alex Toth. Implying in his afterword that "New Frontier" is an allegory of post-9/11 America, Cooke has stirringly laid out a promising new path for the superhero genre. (May)
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Cooke's revisions of DC Comics' "Silver Age" superheroes, the first collection of which appeared earlier this year, continue with the talented writer-artist taking second looks through contemporary eyes at some classic characters' early exploits. Cooke relegates DC's big guns--Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman--largely to the background, instead spotlighting heroes who came on the scene in the late 1950s and early '60s, particularly Green Lantern, portrayed, before he gets his ring of power, as a hotshot test pilot a la Chuck Yeager, and the Martian Manhunter, incarcerated by the government, in a display of cold war-era xenophobic paranoia, as the ultimate enemy alien. The heroes eventually join forces against an intergalactic threat. Some may think the climax here is rather a letdown after the more quietly compelling, character-driven passages that precede it. Cooke's cartoony, neotraditionalist art style, deceptively simple, possesses a quiet sophistication that far outshines his flashier peers. Together the two New Frontier volumes constitute one of the most ambitious and satisfying superhero tales of recent years. Gordon Flagg
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