by Brendan Foley
“Are we up to the task — are we equal to the challenge? Or must we sacrifice our future in order to enjoy the present? That is the question of the New Frontier.”
DC Comics has seen better days. Instead of kick-starting a cinematic universe, Batman V Superman was derided by critics and audiences, derision that carried over into the box office, where the film is being roundly shellacked by Captain America and Iron Man in Civil War, a defeat that would have been unfathomable only five years ago. Audiences gazed upon mopey-Superman and murder-Batman… and turned away. While brave faces have been put on by all, word behind the scenes suggests something rotten. Beyond the rumors of turbulent creative waters on the now-filming Justice League, Warner Bros. has experienced major corporate restructuring in the weeks since BVS came and went, with Geoff Johns being tasked with overseeing the future of DC films.
Johns is also currently penning DC: Rebirth, a comic storyline meant to help repair the damage of the disastrous New 52. About five years ago, DC rebooted their universe, dumping out much (but not all) of the prior continuity. The revamped versions of old characters were younger, angrier, and more prone to angst and violence. Female characters swapped out their costumes for strips of fabric (barely) covering breasts and pubic mounds, supermen murdered and swore and bled, The Joker cut off his own face and nailed his face to a fucking wall. If the New 52 was meant to bring in a new generation of fans, thanks to stripped down continuity and new #1s, it didn’t work. And if the New 52 was meant to inspire longtime devotees to pick up new books and remember why they loved these characters, well, DC went 0–2 on this one.
After years of trouncing Marvel, as that company floundered through bankruptcy, clone sagas, and shitty cartoons, DC appeared to have lost its way completely.
To be fair to all involved, it certainly seems like folks are aware of the problem and are trying to fix it. Pretty much every single creative involved with various WB/DC films (including Zack Snyder on Justice League) swears blind that their films will have the sense of optimism and fun that BVS not only ignored, but seemed to actively work to spite. James Wan, Patty Jenkins, David Ayer, all insist that their respective DC films will have a more chipper outlook than the Gloomy McStab shenanigans of BVS.
And on the comics end, DC: Rebirth sounds like a general mea culpa from Johns (an architect of the New 52, as well as many, many other DC comic events) to fandom. The story pointedly brings attention to the absence of love and hope in the DC Universe, and finds characters taking action to rewrite the world back to a place where optimism and idealism flourished.
Johns is ringing the same bell for both movies and comics, with quotes like:
“But it does mean that there’ll be a pervasive attitude in DC of belief — not only belief in yourself, but in what you’re doing — and celebration, a tone of celebration. It doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be threats, or that we’re going backwards or being regressive, but it does mean that the pervasive attitude in the DNA of DC is optimism. Which I firmly believe.”
I have not read nearly enough comics to merit any sort of substantial opinion on that front, but in terms of movies, well, let’s just say I have thoughts. For years, it seems like the tripline that has stumbled so many creative voices is the directive to keep things, for lack of a better word, “realistic”.
After all, it worked for Chris Nolan. And Nolan was following in the footsteps of comic royalty like Alan Moore and Frank Miller (pre-psychosis Frank Miller, anyway), writers that brought grit and gravel to a world of gods and monsters. Writers that looked at the pantheon of heroes and villains and applied believable psychological motivations, that zeroed in on the rubble and chaos that other superhero stories skipped over and brought the human element to bear on superhumans.
But the thing is, a drive to assert ‘reality’ on these characters should not preclude the aspirational qualities that made heroes like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, etc., so beloved and so long-lived. Indeed, if filmmakers like Zack Snyder could pull their heads out of Frank Miller’s mid-80s ass, they would find a more-recent comic that allowed for all the trauma and moral ambiguity of a Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen, but that tempered that darkness with nobility and joy.
I’m sorry that it took Darwyn Cooke’s death to get me to purchase The New Frontier. It was one of those books I’d always heard was worth a read but never quite found the motivation to put the money down until word came out that the great artist was in his last days. I think it was minutes after the news came that he had passed that I finalized the order.
Sitting down with the Deluxe Edition, I expected a beautifully rendered ode to the Golden and Silver Age versions of these characters, a light and breezy tour through the annals of DC comic yesteryear.
So imagine the surprise of turning the pages and discovering a story that looked unflinching at some of the darkest eras of American history. Set in post-World War II America, The New Frontier introduces a nation where superheroes must either register with the government or live as outlaws. Shadowy government agencies spy and plot chemical and nuclear warfare, anti-Communist rhetoric fuels a toxic atmosphere of paranoia, and hideous racial violence rips through the South.
Cooke’s designs may be exaggerated, almost totemic, but his words refuse to soften the brutalities, both global and personal, that plagued humanity in those days. His heroes don’t deny the darkness of the world, they are defined by the way in they stand opposed to it. It is because the world can be so cruel and so cynical that the moments of idealism and unshaken valor shine so bright. It is because we are so often plagued with petty disputes and problems that Superman quieting a bickering group of heroes and rallying them together as a united front of truth and justice resonates so powerfully. It is because there are so few happy endings that the book’s final cry of “IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY!” makes you want to kick open the door and do something that impacts someone else in some positive way.
By all means, make superhero films that deal openly with topics like terror, trauma, security overreach, mounting fascism, racial tension, encroaching technology, any one of the myriad problems we face every day. But never lose sight of the way these characters are meant to embody the best of us, or the underlying idealistic spirit that turns fictions like Superman and Wonder Woman into living, breathing bastions of hope that have survived down the decades and will survive us for years to come. Make films that deal with the mess of today… but never lose sight of that new frontier these characters dare us to aspire to.
Darwyn Cooke, may he rest in peace, put it best in the afterword to his book.
He wrote: “The world will always have dark corners, and black and white comes in thousands of shades of gray, but here are seven people [the Justice League], good and true, come what may. They have the power to enslave the world but work tirelessly to keep it free… I suppose only a child could buy into such a ridiculous premise. But once it’s in your heart, you can’t help but take that little scrap of magic forward with you.”
Get it at Amazon:
DC: The New Frontier (Book) — [Hardcover Deluxe Edition] | [Paperback] | [Kindle/Comixology]
Justice League: The New Frontier (Movie) — [Blu-ray] | [DVD] | [Digital]