3.5 stars

To my surprise, I didn't enjoy new frontier as much as its Marvel counterpart Marvels. while I really enjoyed Darwyn Cooke's nostalgic midcentury aesthetics and enjoyed some elements of the story's overarching plot I did struggle to connect with the comic overall

New Frontier is a nostalgic take on dc comics in the mid-20th century. the story sees superheroes taking up an uneasy place in society as McCarthyism's fear of the foreign branding all superheroes working outside the bounds of the government as "unAmerican". our story takes place in the aftermath of the disbanding of the justice society and cooked weaves story threads from various points of view.

that is my first problem with this story a lack of central narrative cohesion. cooke bounces us between PTSD-riddled Hal Jordan a new-to-earth Martian Manhunter batman as an outlaw in Gotham and at least half a dozen other characters if not more.

it felt as if we were constantly zooming through unrelated stories with no clear trajectory. while the pieces of this story's puzzle became clear over time these narrative fractals made it difficult to turkey immerse me in the story.

once we figured out the main plot of the narrative [a sentient island hellbent on destroying the earth] I wasn't all that enthused either. the ultimate villain of the book being a random malignant force felt like an out of nowhere and irrelevant/arbitrary villain for our heroes to defeat

given the unsubtle messaging about the dark underbelly of America at the time with plot threads like wonder woman rejecting the imperialist mission she's being sent on by the US government and john henry battling klansmen in Kentucky having the ultimate antagonist force of the novel just be a malignant island felt random

And I have to say the theming of his book was a mixed bag. While I appreciate that Cooke felt passionate about peeling back layers of nostalgia on a dark period in American history the way he approached race in this story wasn't my favourite. John Henry as a hero of folktale rising against racism is a great idea but him and the discussion of racism throughout the comic in general are siloed specifically into that minor plot thread. None of the white characters in this story are ever asked to engage in any sort of conversation about racism making that arc feel more like set dressing that a legitimate engagement with themes of racism

I also found the vast majority of female characters to be pretty blandly written. While I enjoyed wonder woman in this story she's pretty much the only female character in the book allowed o to be anything more than someone's girlfriend throughout. the clear lack of female superheroes represented in this book outside of wonder woman was slightly shocking especially because this book markets itself as being about social issues of the time. any conversation about the feminism of the era felt noticeably absent. Though given the shallow and reductive way Cooke addresses feminism in a bonus one-shot of new frontier maybe I should be grateful he didn't discuss it at all.

I would say one of my biggest hurdles with this story was the fact that Darwyn Cooke was clearly engaging with nostalgia for an era I feel no connection to. His reverent depictions of things like the golden age task force x the island that time forgot and the losses club and challengers of the unknown went straight over my head because I had no pre-existing connection to these characters. While I respect his revisionist/reconstructionist project in his regard I think there's a certain amount of love only people who grew up reading about these guys and this era of comics can really have.  

This isn't to say I didn't like anything about the comic. There was some fair strong character beats threaded throughout the story. Hl Jordan this comic's most likely candidate for protagonist had an incredibly well-realized character arc throughout the series. His journey to becoming a green lantern is truly a slow burn but that steady pacing allowed for a satisfactory unpacking of his PTSD and guilt resulting from his time in the Korean war and the life he took there. Moments surrounding his heroes journey were constantly the most impactful of the series

Martian Manhunter was another favourite character. His outsider perspective on contemporary American life, relationship with [] King and conflicting desires about what it means to be a hero were also excellently written

Darwyn Cooke's art is excellent here. His work with colorist Dave Stewart captures a retro-futurism that absolutely perfect for the space age. I love his bold thick pencilling and excellent ability o capture the grandness of heroes which are especially shown off in his iconic splash pages. Cooke's art makes a lot of this comic so even with my issues with the overall narrative I was able to enjoy this story because