31 Days of Scans: My Favourite Elseworld - DC: the New Frontier

[espanolbot]

Possibly not just my favourite Elseworld, but also my favourite superhero comic of all time, New Frontier is a book both written and drawn by Darwyn Cooke which covers a lot of things, but mainly it's about the shift from the Golden Age of heroes to the Silver Age as a metaphor for the social progress and the like that happened in the Kennedy years.

It's a mature work that doesn't rely on the gratuitous content of the likes of Alan Moore or Mark Millar to BE a mature work. It's idealistic despite dealing with a lot of heavy stuff, and it's about the importance of retaining your idealism even when things are starting to look their bleakest...

Here's a part from the first issue, where minutes after the end of the Korean War is declared, young pilot Hal Jordan (the only interesting version of the character in my opinion) gets shot down over No Man's Land by North Korean pilots that evidently didn't get the message. Parachuting to safety, Jordan accidentally lands on former enemy soldier and signals for someone to pick him up.

Comments

[jaybee3]

It's one of the greatest comics ever (with really pretty art) and one of the greatest love letters (you know the term Brad Meltzer used to refer to Identity Crisis) to the JLA and the DCU. Hal wasn't GL again yet when New Frontier came out and this I really believe was one of the reasons DC Editorial were convinced it was time. Too bad it wasn't THIS Hal characterization that we got. I bought this when it came out (even though it took all my comic allowance) but it was so worth it to have been one of the first to experience it.