Justice League: The New Frontier vs. My Family

Last year, bursting with a need to examine something for more than one blog post, I decided to take an in-depth look at Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier as compared to James Robinson's The Golden Age. Since I spent this afternoon watching the animated version of The New Frontier with my kids, I thought I'd link back to those old posts and offer my family's take on the newly released dvd.

SIX FANCY POSTS ABOUT FANCY COMICS:

Installment #1, in which I discuss what I'm doing and why.

Installment #2, in which I describe what James Robinson gets wrong.

Installment #3, in which I describe what's up with the Camelot connection.

Installment #4, in which I comment upon Cooke's use of characterization in The New Frontier.

Installment #5, in which I talk about Dan the Dyna-Mite's wicked sweet haircut.

Installment #6, in which I explain why Darwyn Cooke is such a wicked sweet artist, and how Paul Smith, as wicked sweet as he is, has to distract us from the bad coloring job in his book.

Now, on to the Callahan family comments on the animated version of Justice League: The New Frontier

First, me: I loved it. The major story beats are still there (minus the Losers opening), and the animation is wonderful. It is a substantial movie, with plenty of historical resonance, and the dvd comes with an excellent documentary chronicling the history of the Justice League. The doc is about as good an overview of comic book eras as I've ever seen. A nice synthesis for people who want a primer on super-hero comics history that goes beyond a mere Justice League highlight reel.

My son says, "it was cool!" regarding the animated feature, but he hated the special feature doc (he's 7). In his words, "I want to know about the Justice League but those guys kept talking and talking." By "those guys" he mean people like Dan DiDio, Paul Levitz, Mark Waid, Stan Lee (!), and many more notable comics peeps.

My daughter says, "it was scary," regarding the feature (she's 4). When I asked her to name which parts were scary, she said, "all the parts were scary." Then I asked her who her favorite characters were, she said. "Wonder Woman. And Batman." When my wife returned home from work, my daughter said, "I got to see a movie with Green Arrow today." So there's that.

Justice League: The New Frontier--the best Justice League feature-length animated movie of the decade.