John F. Kennedy was an irresponsible warmongering douchebag, who proved objectively that he was more immature and reckless than Khruschev, which is saying something. Fuck him, and fuck the relentless nostalgia for his thoroughly pedestrian cold-war intellect and administration.
And, hey, while we’re at it, fuck Darwyn Cooke’s overrated, tedious cold-war nostalgia exercise, “New Frontier.” I own this because a friend went to a comics store, and she was looking for a comic for her five-year old. And Darwyn Cooke’s art is pretty and cartoony, right, so she said, um, maybe this? And the comic store owner said, “Hey, this would be great! Gratuitous death, lots and lots of characters most of whom aren’t even properly introduced, incomprehensible plot largely composed of fan scruff, apocalyptic imagery at the end — your kid’ll love it!” So,anyway, my friend looked at it a bit more closely when she got home and cursed the comics store owner and gave it to me.
And I read it because I’m the core demographic, right? I even know who the Challengers of the Unknown are, and I sort of know who the Losers are because they got killed off right at the beginning of Crisis on Infinite Earths just like they get killed off right at the beginning of this. And I know that super-heroes were black-listed in the 50s because it happened in Watchman and in Wild Cards and in Dark Knight, except that wasn’t in the 50s I guess, and also in Golden Age which was an Elseworlds series I never read, but some critic said that New Frontier is like a total revamp of the Elseworlds concept, like you’ll never look at Elseworlds the same again. This time you’ll look at it with the new, fresh, innocent eyes of an Alzheimer afflicted vulture hungrily eying its own decaying scrotum. Oh, wait, that is in fact how you looked at it before. But, no, this is different, see because there’s a timeline, so that Darwyn Cooke introduces each character exactly when they appeared in real life. So, like, the Flash first appeared in 1956, so that’s when he shows up in the comic! And the Martian Manhunter first appeared in…well, whenever he first appeared…and that’s when he shows up too! It’s like going back into the past and pretending that the kids who read the comics back then were as mature and smart as the aging, paunchy, con-goers of today!
I also liked that Cooke chose to make the central character Hal Jordan, who is a young, strapping fighter pilot with daddy issues. Even though he joined the army he doesn’t like to kill, but that doesn’t make him a pacifist, no, no, no…it just means he knows the Korean War is wrong, though he never explains why, exactly, because that doesn’t matter…what matters is that he totally proves his bravery and comes of age and fills his daddy’s shoes and does it while being only slightly more bland than Tom Cruise. And, hey, there’s Batman being all hyper-competent and grim and the Flash running and thinking about Iris just like in Crisis on Infinite Earths and Superman giving a noble speech and J’ohnn J’ohnnz discovering the innate goodness of humanity buried deep in the psyche of some random special-ops asshole, who has a heart of gold, causing you to say, hey look! There’s gold in that there asshole! I guess you’ve just got to keep digging. And there’s also gold in some asshole called Flagg, who gets killed along with his requisite attendant supportive female. And there are a billion cameo appearances by a billion unexplained DC walk-ons, because the best part of fan-fic isn’t exploring relationships or putting your own twist on a character, but just making a checklist so that you can say, ayup, I mentioned every single one of those characters, by gosh. Oh yeah, and there’s a villain called the Center, who is an eldritch evil disguised as a community youth building. So, hey, what more do you want? The doofy, unpretentious heroes of your grandpappy’s youth have been transmuted into the doofy, pretentious heroes of your own middle-age. Sing hosannas and whip out the Eisners; everything young is senescent again.
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You can see the rest of this roundtable on kids comics here.
Update: And more on New Frontier here.
"And, hey, while we’re at it, fuck Darwyn Cooke’s overrated, tedious cold-war nostalgia exercise, “New Frontier.”"
NO!
If you're going to call something "overrrated" you have to identify a body that's DOING the rating. Nothing is overrated in a vacuum. "Overrated" is up there with "pretentious" as a critical term that needs a lot of context to give you meaning.
Also: I'm doing a piece on kid's comics too, 'cause this is a fun idea.
Also: There were some very nice, well framed, individual panels here. And I liked his take on the Martian Manhunter, who was more interesting here then I've ever seen him.
Also: But I pretty much completely agree with you. Ignoring that I'm sooo not a fan of superhero nostalgia to-frickin'-begin with, New Frontier had major problems with story structure (some of the plot threads never got wrapped up, IIRC) no real character development, and I didn't see much thematic point to it beyond "Weren't thinks swell way back when?"
Also: But what about Wonder Woman? What did you think about Wonder Woman in New Frontier. And did your reprint have the story where Wodner Woman and Black Canary bust up a strip club?
I never read the book, but I watched the cartoon adaptation. I don't remember disliking anything in particular, but I found it pretty boring. Maybe I'm just too young to be nostalgic for the halcyon days of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It won awards and stuff; it's pretty thoroughly critically praised. That seems overrated to me.
I like his art fine, actually, and several of the individual characterizations, including MM, were enjoyable (I still prefer the Giffen/DeMatteis take overall, I think.)
I'm going to talk about his take on Wonder Woman tomorrow,if all goes well. I discussed the strip club story a while back. I liked it.
I only read the first half of New Frontier…the art was nice, but the rest of it seemed like a big waste of time. The whole "back to basics" thing was pretty lame the first few times. The DeMatteis Martian Manhunter miniseries was way better than this…and had some weird Mark Badger art that was kind of cool. And of course, his oreo fixation in JLI was pretty funny…
Remember when MM turned up with oreo fixation in Sandman. Seems odd in retrospect.
Totally agree with your assessment, Noah. The best that can be said about NF is that at least it's not Kingdom Come.
Then it's wrongfully-awarded and overly-praised in critical literature. I think there are hundreds of mo' better ways to say "Lots of people seemed to like OBJECT X. They are wrong. I blame inbreeding."
And I haven't read the DeMatties solo series (or know that it existed) or the MM ongoing, but I liked him better here than in the (overall vastly superior) Giffen/Maguire version. Wasn't he just a classic straight man?
(My REAL problem is that I hate his power-set, and there doesn't seem to be much you can do with the character that can't be done better with Superman or Batman.) Cooke at least tried to give him a unique reason for existing.
And OK, you did cover the strip club scene. I remember reading the rest of the article… weird.
I don't know; I like "overrated". It's short, it's pithy, people know what it means. It does what a word should do. It's true that it plays to one of my spelling weaknesses (darn double r's), but I don't hold that against it.
MM was kind of a straight man…but they also played it so that he seemed in on the joke, and had a fair number of quirks of his own (oreos, wandering around like Gumby.) Aquaman was more of the serious, sullen straight man, actually; MM occasionally told him to chill out.
I think "overrated" is a perfectly acceptable way to describe New Frontier. It's one of those comics that everybody seems to love, so it's nice to see somebody like Noah spray bile all over it. I don't think I hated it as much as he did, but I certainly didn't find it to be the greatest thing ever, and I'm a pretty big fan of Darwyn Cooke. It's got nice artwork, and some of the character bits were pretty good, if I remember correctly (and I might not; if anything, the comic was kind of boring and easily-forgettable), but why people seem to think it's the best superhero thing of the decade or whatever is beyond me. Other than, you know, the overserious mentality of the middle-aged fan who thinks that the DC universe is something to take deadly seriously and gets all horny about Hal Jordan and Batman and whoever-the-fuck. Only in superhero comics is rising slightly above mediocrity praised as genius.
Perhaps "overrated" is overrated.
"Overrated" is a useful word for all the reasons that Noah mentions. The only disadvantage I can see for using it in comics is that so many thing are overrated it's almost like you have to be super-overrated to be merely overrated.
I like New Frontier and actually think it's underrated, or at least woefully misunderstood. I don't think much of the superhero genre, though. I hope the reason I like it has nothing to do with some sweaty, old-man desire to see various goofball DC "icons" treated with "respect" or whatever. Some day I'll write about the work, I hope.
Hey Tom. I'd like to read what you have to say about New Frontier. I have difficulty imagining what you see in it that's worthwhile (other than the art)…but I may just woefully misunderstand.
I second the request for a Spurge article on New Frontier. I'm also kinda mystified as to it being misunderstood. Is it something about the politics and culture of the 1950s? I dunno, I'm grasping at straws here.
I third that review request.
I thought New Frontier was more a commentary on America post-911 than a nostalgic look on the Silver Age. I don't know if they were included in the trade paperback, but there are short text intros on the inside front cover for each issue. These suggest Cooke is using the Eisenhower era as an analog for cultural and political climate in the US at the time New Frontier was published, which was 2004.
If one accepts that premise, I think the symbolism and themes jump off the page. Cooke is obviously trying to say something about conformity, prejudice, fear, and silence in times of trouble. The message and the methods used to convey it may not resonate for some readers, but I certainly don't think Cooke's main goal was to create an incestuous superhero lovefest.
Overall, I enjoyed the book. Cooke had a good take on WW, the Martian Manhunter, and many of the non-powered heroes. Plus, Cooke's layouts serve the story well and he is stylistically similar to both Alex Toth and Bruce Timm, whose work I really like.
I don't see why it can't be both a comment on 9/11 America *and* and incestuous super-hero lovefest.
To the extent that it tries to talk about patriotism and individuality and everybody bonding together in the face of terrorism/eldritch evil…yeah, I'd rather just see it as a super-hero lovefest. If I have to think he is trying to say anything serious, I might have to hate it rather than just sort of disdaining it.
I don’t see how this is nostalgic at all. It seems to me like it was a criticism of the highly paranoid, racist, and conformist era.
The reason so many superheros and villains get quick cameos is because they represent sudden social and political changes in the 60’s as well as a sense of Uncertainty about the future. That’s why some of older WWII character’s like the Losers died in order to make room the weirder character of the silver age.
Hence New Frontier
It did have it’s problems such as the first half was almost entirely unconnected to the second half and know explained what the Center was or even what it was the Center of.
Read a bunch of NF interviews in one of my obligatory binge fests.
Cooke’s outlook on comcis is very… intersting to say the least.
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&old=1&id=1749
Thanks for pointing to that interview, Jim. What interested you most about Cooke’s views on comics?