bento
Explorer
I bought and watched the new direct-to-DVD movie, "Justice League: The New Frontier" this weekend. It's the second DC Universe line of direct-to-DVD movie, following "Superman: Doomsday" which came out last fall.
Reviewer Background: I started collecting comics about the age of 11, buying Marvel comics for about a year (1980) when I decided to start branching out to DC titles. DC had a greater variety of genres, including westerns, war, humor and horror. As a fan of super-heroes, I settled on two titles, Green Lantern and Legion of Super-Heroes. The Justice League of America, DC's version of the Mighty Avengers, I was never fond of, despite it being another place where Green Lantern and the Flash appeared. I would stop and start reading the JLA over the next 10 years, only really enjoying the DeMatteis-Giffen re-boot in the late 1980s. I finally quit buying comics in 2004, and the last series I purchased was the mini-series, "The New Frontier" which this DVD is based on. The comic had nothing to do with me quitting comics. As a matter of fact, it was one of the high-points in my long time love affair with comic books.
The premise of the comic and the DVD is that the old Golden Age of superheroes has ended, and this series is all about the rise of the Silver Age hero. Call it "secret origins" if you will, in it we see the origins of Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern, and the very early apperance of the Flash. The time period is the late 1950s, when in real life the Silver Age of comics started. It was also a period of time in history where the red menace was a very real threat, and social conformity ruled the day. In the series (and video) the golden age heroes have retired, except for Superman and Wonder Woman, who work for the U.S. government, and the Batman, who never retires from his ceasesless battle against crime. The movie centers around the birth of this new breed of Silver Age heroes, and how they join up for the first time to battle a world-shaking menace. You could say this is the birth of the Justice League.
The villain of the piece is "the center", a maleovent force which has decided to exterminate mankind from the earth. Possessing people to do its dirty work, "the center" menaces the heroes here and there, but doesn't show itself until near the end of the video.
The animation takes its design from the comic series, which has a lot of 1950s graphic elements to it. The series creator, Darwyn Cooke, is an experienced graphic artist outside of comics, and brings these sensabilities to the comic. In the video there are times where there is no real movement animation, but where characters move statically across a background. This isn't the majority of the movie, which still uses old-fashion people-moving animation, but may be a little odd to someone expecting a hour-plus version of the JLU series. In my estimation the artwork is a blending of Milton Caniff, Alex Toth and Jack Kirby. Kinda blocky with plenty of shadows and a stripped down palate of colors.
The movie lasts 75 minutes and uses most every story element from the orginal comic series. The only story I can recall that wasn't included is the fate of the Losers, a WW2 combat team, on Dinosaur Island. Otherwise almost everything is included, which is great to see. If you're a fan of more obscure DC heroes, you'll see King Faraday, Slam Bradley, Rex Morgan, Adam Strange, and the Blackhawks. Only Rex the Wonder Dog and Detective Chimp seemed to not be included!
Overall though, the story in both the comic and the video didn't hold enough of an emotional punch for me as I expected it would. And since this is a "PG-13" video, I think the animators felt justified adding more blood and violence that the story really warrants. We have some guts flying and Wonder Woman bleeding buckets of blood. I guess DC feels its justified in order to have this video be taken seriously as an "adult" movie. Too bad, as my kids have all enjoyed the regular Justice League series over the years, and they will just have to wait a few years before they can see this movie.
Recommendation: If you're a fan of DC comics, the current Justice League, or even comics from the 1950s I highly recommend watching it. The heavily stylistic art alone makes it worthwhile as a rental.
Reviewer Background: I started collecting comics about the age of 11, buying Marvel comics for about a year (1980) when I decided to start branching out to DC titles. DC had a greater variety of genres, including westerns, war, humor and horror. As a fan of super-heroes, I settled on two titles, Green Lantern and Legion of Super-Heroes. The Justice League of America, DC's version of the Mighty Avengers, I was never fond of, despite it being another place where Green Lantern and the Flash appeared. I would stop and start reading the JLA over the next 10 years, only really enjoying the DeMatteis-Giffen re-boot in the late 1980s. I finally quit buying comics in 2004, and the last series I purchased was the mini-series, "The New Frontier" which this DVD is based on. The comic had nothing to do with me quitting comics. As a matter of fact, it was one of the high-points in my long time love affair with comic books.
The premise of the comic and the DVD is that the old Golden Age of superheroes has ended, and this series is all about the rise of the Silver Age hero. Call it "secret origins" if you will, in it we see the origins of Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern, and the very early apperance of the Flash. The time period is the late 1950s, when in real life the Silver Age of comics started. It was also a period of time in history where the red menace was a very real threat, and social conformity ruled the day. In the series (and video) the golden age heroes have retired, except for Superman and Wonder Woman, who work for the U.S. government, and the Batman, who never retires from his ceasesless battle against crime. The movie centers around the birth of this new breed of Silver Age heroes, and how they join up for the first time to battle a world-shaking menace. You could say this is the birth of the Justice League.
The villain of the piece is "the center", a maleovent force which has decided to exterminate mankind from the earth. Possessing people to do its dirty work, "the center" menaces the heroes here and there, but doesn't show itself until near the end of the video.
The animation takes its design from the comic series, which has a lot of 1950s graphic elements to it. The series creator, Darwyn Cooke, is an experienced graphic artist outside of comics, and brings these sensabilities to the comic. In the video there are times where there is no real movement animation, but where characters move statically across a background. This isn't the majority of the movie, which still uses old-fashion people-moving animation, but may be a little odd to someone expecting a hour-plus version of the JLU series. In my estimation the artwork is a blending of Milton Caniff, Alex Toth and Jack Kirby. Kinda blocky with plenty of shadows and a stripped down palate of colors.
The movie lasts 75 minutes and uses most every story element from the orginal comic series. The only story I can recall that wasn't included is the fate of the Losers, a WW2 combat team, on Dinosaur Island. Otherwise almost everything is included, which is great to see. If you're a fan of more obscure DC heroes, you'll see King Faraday, Slam Bradley, Rex Morgan, Adam Strange, and the Blackhawks. Only Rex the Wonder Dog and Detective Chimp seemed to not be included!
Overall though, the story in both the comic and the video didn't hold enough of an emotional punch for me as I expected it would. And since this is a "PG-13" video, I think the animators felt justified adding more blood and violence that the story really warrants. We have some guts flying and Wonder Woman bleeding buckets of blood. I guess DC feels its justified in order to have this video be taken seriously as an "adult" movie. Too bad, as my kids have all enjoyed the regular Justice League series over the years, and they will just have to wait a few years before they can see this movie.
Recommendation: If you're a fan of DC comics, the current Justice League, or even comics from the 1950s I highly recommend watching it. The heavily stylistic art alone makes it worthwhile as a rental.
