Hola all. Massawyrm here.
It's hard to believe that it was almost a decade and a half ago that I first began walking box after box of my vast comic book collection across the parking lot to my neighbor's (and good friend Bob) apartment to rid myself of the lifelong addiction we all know as comic books. It wasn't an easy decision, but it was the right one. Afterall, it was the early to mid 90's. Comic books sucked. Rob Liefeld was king. Image comics couldn't get a book out on time if their lives had depended on it. And dealers were busy gouging the fuck out of little kids in a speculators gold rush that required you to own 5 different copies of the new X-men series (4 covers with one giant fold out.) If it wasn't multiple covers it was embossed covers. Or stunts. They loved their stunts. Sometimes it was a Superhero coming out of the closet with AIDS (Northstar from Alpha Flight.) Other times it was the death of one of our greatest heroes (don't worry, he'll be back soon enough. After we've sold like 3 Million copies.)
My final straw was a little less flashy. And a little hard to believe looking back at it. While I got equally fucked by both the death of Superman and the coming out of Northstar, the straw that broke the camels back on my addiction was the revelation that Cable was Scott Sommers son. I know, I know. Stupid. But at the time it really pissed me off. It was bad enough that Cable had been part of the killing of the New Mutants title and their transformation into just another X-Clone title, but I swore to a friend that if he turned out to be the son of Scott Sommers and Madelyn Pryor, I would give him my collection. Guess what?
He got my comics. But as it turns out, I didn't miss much. Spidey turning out to be a clone. Superman coming back as some strange energy blaster thingy. Spawn turning out not to have a limited amount of time on this Earth. All the suck that was to follow isn't a part of my mythology. It's the story beyond the point I ceased to care.
So a couple years ago when a friend slid a copy of the first Ultimates trade paperback into my hands, I rolled my eyes. I'd heard about this little stunt. Resetting the Marvel universe and "getting back to basics." Bullshit. It was just another way to sell another copy of titles like the X-men, Spider-Man and the Avengers. But my buddy, he just shook his head, smiled and tapped his finger on the cover of the book. That's when he gave me that look like he was about to recommend really good pot. You know the look I'm talking about. The slow head nod. The queer, dopey smile. The utterance of the word "Dude," followed by the appropriate pause. This was clearly something different.
And it was. The Ultimates changed the very way I looked at comic book characters and adaptations in general. It was a revelation. Like a computer that hasn't had a clean install in years, untold eons of crap and minutia builds up and weighs down the story of a character, keeping it from being as pure and precise as it should be. And the way Mark Millar handled these classic characters…well, he wasn't just updating them to give them a new look and modern sensibilities. This was a man who not only deeply understood, but deeply cared about, each and every single one of these characters. And he made them cool again. By taking them back to who they were. Tony Stark was dying again. The Hulk was a menace again. And Captain America, oh dear god, he was awesome again – while at the same time being a man who had been frozen in ice so long that he was a product of another era entirely.
Everything was as it should be, without the years of futzing or big twists or comic selling publicity stunts. Every single Avenger present and accounted for was exactly as they should be, their souls completely intact. And it was after putting down the first six issues that I really understood what it was to adapt a much beloved character into another medium and still be able to breath new life into them. Who gives a shit if Spider-Man has organic web-shooters if they get it right about him being a lonely teenage boy who just wants to do the right thing – and have a little fun doing it? Who cares if Wolverine isn't 5'3" and was never a member of Alpha Flight if he's still fucking Wolverine and gets to put his claws through a few assholes? Who cares about any of the details of issue two-fifty-whatever if we can see the heroes we love in one more, great story?
The reason for such a long preamble is this. If you've ever picked up the Ultimates, or one of the titles like it, and experienced that sheer, childlike glee of seeing all your favorites brought to life once more, and you HAVEN'T READ Justice League: The New Frontier…then I'm here to tell you that you are in for one hell of a fucking treat. Because this is a complete reinvention of the entire DC Universe – without changing a thing. It's a big giant reset button that takes you back to 1962 – with all the characters as intact as they should be, but with modern interpretations of those characters and stories. The Batman is a frightening loner. Superman is a big cheesy Red State patriot blinded by his own love for his country. And the Martian Manhunter is just trying to fit in.
Every character, every last one of them, is here in their true archetypal form. Even the cameos, from the Blackhawk Squadron to Jimmy Olsen, are perfect. Hell, Jimmy Olsen is on screen for mere seconds and they nail him like you haven't seen him in the comics since you were a kid. Not that this thing is particularly kid friendly. That's the other side of this awesome little coin. The Justice League? They just grew up with you.
The New Frontier opens with a monologue chronicling the history of man and the ultimate conclusion that we need to be wiped out. Then the speaker raises a revolver to his temple and blows his own fucking head off. That's how it begins. The situations our heroes then proceed to find themselves in are not always clean, neat and Hayes Code friendly. This movie is PG-13 and means it. It does not play nice. That's not to say that they try to insert these characters into decidedly un-DC situations. Just that the material is a lot darker than one would expect from the Silver Age setting. One thing is for sure, this isn't the fucking Super Friends. This is something else.
Something awesome.
To say that I love this is an understatement. I adore the ever-loving shit out of it. It's one of those things you can't entirely fathom until you've experienced it. I'm sure there are a number of you DC readers out there nodding along as you've already read The New Frontier. You don't need convincing. You know how awesome our heroes are when stripped down to their bare essentials. This is what you've read, brought to life and not sanitized one bit.
And the animation is just cool as all get out. It's an inventive mix of Silver Age styling with modern animation sensibilities. I watched this sucker projected in HD on Harry's bigass screen and there were only, at MOST, half a dozen moments where it was clear the movement had been done with computers – looking a bit on the cheap end for a split second at a time. But every other moment is inspired gold. Not at all the typical hack job, Saturday morning bullshit we've seen on a few recent animated comic endeavors. Coughultimatescough. In fact, if anything, this should be the very model for any future animated comic book adaptations. It's a film that would have felt perfect in a theatrical release – but instead proves to be a killer surprise on DVD. These adaptations have never been this good.
Oh, and Jeremy Sisto fucking owns all as the Batman. Everyone else is incredibly good here, especially Miguel Ferrer as Martian Manhunter, Neil Patrick Harris as The Flash and Keith David as the Centre. They weren't playing around with the casting here. Everyone hits all the right notes. But Sisto owns. His Batman is about as awesome as they come.
The long and the short of it is that if you ever have been any kind of a comic book fan, this movie needs to be on your radar in a big way. It is THAT film, that special rare direct to video treat that will make its way slowly through the hands of all your friends as you foist your copy on them while giving them that look. You know the look I'm talking about. The one like you're about to recommend really good pot. Needless to say, this comes Highly Recommended. Dude.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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