A great deal of the fun and greatness of the original comic was seeing all of the great silver-age characters and how Dwayne Cooke was able to seemlessly incorporate them into one story. In the cartoon, it was almost like watching the "Cliff's Notes" version of a real good novel. You get the gist of it, but the meaty goodness is gone.

One thing that confused me was the use of violence. The film has no trouble showing blood (the blood-covered cockpit of Wonder Woman's invisible plane is still there), yet in the dramatic scene of Batman fighting the Centre cult in the church, rather than showing him pouncing on the cult leader and loudly snapping all of his bones, Batman's just knocks him down with one punch. WHY??? It's a great visual and I was actually looking forward to see that! :(

One good thing about the animation, though, is the clarity of what The Centre is and the actual threat it poses... the cartoon does that right at the beginning. In the comic, it's much less clear and spread out over the series, so in this case, the viewer was benefited by the conciseness of the story.

Also impressive was Jeremy Sisto as Batman. He clearly isn't Kevin Conroy, but his more subdued voice IS effective. I particularly liked the clipped way he told J'onn J'onzz to "Have a nice trip" when the Manhunter informed Batman that he was leaving Earth due to humanity's intolerance and violent nature.

Overall, I'd give New Frontier a C+... an okay adaptation, but not nearly as good as I expected or it could have been.

I also think Batman Begins needed to learn a thing or two from B:MotP. Look at how great the relationship between Wayne and Andrea was and then look at how weak the relationship between Wayne and Rachel was. I loved Begins but I think in that one aspect (among others) B:MotP was superior.

This is totally non-scientific, but ever since "Stan Lee Presents" disappeared something has been off.

Both comic companies lost their magic sometime in the late 80's, when the industry became self aware and started selling to old fan boys in speciality shops instead of to the general public (and adolescents, specifically) through the newstand.

I miss picking up a stack of comics at the pharmacy or 7-11.

Also, if you include Vertigo then the contest is over. Scalped is my favorite recent comic. Y has just finished its amazing run. 100 Bullets is consistently amazing. And, let's not forget Fables, arguably the best comic on the shelves. Superhero v. Superhero Marvel and DC are pretty even in my opinion but once you go beyond the superhero books I think DC wins.

Like I said I read mostly DC because that's the universe i've been in for the past 2 years but recently after insistance i started reading some marvel titles and just couldn't believe how good they were and how good they look. I don't think it's equal because I read just about every DC title(yeah i'm knee deep in countdown) but their best titles don't compete with Marvel's best titles. Apart from Green Lantern. You just look and the rest of the titles don't compete looks wise. most DC art is just standard traditional comic book art by no names, just stuff anyone can do, not much that makes you go 'that looks nice'. Yet Marvel does crazy shit and you think "where the fuck are you DC? stuck in the early 90's"

The action is great. The characters all get a chance to shine. Lucy Lawless was born to play Wonder Woman (and should in live action, too).

The "monster" was a bit odd. I didn't read the dead tree version of this story, but a [SPOILER] flying island that spews dinosaurs?!?! Weird.

Best of all was seeing Barry and Hal in the Diniverse. Very cool. I was glad they kept Robin's appearance to a minimum, but the logic behind it was clever. I sort of missed seeing Black Canary in a silver age story like this...

Dini and Timm could definitely do a kickass version of Watchmen, if the live action version doesn't do the job.