Last July in San Diego I had to fight off jet lag to review Superman: Doomsday. Yesterday I just had to pop in a DVD and settle down on my comfy couch.

Justice League: The New Frontier, the animated adaptation of Darwyn Cooke’s celebrated miniseries, is an excellent distillation of that work. Although it focuses on the superheroes, screenwriter Stan Berkowitz and director David Bullock are able to tell their story efficiently without sacrificing too much of the book’s considerable charms. Thus, JL:NF remains very faithful, and the spirit of the book comes through clearly.

For those who might not have read it, The New Frontier is the story of a DC-America struggling, in the transitory years of the 1950s, to maintain some sense of stability in a world on the cusp of significant change. The book opened with non-costumed wartime characters such as The Losers and Task Force X, and devoted many pages to the Challengers of the Unknown. This adaptation cuts out most of those folks in favor of three main characters: Hal “Green Lantern” Jordan, J’Onn J’Onzz, and Barry “Flash” Allen. Hal is a reluctant soldier with bigger dreams; J’Onn must hide from a paranoid society; and Barry is a humble guy who just wants to make the world better. In the course of uniting against a common threat, they each prove themselves to a particular set of establishment figures, and thereby fulfill the forward-looking promise of the Space Age of the ’60s.

[I've tried to keep this spoiler-free, although it's hard to talk about the changes without getting into some minor spoilers.]

While the events of the book have been edited considerably to fit the movie’s designated length, the changes serve mostly to consolidate dramatic functions in certain characters. For example, Batman has a bigger role in the film’s climax, and Lois Lane’s relationship with Superman is fleshed out more. John Henry’s story is condensed into a news report, but it has the same effect on J’Onn J’Onzz. One of the most noticeable changes is to The Centre itself. It’s pretty much the same as it is in the book, but in a couple of very creepy scenes, the filmmakers “characterize” it (for lack of a better term) somewhat differently.

Make no mistake, though — this is a superhero-centric story. Of the wartime heroes who were spotlighted in the book’s opening chapters, only Rick Flagg and Ace Morgan get any real screen time. The federal government is represented by Flagg, King Faraday, his partner Mlle. Marie (who gets more attention here than in the book), and Superman (and, in a nice closing-montage cameo, President Kennedy). Rather than having the Silver Age heroes directly succeed the Challs and Task Force X, the movie dwells more on the retirement of the Justice Society. Faraday and Flagg are somewhat more sympathetic here, but that’s a function of the movie’s length: there’s no time to make their arcs as meaningful as the book does.

Regardless, there’s still quite a lot of the book in JL:NF. The Flash/Captain Cold fight scene is great fun, and I found the Flash’s super-speed to be animated more effectively even than on “Justice League.” J’Onn still shape-shifts in front of the TV. The Losers’ last fight isn’t dramatized, but aspects of it appear in some unexpected places. The Challs, the Blackhawks, Green Arrow, and Adam Strange still show up (albeit without explanation) for the final battle. Fans of the book may find themselves missing most of Task Force X, because only Rick Flagg makes it into the movie. The adaptation isn’t perfect, and I did feel like a couple of surviving elements suffered: specifically, the Mars flight and the loss of some of Wonder Woman’s radicalism. The book’s violence also shows up on screen, including two early deaths by gunshot, Batman breaking a bad guy’s arm, and the ripping-apart of Centre-spawned monsters. A couple of characters are called SOBs, as well.

As you might expect, Cooke’s Jet-Age designs translate quite well to animation. The movie doesn’t have a particularly “retro” look (except for the opening credits), but then again, the book had its own unique blend of period design and Cooke’s own style. The animation is, at the very least, on a par with the “Timmverse” style of previous DC adaptations. In some cases, especially with the Flash and the air battles, I thought the animation was better. The action is well-choreographed, and the characters all move smoothly and naturally. There are some homages to the book’s storytelling, but director Bullock doesn’t confine himself to the page. Similarly, while Berkowitz’s script draws heavily on the book’s, he is also able to integrate exposition smoothly.

More importantly, the voice cast makes all those words sound great. David Boreanaz balances Hal Jordan’s fighter-jock smarm with an idealistic streak. Miguel Ferrer’s gravelly voice is well-suited to both the alien J’Onn and the hard-boiled Detective Jones. Lucy Lawless doesn’t disappoint as Wonder Woman, and she still has the immortal line, “There’s the door, spaceman.” Jeremy Sisto is an appropriately spooky Batman. Phil Morris and John Heard are each fine as King Faraday and Ace Morgan. Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, and Vicki Lewis are likewise good in their brief roles as Lois Lane, Carol Ferris, and Iris West.

Perhaps the best performances belong to Kyle MacLachlan and Neil Patrick Harris. As Superman, MacLachlan is a revelation, giving the character a firm, but almost repressed demeanor that my notes describe as “’50s tight.” There’s barely a trace of Agent Cooper in it. Moreover, Harris’ earnest, winning Flash may have been the most appealing performance of the lot. I thought it was a scene-stealer.

My review copy is the single-disc standard-definition version. Its special features include two audio commentaries, one with the filmmakers and one with Cooke. I haven’t had the chance to listen to either one. However, I did watch the featurette on the history of the Justice League, which runs about 40 minutes. It’s nothing groundbreaking, and it tends to drag towards the middle, but it includes interviews with DC stalwarts like Michael Uslan, Dan DiDio, Mark Waid, Paul Levitz, and Denny O’Neil. Roy Thomas, Jim Krueger, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and Mike Friedrich also contribute, as does Stan Lee, who tells the Martin-Goodman-on-the-golf-course story. Cooke talks about New Frontier particularly, and Bruce Timm and Rich Fogel represent the “Justice League” animators. (I know I’m missing a few people, including the scholarly fellow who insists on tying the JLA to mythology.) By and large it’s a decent feature, and yes, it does include sections on the Detroit League and Justice League International.

The New Frontier takes its phrase from a term coined by John F. Kennedy during his Presidential campaign, and as in the book, portions of Kennedy’s “New Frontier” speech play at the end of the movie. I will say that I am a sucker for Kennedy speeches, and also for the can-do spirit of the Space Age which infuses this story. Accordingly, I was just as moved by the end of this movie as I was by the closing pages of the original miniseries — not surprisingly, since they’re virtually identical. The New Frontier rests on an idea which hardly seems controversial to us: that we must embrace the challenges of the future rather than finding comfort in the arms of the past. Dramatizing that idea through the relatively conservative genre of superheroes, and further placing those characters in such an easily-parodied era, might seem almost hypocritical.

However, The New Frontier succeeds at making its superhero characters work because it evokes that certain sense of momentum with which we view the ’50s. The world was changing back then; and the world continues to change. Superman’s speech to the assembled heroes about “reclaiming this country for free men and women everywhere” may be resonant today for one reason, but twenty years from now it may still resonate similarly, even to a different audience grappling with a different set of circumstances. The New Frontier succeeds because it asks the basic superhero question: when the lightning strikes you, what will you do with its gift? How will you use the magic ring? How do you survive in a world that’s not your own?

Or, as Kennedy asked, “Have we the nerve and the will? Can we carry through in an age where we will witness not only new breakthroughs in weapons of destruction, but also a race for mastery of the sky and the rain, the ocean and the tides, the far side of space, and the inside of men’s minds? That is the question of the New Frontier.”

The New Frontier, book and movie, answers in the resounding affirmative. If you liked the book, and won’t miss the non-super folk, this movie is a no-brainer. If you’ve never read the book, the DVD is a great introduction.

Ultimately, JL:NF is at least worth a look. It’s not the Peter Jackson version, but it was never going to be.

Justice League: The New Frontier premieres tonight at WonderCon and will be released commercially on Tuesday.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under Animation, DC Comics, Movies, News & Views, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.