Weekend Aside: DC: The New Frontier

Written and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke, with colouring by Dave Stewart
Buy the Absolute Edition here.

The DCAU, while known for producing top-notch animated content for Warner Brothers, has also served as something of a talent incubator for writers and artists who would go on to work at DC Comics, especially as DC itself started to use Bruce Timm’s minimalist look as a house style. The most successful artist to come through the animated system is undoubtedly Darwyn Cooke, who after being hired on by Timm worked on series through Batman Beyond, for which he designed parts of the animated sequence. At that point, Cooke began to get regular work for DC itself, eventually teaming up with Ed Brubaker to completely revamp Catwoman for a new ongoing series. After proving his writing chops with a well-recieved Catwoman graphic novel, Cooke embarked on a project with a much higher profile: The New Frontier.

Fair warning – this is a very image-intensive post. Those of you reading on mobile devices may want to wait until you’re home to get to it.

Static Shock 001-002: “Shock to the System” and “Aftershock”

Supervising Producer Alan Burnett
Written by Christopher Simmons
Directed by James Tucker
Original Airdate: September 23, 2000
DVD: Nonexistent. Go yell at WB.

Summary: Teenager Virgil Hawkins, an unwitting recruit of a local gang, is trapped in a mysterious explosion and finds himself wielding electricity-based powers.

Arc Notes: Static would be fully integrated into Justice League later in that series.

Season One Wrap-Up

It’s uncommon for television shows to maintain a high quality level for their entire run.  You either have the classic example of shows which start weak and round into shape once either the cast or creative team are tweaked (such as The Batman, where its horrible first few seasons were somewhat redeemed by Alan Burnett coming on-board and salvaging something in its later years) or, more commonly, a show will tail off as things move along. Looking back on this first season, what strikes me is that it certainly wasn’t as good as later seasons would be, but there were some good episodes that rose above the more mediocre ones.

Justice League 1×23-26: “The Savage Time”

Written by Stan Berkowitz
Directed by Butch Lukic and Dan Riba
Original Airdate: November 9, 2002
DVD: Justice League, Season One

Summary: Returning from a mission, the League finds itself on a dramatically changed Earth, ruled by a tyrannical dictator named Vandal Savage. A chance encounter with an alternate Batman leads the League to go back in time to where things went wrong – World War II, where the Nazis, armed with frightening new technology, are in the process of changing history.

Arc Notes: Start of the Vandal Savage trilogy, some slight development of the Hawkgirl / GL relationship, first appearance of Blackhawk Island.

Weekend Aside: The All-Star Squadron

As we’ve talked about before, team books were big business in the early 1980s. DC had a great-selling book set in the present day in Teen Titans, and a great-selling book set in the future in the form of the Legion of Super-Heroes. However, they didn’t have something that took place in the past – at least, not until former Marvel EIC Roy Thomas arrived at DC in the aftermath of a dispute with Marvel management.

Batman Beyond, Episode 3: “Black Out”

Written by Robert Goodman
Directed by Dan Riba
Original Airdate: January 30, 1999
DVD: Batman Beyond, Volume One

Summary: Derek Powers hires the technological shapeshifter Inque to commit corporate espionage, but after stowing away on the Batmobile, she stumbles onto a much bigger secret.

Arc Notes: This was the first clear look at Bruce Wayne’s trophy room in the Batcave, showing the final fate of several villains (although at least a couple would find themselves back in operation later on in the series).

Some More Fleischer Superman…

We once again journey to the wild and wondrous realm of public domain animation, via another incredibly good Fleischer short. I’d put this one up there with the best of STAS – it’s really good.

Watch after the jump, assuming you’ve got seven and a half minutes to spare.

Superman: The Animated Series, Episodes 40 & 41 – “Little Girl Lost”

Written by Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, Paul Dini, Alan Burnett (Part 1) / Dorkin / Dyer / Rich Fogel (Part 2)
Directed by Curt Geda (Part 1) / Kevin Allen (Part 2)
Origina; Airdates: May 2, 1998 (apparently these aired back-to-back in the U.S.)
DVD: Superman TAS, Volume 3

Summary: Superman comes across Kara Zor-El, the sole survivor of Krypton’s sister planet, Argo, and brings her back to Earth. However, when Darkseid begins a new plan of conquest, the newly-minted Supergirl may be the only person who can save Superman from Apokolips.

Arc Notes: These  are the fifth and sixth episodes of the Darkseid arc, and lead almost directly into the Superman: TAS finale.

Justice League 1×22-23: “Metamorphosis”

Written by: Len Uhley
Teleplay by: Dwayne McDuffie (Part 2)
Directed by: Dan Riba
Original Airdate: October 4, 2002
DVD: Justice League, Season One

Summary: An old military buddy of Green Lantern’s is caught in an industrial accident arranged by his fiancee’s corrupt father that turns him into a freakish-looking master of matter.

Arc Details: This is one of the last true ‘standalone’ episodes for some time (there’s a stretch starting with “Eclipsed” in Season Two that isn’t really tied into anything else). Well, it does have a small tie to a futuristic hero we’ve already seen….

Weekend Aside: Batman and the Outsiders

Although the hero debuting in the next Justice League, Metamorpho, made his first significant impact at DC by being one of the few heroes to turn down Justice League membership, I first enountered him during a personal favourite series of my formative years: Batman and the Outsiders.

Buy the Showcase collection – all five hundred and twenty two pages of it – from Amazon here.