Justice League: The Awesome Frontier

DC: The New Frontier was originally written by Darwyn Cooke as a six-issue limited series in 2003-2004 telling the story of the bridge between the Golden and Silver Ages of DC Comics. Inspired by such works as Kingdom Come, The Golden Age, Watchmen, and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, DC: The New Frontier borrowed several themes including government mistrust of superheroes, a setting in our past, and the emergence of new superheroes. In 2008, an animated version of The New Frontier was released, taking a few liberties with the story, but all with Cooke's permission and advice.

Like the typical Bruce Timm production, Justice League: The New Frontier has unbelievable animation, character designs accurate to the comic, and stellar voice acting. When viewing The New Frontier, it is important to remember that this was only the 2nd DC Animated Original Movie, produced after Superman: Doomsday. While Doomsday had mixed reviews mostly dealing with the amount of liberties taken with the story, Anne Heche's voice acting, and not casting any of the actors from the DCAU produced by Timm, The New Frontier did its voice casting far better to the point where you could realistically believe every voice actor as being the voice of the Silver Age versions of every character.

Really, this movie was all about proving that celebrity voice actors could work by portraying certain versions of a character. While I criticized Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths for Mark Harmon's, Billy Baldwin's, and Gina Torres' lousy voice acting, they were only a minor setback as the rest of the cast did a stellar job. The New Frontier features no lousy voice actors at all, just disappointment that Jeremy Sisto's portrayal as Batman did not get more lines. While awkward to hear at first, it must be remembered that this Batman is your father's Batman and a medium between the Golden and SIlver Age versions, not the post-Crisis dark knight we know today. I could write paragraph after paragraph saying why each voice actor is great for their own reasons, but I won't because it would just be silly.

One plot point is the reason Batman changes his costume from its original Golden Age version to the famous "New Look" SIlver & Bronze Age version.

The plot is a bit weird and a literal plot device to make the superheroes and the government unite together as one against the main villain, but the majority of the movie is spent establishing the 3 most important new characters of the SIlver Age: the Martian Manhunter, the Flash (Barry Allen), and the Green Lantern (Hal Jordan). A "side-story" involves how the "Trinity" of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman are dealing with a post-World War II world where Batman and Wonder Woman have been deemed "un-American" by Joseph McCarthy and Superman almost exclusively works for the U.S. government. At the end of the movie, Justice League: The New Frontier can be considered semi-canon to the pre-Crisis DC Universe if Earth-One and Earth-Two were the same planet.

Final Score: 5 Pterodactyl monsters out of 5
The New Frontier isn't just one of the best DC Animated Original Movies, it's one of the better movies of 2008, overshadowed by how unbelievably good The Dark Knight was. If you haven't seen The New Frontier yet, GO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW. You will not be disappointed.