4) Justice League: The New Frontier (2008)
Based on the Eisner Award winning comic book series by Darwyn Cooke, Justice League: The New Frontier is an epic retelling of how Golden Age superheroes such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman first met their Silver Age counterparts, including Flash, Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter.
The first thing you notice when watching Justice League: The New Frontier is, of course, the animation, which pay homage to the striking yet simple clean lines used throughout comics from the Golden Age era. Boasting the finest visuals of any film produced by the DC animated line to date, Justice League: The New Frontier fortunately excels on the story front too, using the socio-political context of the 1950’s to ground the fantastical plot in a powerful, real-world setting.
With a running time of just 75 minutes, a few plot threads had to be cut from the source material, but New Frontier ultimately does a stellar job of balancing the numerous heroes individual arcs, before eventually bringing them all together to take on the alien threat known as the Centre.
The upcoming two-part Justice League movie will obviously have a more modern take on these classic characters, but the way in which New Frontier successfully intertwines the origin stories of lesser known heroes with the iconic Trinity is a sound template which could work perfectly on the silver screen. No one needs to see Batman’s parents being shot yet again… seriously.
