The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

“This is the story of The Losers.”

That’s what a lost soldier on a lost island carves into a cave wall, trying to leave behind some remembrance that he and his team were ever there. In Darwyn Cooke’s DC miniseries The New Frontier, his story opens with The Losers, a ragtag band of World War II U.S. soldiers from different branches, on a rescue/recovery mission to a mysterious island in the Pacific Ocean. As the island uses up the Losers one by one until only one is left and scratches their story on a wall, hoping that someone someday will find it.

“This is the story of The Losers.”

It wasn’t until my third or fourth reading of The New Frontier (yes, I’ve read it that many times) that this line stuck with me. I think the essence of The New Frontier is wrapped up in those worlds. New Frontier, the graphic novel and now the movie, is the story of the losers; Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Jonn J’onzz. At the beginning of the story, they are all losers in one way or another. Superman and Wonder Woman may have survived the WWII era but what are they now other than tools and figure heads. J’onzz is the literal stranger in a strange world. Batman is fast becoming something that he doesn’t want to be. Hal Jordan and Barry Allen? They’re still kids who haven’t figured out what they want to be when they grow up. New Frontier may have started with The Losers but really the whole story is made up of losers.

That’s why I’m sad that the opening sequence on Dinosaur Island was cut from the movie. I can understand that in the grand scheme of the story is was one of the more non-essential parts and could easily be covered in montages and news clippings but I love how it sets up the rest of the story and just exactly who we’re dealing with. The opening of the comic informs what’s going to happen in the story but, for a movie, it doesn’t accomplish much that couldn’t be done through other means. The big difference as well is that the comic offers a much wider glimpse of the emerging DCU does as opposed to the movie which is much more a Justice League story. The movie is more focused and tighter but loses the panoramic expanse that exists in the comic.

New Frontier is a story about losers becoming winners. At least, that’s the somewhat schmaltzy quick recap of the story about these characters who were weak when they functioned apart but found out what could happen if they would only work together.

Technorati Tags: Darwyn Cooke, The New Frontier, DC Comics

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