Hey! You there! Yes, you! Do you love DC's military books? Can you just not get enough of Star-Spangled War Stories, Our Army At War, The Losers, all that good stuff? If you do, then you're gonna love this book!
If not... eh. For a book supposedly all about the transition from The Golden Age of Comic Books to The Silver Age of Comic Books, it's got heavily skewed priorities. Heavily skewed. It starts off pretty well, with Superman's first interactions with Batman, arguing with Wonder Woman, the Justice Society forced to retire... then it just decides superheroes are boring and military operations are where it's at. The character with the greatest focus in this book is Hal Jordan, but it has nothing to do with him being Green Lantern and everything to do with the fact he was a test pilot for the military. Which the story spends just... way too long showing, like, way too long. I don't dislike Hal, nor do I think he should be ignored, but I certainly don't think he should be the one guy with character development in this book. As for the character with second-highest development, it's Martian Manhunter, who is a very enjoyable part of the book due to his Fish Out Of Water Tendencies, until he's captured by the military and can only sit in a room with no one but King Faraday for company. You could say Faraday's death is impactful because of the development of his relationship with John, maybe. It didn't do it for me, though.
It probably has to do with the fact that, again, it had nothing to do with the stated premise of the book. There's barely any focus on the capes- most of them are minor characters past the beginning of the story. Batman's evolution from grim, murdering avenger to idealistic kid-friendly character happens entirely offscreen. Likewise, Superman and Wonder Woman pretty much become non-characters in the latter half of the story, and the focus is entirely on the military characters. The final battle is even orchestrated by the military, so Faraday essentially steals a role that would otherwise go to someone like Superman or Batman. I'm not gonna lie, at some point, it started pissing me off. It really did.
Oh, the villain? The frickin' Dinosaur Island from The War That Time Forgot, a famous antagonist of DC's military characters, as if to further drive home the point that this was never about the superheroes. Maybe in the start, it was, but the writers clearly got so bored, the only way they could manage to get through the story was by tapping into their nostalgic memories of their beloved war comics. That's the only explanation I can think of. (By the way, renaming the Dinosaur Island to 'The Centre' doesn't make it sound cooler. It makes you sound embarassed at the original name.)
I can't believe this book. It was a lie. The way they talked about this book was a lie. See, this is a perfectly fine, fanservice-laden story that mixes in DC's wartime heroes with a smattering of superheroes, both obscure and famous, and it works if you see it in that sense. But it's not the story you came in expecting. If any Marvel fans out there need a comparison, this is the equivalent of them making a story centering around the end of the Atlas Era of monsters and horror stories and the start of the Silver Age and their iconic superheroes, only they focused almost exclusively on The Hulk because of his association with the military, Spider-Man and The Avengers barely get any characterization, and then the main Big Bad at the end was ripped straight out of the pages of Capt Savage And His Roughneck Raiders. I'm pretty sure you would not like that, even if you loved these characters otherwise.
ComicBook DC: The Old Frontier (basically)
Hey! You there! Yes, you! Do you love DC's military books? Can you just not get enough of Star-Spangled War Stories, Our Army At War, The Losers, all that good stuff? If you do, then you're gonna love this book!
If not... eh. For a book supposedly all about the transition from The Golden Age of Comic Books to The Silver Age of Comic Books, it's got heavily skewed priorities. Heavily skewed. It starts off pretty well, with Superman's first interactions with Batman, arguing with Wonder Woman, the Justice Society forced to retire... then it just decides superheroes are boring and military operations are where it's at. The character with the greatest focus in this book is Hal Jordan, but it has nothing to do with him being Green Lantern and everything to do with the fact he was a test pilot for the military. Which the story spends just... way too long showing, like, way too long. I don't dislike Hal, nor do I think he should be ignored, but I certainly don't think he should be the one guy with character development in this book. As for the character with second-highest development, it's Martian Manhunter, who is a very enjoyable part of the book due to his Fish Out Of Water Tendencies, until he's captured by the military and can only sit in a room with no one but King Faraday for company. You could say Faraday's death is impactful because of the development of his relationship with John, maybe. It didn't do it for me, though.
It probably has to do with the fact that, again, it had nothing to do with the stated premise of the book. There's barely any focus on the capes- most of them are minor characters past the beginning of the story. Batman's evolution from grim, murdering avenger to idealistic kid-friendly character happens entirely offscreen. Likewise, Superman and Wonder Woman pretty much become non-characters in the latter half of the story, and the focus is entirely on the military characters. The final battle is even orchestrated by the military, so Faraday essentially steals a role that would otherwise go to someone like Superman or Batman. I'm not gonna lie, at some point, it started pissing me off. It really did.
Oh, the villain? The frickin' Dinosaur Island from The War That Time Forgot, a famous antagonist of DC's military characters, as if to further drive home the point that this was never about the superheroes. Maybe in the start, it was, but the writers clearly got so bored, the only way they could manage to get through the story was by tapping into their nostalgic memories of their beloved war comics. That's the only explanation I can think of. (By the way, renaming the Dinosaur Island to 'The Centre' doesn't make it sound cooler. It makes you sound embarassed at the original name.)
I can't believe this book. It was a lie. The way they talked about this book was a lie. See, this is a perfectly fine, fanservice-laden story that mixes in DC's wartime heroes with a smattering of superheroes, both obscure and famous, and it works if you see it in that sense. But it's not the story you came in expecting. If any Marvel fans out there need a comparison, this is the equivalent of them making a story centering around the end of the Atlas Era of monsters and horror stories and the start of the Silver Age and their iconic superheroes, only they focused almost exclusively on The Hulk because of his association with the military, Spider-Man and The Avengers barely get any characterization, and then the main Big Bad at the end was ripped straight out of the pages of Capt Savage And His Roughneck Raiders. I'm pretty sure you would not like that, even if you loved these characters otherwise.