On Darwyn Cooke and The New Frontier

I started writing a lengthy blog post about Darwyn Cooke’s masterful New Frontier back in March after reading it for the second time, long before I learned that he had fallen victim to “aggressive cancer”.

This is not that post.

In that post I go on at length about the brilliance of the work, how it manages the herculean and seemingly impossible task of combining nostalgia and revisionism into a single, robust narrative, surpassing both and becoming far, far greater than the sum of its parts. I’m still writing it and maybe you’ll see it some day. Maybe not. It’s a tough nut to crack and probably beyond my meager skills as a writer and a thinker, at least at present. If 2016 has taught us anything it is that the clock is ticking for all of us, winding down as it approaches the last hour.  

There is a bit of that post in this one but the tone is wholly different. This is far less critical and far more personal.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Man of Steel

Okay so the title of this post is a bit misleading. I don't love Man of Steel (the 2013 film)...but I have come to like it and to appreciate what it for what it is. I did love Batman v Superman however and the two films are as inextricably linked to one another as say, Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. I think about 50% of the backlash towards BvS, at least in the fan press, is flashback from Man of Steel.

What I intend to do is to take three points of the film that I had major problems with the first time I tried to watch it and explain why they are no longer hurdles to my enjoyment of the DCEU. You are more then welcome to disagree with me. I don't want to use the historical development of the character, or cite issue numbers to point out that your reason for having issues with the movie are wrong because I know Superman better than you (I might actually not especially if your name happens to be Mark Waid). Quite frankly there is too much of that on the comics internet and life in general as it is. This is why Man of Steel works for me, nothing more. Your mileage may vary.