“My Greatest Adventure”
Writer/Artist: Darwyn Cooke
Publisher: DC
In a week in which usually-naff titles surprise with sudden upswings in quality, it’s somewhat ironic that the normally excellent New Frontier is somewhat below-par. The main problem here is pacing. The big threat of the series turns up towards the end, and it seems a bit rushed to be honest. This is largely due to a lot of wasted pages that do little to move the story forward, leading to the threat looking like it’s just popped out of nowhere, when we know full well that it’s been advancing slowly all this time. That said, I’m not sure what I would do to reorganise the comic, but the scene at Ferris Aircraft and the scenes of various heroes indirectly helping out could probably go.
So, that’s the bad stuff. How about the good stuff? The art is of course excellent, and as highly-priced as this series is, it’s worth it for the art alone. While the plotting is a bit clunky, there are great moments, like Superman’s assault on the creature, and Hal’s first experiences with the magic ring.
Characterisation is also top-notch, with a version of Robin that made me chuckle, a wholesome and patriotic Superman that didn’t come across as an uptight arsehole (he even made a Superman Speech that wasn’t cringeworthy, which is surely worth an award), Wonder Woman as a mighty warrior, and best of all, Martian Bloke (I’m not a DC fan, so I don’t know where the apostrophes go, so he’s called Martian Bloke okay?). The only other times I’ve enjoyed Martian Bloke’s appearance was when he briefly turned up in Grant Morrison’s Earth² story, and his even briefer appearance in Kevin Smith’s Green Arrow run. Otherwise, he tends to fade into the background a bit, so it’s good to see him in a prominent role, and with such a well-written personality, too. He’s taken on the “innocent in a strange place” role that Superman has outgrown, and it fits very well.
I assume that the next issue will be one big battle scene as the assembled heroes fight off the big menace, and given that, I’d suggest that this series could have probably done just as well with one fewer issue and a bit of re-arranging. Cooke has turned out to be a strong writer, and this series is a significant achievement, but a bit of intelligent editing might have been in order. This issue especially could certainly have done with some tinkering, but I’m probably being churlish, as this is still better than a lot of stuff out there.
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