New Frontier - Suicide Squad

I just love Darwyn Cooke.

He really was one of the all-time greats for me and I loved his comic book work since I first discovered it (that was Catwoman, written by Ed Brubaker).

Comic artist/writer/cartoonist/animator, he wrote and illustrated masterpieces such as the adaptations of Donald Westlake's Parker novels ("The Hunter", "The Outfit", "The Score", "Slayground") for IDW and "The New Frontier" for DC.

"The New Frontier" is a retelling of the early Silver Age stories from DC Comics, a story about who these heroes were before they became the Justice League.

Set from 1953 to 1960, when post-World War II sentiment and Cold War tension have pushed the Age of the Superhero into decline. However, when a threatening alien presence emerges on earth, a new era of superheroes must join forces with veteran heroes and an unfriendly United States government to battle the enemy.

First published by DC Comics in 2004, then collected into two trade paperback volumes in 2004 and 2005, an Absolute Edition in 2006 and a deluxe edition in 2015. The story was also adapted into an animated film, Justice League: The New Frontier (2008).

Here's a magnificent pinup of the very first Suicide Squad, it was love at first sight.
It's inspired by the second appearance of the Suicide Squad, on Brave and the Bold #26 (1959), written by Robert Kanigher and illustrated by Ross Andru, where something in outer space (solar rays, meteor shower?) reduces our heroes' size to a few inches while returning to Earth. Landing (well, they plunge into a lake) in enemy's territory, afloat on a matchbox, facing the menace of a seagull that thinks they're food. Their teeny size allows them to stealthily infiltrate enemy's camp and sabotage them before they can strike USA with nuclear weapons. Then, as mysteriously they were reduced in size, they grow back to normal.

Cooke then decided to use references to another Suicide Squad story ("Raid of the Dinosaurs!", Brave and the Bold #37) in "The New Frontier".

Just check the additional images for bonus Wonder Woman sketches on the back, the original cover to Brave and the Bold #26 and the published version of this illustration (from "The New Frontier" deluxe edition).

Many thanks, Albert!


Paper size: 34.2 x 43.2 cm