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Justice League: The New Frontier Comics Bound for DVD & Comic-Con

THE NEW FRONTIER, which began as a six-issue series in 2004 that follows Superman and other heroes of the DC Universe from the end of World War II through the Cold War, will be made into a direct-to-DVD animated film from Warner Home Video, reports THE NEW YORK TIMES. The saga has been published in one hardcover and two softcover collections and has inspired a line of action figures. JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE NEW FRONTIER, the DVD animated film is due out in February 2008, but conventioneers attending the 38th annual Comic-Con International in San Diego will get a preview of it during the Superman Doomsday! panel on July 26, 8:30-10:30 pm in Room 20.

THE NEW FRONTIER is one of the first three adult-oriented DC projects to be given the straight-to-DVD treatment and joins similar full-length adventures of SUPERMAN and BATMAN; DVD collections of the animated television series SUPERFRIENDS, JUSTICE LEAGUE and BATMAN BEYOND, among others.

"I was kind of floored by the call and the fact that this was being done," said Darwyn Cooke, 45, the writer and artist behind the comic told TNYT. Gregory Noveck, svp of creative affairs at DC Comics, a unit of Time Warner, told Cooke the company wanted to produce a series of direct-to-DVD animated films that would, unlike its previous efforts, more closely follow the source material.

Cooke, who was a storyboard artist on The WB's BATMAN and SUPERMAN animated series of the 1990s, said working on the film version of THE NEW FRONTIER was like coming home.

The story had to be pared down from just under 400 pages into a 70-minute film. The comicbook has a big cast and multiple subplots, from a nearly 40-page sequence that depicts the fate of the Losers, a squad of soldiers from DC's war comics, to following Hal Jordan's path from reluctant fighter pilot in Korea to his discovery of the power ring that will turn him into Green Lantern. The story also has Wonder Woman and Superman debate their own involvement in Southeast Asia; the Martian Manhunter arrives on Earth; and John Henry rises in Tennessee to combat the Ku Klux Klan.

Stan Berkowitz, a writer who worked on JUSTICE LEAGUE and other animated series featuring DC characters, has condensed the story to a script. Bruce Timm, a producer/writer/director on many of the animated cartoons featuring DC's heroes is onboard to produce.

Timm was the co-writer/co-director/producer of SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY, the animated version of bestselling 1993 comicbooks about the Man of Steel's demise. Timm told TNYT, THE NEW FRONTIER fit with DC's goal of creating more adult-oriented superhero cartoons.

Cooke worked on the design of all the characters in the film with Glenn Wong.

Cooke said the director, Dave Bullock, who is also a friend, has put in more of the story than he initially thought possible, even though some characters are only seen in the background and some subplots are relegated to newscasts watched by the heroes. "It's much more complete than I would have thought," Cooke said. "Even things we dropped, we reference in scenes. It won't interrupt the story for people who don't know, but for someone who has read the book, it'll hit that trigger and be there for them."

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