10 Smartest Decisions In DC Superhero History

4. Martian Manhunter Finds The Goodness Inside Faraday - New Frontier

Martian Manhunter Faraday New Frontier
DC Comics

Darwyn Cooke's The New Frontier is a celebration of the Golden and Silver Ages of DC Comics, but also a thoughtful examination of the Cold War milieu. What Cooke does so cleverly is that he captures the charm and optimism of the medium in that era, and then grounds it in the real historical context of the time.

Superman reckons with his role as an American symbol while the Cold War hots up, while Batman negotiates how his own image could scare those he wishes to protect, thus providing a narrative reason for his shift from the Golden Age badass of the 1940s, to the more kid-friendly and outward looking character seen in the fifties and sixties.

It is incredibly clever, but arguably the focal point of the book is Martian Manhunter. Cooke retells the character's origins in the New Frontier and lays its most decisive moment at their feet.

After deciding to the leave the Earth, having witnessed so much cruelty in the short time he's there, J'onn is captured by King Faraday, a government spook. Faraday is typical of the reactionary, Red Scare G-Man, but he comes to bond with Manhunter, who in turn looks into Faraday's mind, and sees that he believes in a world where his methods one day won't be necessary.

This provides the impetus for the pair to work together against The Centre, and to unite the world's heroes along the way.

Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.