DC: THE NEW FRONTIER 145
In 1999, DC acquired WildStorm, an independent publisher founded by the art-
ist Jim Lee. WildStorm was affi liated with Image Comics, a publisher founded in
the early 1990s by several artists who sought a publishing vehicle for creator-owned
projects. WildStorm’s primary titles included series such as WildC.A.T.S. and Gen13,
which were action-oriented superhero titles. Other titles brought in to DC with the
acquisition included Th e Authority , which would have a successful and popular run
with writer Warren Ellis, and Astro City, a science fi ction title by Kurt Busiek.
After the merger with DC, WildStorm established an imprint, America’s Best Com-
ics, devoted solely as a vehicle for projects by Alan Moore including Promethea and
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
DC continues to keep pace with current trends in comics publishing. In 2004, DC
and WildStorm started CMX, an imprint for manga. In 2007 and 2008, DC operated
the imprint Minx, which published graphic novels marketed towards primarily female
young adult readers, which has since ceased publication. DC also operates Zuda Com-
ics, a web-comics publishing group that also releases books in print form. DC currently
claims to publish almost 1,000 issues of comics per year, along with graphic novels,
manga, and character merchandising and licensing. In September 2009, immedi-
ately after it was announced that the media giant Walt Disney Company was acquiring
rival Marvel comics, Time-Warner announced a reorganization in which it would take
more direct control over DC Comics (refi gured as DC Entertainment), overseeing the
publishing company under a new division that will report directly to Warner Pictures.
Paul Levitz, who had been president and publisher at DC since 2002, announced that
he was leaving that post to become contributing editor and overall consultant for the
newly-formed DC Entertainment and return to his career as a writer of comics. Diane
Nelson, formerly head of Warner’s direct-to-DVD unit, was named as president of DC
Entertainment.
Selected Bibliography: Jones, Gerard. Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth
of the Comic Book. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Robert O’Nale
DC: THE NEW FRONTIER. Written and illustrated by Darwyn Cooke, DC: Th e New
Frontier is a six-issue miniseries published by DC Comics in 2004 about the dawn of
the Silver Age of superheroes in the late 1950s.
Ostensibly, the plot of the story follows the new heroes of the Silver Age — Th e Flash,
Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and Martian Manhunter — as they band together to
fi ght a giant living island intent on devouring all life on the planet Earth, but the story is
rich with characters and subplots involving classic DC publications such as Th e Losers ,
Th e Challengers of the Unknown, Blackhawks, and Th e Justice Society of America as well
as historical events and personages from the time period. Th e plot begins as a hodge-
podge of fragmented narratives about diff erent characters, and only slowly brings these
disparate threads together for the last climactic battle against the island. Th e island itself
