The New Frontier DVD follows Hal Jordan from the Korean War to the Kennedy era, and he becomes Green Lantern along the way. Jordan and the Martian Manhunter are the stars of the new DVD film, according to the screenwriter. Putting "Silver Age" characters back into the 1950s and 1960s makes them seem less dated, and also lets Cooke comment on issues like racism and McCarthyism. The movie hits multiple DVD formats on February 26th, 2008.

But The New Frontier isn't the only classic graphic novel to use this technique. James (Starman) Robinson won plaudits for The Golden Age, a graphic novel which followed a group of classic 1940s heroes as they coped with (once again) McCarthyism in the early 1950s. His comic starred Starman, Robotman, the original Atom and Johnny Thunder.

And then there's John Byrne's underrated Superman & Batman: Generations, which showed both heroes starting their careers in 1939, the year they originally appeared. Byrne placed the heroes in a classic setting (at the 1939 World's Fair), then showed them aging in real time. Both Superman and Batman deal with aging and handing over their responsibilities to their kids and sidekicks. (Later installments follow them into the present day and beyond.)

DC has also published several "Elseworlds" stories taking place in alternate universes, featuring Batman in the 1930s and 1940s. These include Detective 27, Citizen Wayne (a Citizen Kane riff), and Gotham Noir.

Disco producers felt a pulsating urge to create a futuristic sound and atmosphere, says Lawrence, author of Love Saves The Day :

A lot of this had to do with the "other-worldly" space of the dance floor, where a combination of sonic, lighting and drug effects generated a sense of entering into another dimension.

Disco also peaked at a time when America's love for space opera was at its greatest, says Pagan Kennedy, who wrote about disco in her book Platforms: A Cultural Chronicle of the 1970s. The music lifted a lot of its sparkly imagery from science fiction like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Kennedy adds:

Don't forget Space:1999! That show featured the ultimate disco spaceship — every surface was slick and shiny and white and biomorphic. It was as if the astronauts lived inside a giant sanitized intestine.

She adds that disco included "skimpy silver clothes made of that 'space blanket' stuff," and promiscuous use of a NASA font on musical products. "It's hard to say whether space got disco-ized, or disco got spaced," Kennedy says.

Disco disintegrated in the early 80s, but dance culture still embraces the future. Just think of all those shiny raver kids in the early 1990s. Says Lawrence:

Sci-fi imagery has always permeated movements that are interested in changing social circumstances, and images of the future were particularly prominent in Detroit techno. This tradition ... has continued in newer dance genres such as drum 'n' bass and, more recently, dubstep.