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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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The Authority #1
I have very mixed feelings about this book. I was first introduced to the Authority through Stormwatch (Jackson King-era) and fell in love with Jenny Sparks. The romance held until Jenny died, saving the world…and then the title really took off. With the Authority actually trying to make a finer world – by crushing third world dictators – the title seemed poised for bigger and bigger things. And then it all came crashing down. There were creative problems, leading to the sudden addition of a new storyline featuring the replacement Authority, and then the title was caught up in a political dispute. The Authority was cancelled long enough for Stormwatch: Team Achilles to sneak in a quick defeat of the team (see the Building Universes feature on Stormwatch for more details) – and then it all went badly wrong. The title seemed to have a fair chance, despite the false promises made by the Morrison team…and then it sputtered out. The promise of Coup D’etat was never fulfilled; the efforts of Ed Brudbaker, brilliant writer though he is, only restored the status quo. Kinda ironic, given that interfering with the status quo was what started the Seth take-over, but… In my not so humble opinion, Wildstorm and the other comic book producers are afraid of change. Stormwatch was killed off…but that was the last significant change in the Wildstorm universe. Morrison tossed forward vast concepts, from the Doctor’s religion to Jenny’s mother, that he then squandered. The long-awaited Stormwatch-Authority duel never happened; one of them would have had to have won…and, quite frankly, I think it would have been Santini and Co. And then came the Kev stories, the Captain Atom stories (much underrated) and then – finally – the worldstorm. Which, after my long monologue, brings me back to the start; I have mixed feelings about this book. My first thought, upon reading this, was [spoiler] where’s the Authority? [/spoiler] The action all seems to take place in a world almost identical to our own, right down to the Pope’s controversial speech, starting with a very Sphere-like moment with the research teams diving down into deep water to locate a missing submarine. A series of very creepy scenes, suggesting that the submarine was actually…[spoiler] attacked by the Authority [/spoiler] leads in to the investigative team being sent down…where they find… But that would be telling. Suffice it to say that I remain unconvinced of this title’s viability, although the suggestion that the Authority are in a world that has no superheroes suggests considerable room for storytelling. I’ll stick around for a few more issues, but, past that, no promises. The idea of having ordinary people coming to grips with the Authority is interesting, but…I don’t know. The style is so…un-Authority that it may well alienate potential readers; everyone expects action from the Authority, not a mystery. Grant Morrison is taking risks, people; you heard it here first. The artwork is mixed, IMHO. The backgrounds, particularly the images of the Earth from space and the submarine scenes, are very well done. The double-paged spread of [spoiler] the crashed Carrier [/spoiler] is awesome. On the other hand, I don’t like the people at all; they just…don’t seem detailed enough. The fight right at the front of the book is confusing, horror-movie-ish, and as for the cover, well… It’s not a disaster, unlike some promising books. I’ll risk buying Issue #2. Three out of five.
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