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Underground > Comic Books >

The Authority: Revolution (possible SPOILERS)..

11:15 / 04.08.05

There hasn't been much comment on Wildstorm's once-great comic here since the first run ended way back when. I wondered if anyone was still reading the series and what they thought of the current 12 parter "Revolution".

Since it's re-launch I've been finding the stories a bit same old same old. Most of them, especially the pants Jenny Fractal storyline, weren't particularly well-written but gave plenty of glorious brutality. The Authority section of the Coup storyline was entertaining though.

Now we're onto Revolution, finally introducing a Jenny Quantum that isn't just a Franklin Richards clone. Killing off the old Doctor and bringing in a new one. Plus, the return of my favourite bastard/bitch combo, Henry Bendix and Rose Tattoo.

11:58 / 04.08.05

Nothing about that description makes want to buy the latest Authority comic.

I have a feeling that The Authority always had a limited shelf life as a concept; it is basically the superhero comic taken to its logical extreme - each of the three Warren Ellis stories ramped up the stakes, from invading nation, to invading parallel worlds to to an invading god. In terms of jeopardy, nothing really beats killing god. Simply put, when Ellis left The Authority there wasn't anywhere new for its extreme action to go, any further sequals in this vein would simply rehash old territory.

When Mark Millar came onto the title he took it into a daring new direction, into political commentary, with the Authority going after 'the real bad guys' such as a thinly veiled cross between President Suharto and President Habibe of Indonesia, unfortunately Millar never wanted to or was never able to fully follow through on the impact of such actions, lost his regular artist and had his book put on hiatus... instead of a biting political comic examining the consequences of interventionism we had a poor politically neutered beast only able to churn out more of the same old sub-R-rated violence.

In many ways Millar's Authority has been overtaken by actual events... The Coup was an interesting idea, but came as too little too late for me...

Keith, like a scientist

12:33 / 04.08.05

i have been faithfully buying this book, even though sometimes i wonder why. they haven't had a storyline that compares to the Sliding Albion invasion or Authority vs. Jack Kirby and the Avengers. Those were the two best in my opinion.

However, I really like Revolution. It's capturing some of that magic of the heyday of Stormwatch.

I grant this comic isn't the best in the world, but I still find it enjoyable.

12:36 / 04.08.05

Brubaker is a good writer, but I picked up the first two issues of this and found it mostly lackluster so I dropped it. I think the Authority as concept and characters are played out at this point.

lonely as a cloud...

14:23 / 04.08.05

I'm enjoying it, too. I ♥ Midnighter, although I wish they hadn't killed the Doctor off. It had to be done to explain the plot, but I still liked him as a character - possibly the most powerful person on earth as a complete coward. But anyway, yeah. Good book, IMHO.

Keith, like a scientist

14:32 / 04.08.05

FinderWolf...i agree with your assessment based on the first couple of issues...it got much better around the middle of the storyline, and now it's a bit fascinating.

rabideyemovement

14:43 / 04.08.05

I keep buying this title for the writing, but they would do well to find a more complimentary artist.
Now wouldn't it be great if they were all wiped out, and Bendix created his own Authority to govern the world? I would hardly notice if you replaced the Engineer. Something's gotta give. The concepts are getting stale. Ed Brubaker should read Micah Ian Wright's Stormwatch for some cues.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:48 / 04.08.05

Yes! After all, Micah Wright wrote from his experience of military life in all its grit, guts and glory, something you just can't fake! And Wince Portacio's art on Stormwatch :Team Achilles was certainly most complimentary. Although not to human anatomy.

I'm not sure Brubaker needs to read that title for cues, although it would probably beat trying to read it for pleasure.

19:34 / 04.08.05

I fucking like how everyone fucking swears like a cocksucking motherfucker, motherfucker!

Honestly, I damn near pissed myself laughing at the 18+-dialogue-for-fourteen-year-olds. Economy on the swearing would go a long way to giving it back it's bite.

lonely as a cloud...

06:30 / 05.08.05

*SPOILERS*

I think, now that we know how Bendix got the drop on everyone, the story's getting a little dull. But the idea of killing the doctor and trapping his soul, and using it to find the next doctor was kinda cool.

08:25 / 05.08.05

I've been pondering writing a fanfic featuring the return of Rose Tattoo for ages. I'm glad someone thinks along the same lines as me.

Still, my fatbeard instincts would have gone for the short-shorts and black masking tape X's myself.

It's nice to finally have a background for The Carrier too.

08:55 / 05.08.05

THe only thing Authority post Quitely/Millar that I've enjoyed is Garth Ennis' KEV minis. No, seriously. I genuinely enjoy them, it's Ennis' best work in recent memory, and Fabry's pencils are so interesting. Facial expressions are a joy to look at.

They came out in trade recently, go look at them. The level of pisstake is extreme, but the second mini was intriguing in the development of the Midnighter and Kev and the way they interact. Midnighter commenting that he thinks his team is going down the shitter is an amusing, Superfriendsy moment.

Ennis intrigues me because he often pulls something sober and honest out of nowhere in his work, which balances his more irritating tendencies.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:58 / 05.08.05

Rose Tattoo = one-shot character. She was mysterious and scary, and then she got killed. The End. Giving her the Vagina of Death does not make her a more interesting character - to the fatbeard, all vaginas are terrifying and lethal.

Now wouldn't it be great if they were all wiped out, and Bendix created his own Authority to govern the world?

Already done by Millar with the G7 providing their own Authority, though...

For all the many, many faults of the Monarchy, one thing it did manage to do was something nice with Henry Bendix - this just seems to be turning him back into eeevil genius.
With eeevil twin.

09:50 / 05.08.05

Eevil genius, with eevil twin.

Poor Bendix, you never hear that kind of criticism about Kang (mind you, he has lawyers of the fuuuuuutuuuuure).

Don't recall saying anything about her being more interesting, I just liked the whole Spirit of Murder thing. Like the Saint of Killers, but with nicer curves.

10:45 / 05.08.05

Bar the odd side project ['Kev', 'Human On The Inside'], I haven't read any Authority since Millar's run ended. Hack or not, his and Quitely's run smacked me right upside the head for four solid issues, with scattered brillance over a further three. As far as throwaway concepts go, the superhero combat in those issues is still the most imaginative I've seen, the highlight [/lowlight] quite possibly being the bad doctor sexually abusing a young Engineer via time travel in the middle of a fight.

If only DC had bitten the bullet there and then, made it properly 'Mature', made it bi-monthly or quarterly, like the current issues of Planetary, and let Millar and Quitely go to it. At least they'd have exhausted the idea themselves, rather than allowing sub-standard writers and artists to do it for them.

Paul Levitz was the villain The Authority couldn't beat - how post-modern!

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

22:18 / 07.08.05

WARNING: ESTABLISHMENT SPOILERS BELOW

When did Bendix show up in Monarchy?

The Authority wore out its welcome, I think. Ellis himself said that people tried to do too much with the comic after he left it. It was, in his words, "a slut of a book".

Rose worked when she had funky speech bubbles and was StormWatch's sociopath-in-the-hole. She was exactly what the team needed: someone with no emotion, no morals, and who took pleasure solely from murdering people.

Frankly, I was dissapointed to see that Bendix was made the villain of Revolution. I'd been hoping that it was Lorenzo (as the Albion shift-doors were blue). Though now that I've finally read the final two issues of Establishment, I see that that's just not possible (for those who HAVEN'T read The Establishment and don't mind the spoiler, Lorenzo gets eaten by a nanite virus whilst trying to pilot giant pyramid space God's corpse as a shift-ship).

The Garden of Ancestral Jennies (my word, not their's...I think) was just grating. Becuase of course every Spirit of the Century was named Jenny. Yes, that makes much sense. The only reason Jenny Quantum was named Jenny (not her birth name) was because stupid damn Krigstein started calling her that (IIRC).

I have other issues with the horrible political satire in Coup D'etat and Revolution, but I really won't get into it except to say that no story about politics should end with the words "OK...now what the fuck do we do?"

In my mind the Authority started its downward decline when characters started forgetting about powers they had during Ellis' run (such as the story where Jack forgets that he automatically regenerates in urban environments, and thus stays in bed with a broken spine until the villains are conveniently revealed), or were given strange and incomprehensible powers during Miller's (such as Jack going from having strange alien organs designed to make him a being bred to survive and flourish in an urban environment to being able to make buildings fall on things and having people get sucked into the sidewalks).

22:34 / 07.08.05

When did Bendix show up in Monarchy?

#5, being trained as an adolescent science-soldier by a group of pan-chronal spider-gods.

As you do.

22:40 / 07.08.05

The spider-gods also operated out of his bedroom closet. One of the points of the issue (and perhaps the series, althought it was hard to tell what, exactly, the point was) that fiction/fantasy are just as valid as reality.

23:32 / 07.08.05

Them being named Jenny would have worked for me if had been short for "Genesis," but Jenny Sparks was Jennifer Sparks. And of course, that only works in English, but I would imagine it to be something that would sort of work out in the wash, like the name Darkseid.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

01:47 / 08.08.05

And of course, by the end Bendix was a member of the Monarchy. But the Monarchy's pretty much never been refered to again, has it? King was totally back to normal (as opposed to Ascended Auantum Telekine King) in the Human On The Inside OGN.

Wonder how much if any Wildstorm continuity is gonna be addressed in Morrison's WildCATS. Man, I hope the Casey stuff sticks.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

07:22 / 08.08.05

LDones and Fabry's pencils are so interesting.

Yes... interesting. That's exactly the word I would use. So, as I haven't actually picked up anything he's done since the end of Preacher has he actually managed to develop his L33T pencilling skills to maybe more than three basic types of face for all his characters?

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

11:04 / 08.08.05

Can't be issue 5. I think the first trade is at least 5-6 issues long. I could be incorrect, though.

Damn...now I'm wishing they'd bring out another trade. What I loved best about the Monarchy, and the Establishment, is that the books made absolutly no sense in context with the rest of the setting. They weren't even particularly well written at times, but every once and a while they had these Joycean moments of just random words strung together that sounded so wonderfully cool.

Like "hyper-sapiens" from "Jenny Sparks: Secret History of the Authority".

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

12:24 / 08.08.05

Yes... interesting. That's exactly the word I would use. So, as I haven't actually picked up anything he's done since the end of Preacher has he actually managed to develop his L33T pencilling skills to maybe more than three basic types of face for all his characters?

Have you read (looked at, I suppose) his stuff for 2000ad? Slanie and I can remember at least one really good future shock about a team of marines fighting an insane plastic surgeon robot.

And to be fair, he only had to do about three basic face types for Preacher, since the covers mostly involved the core cast.

I thought Carlos E was drawing the Kev minis?

18:32 / 08.08.05

I think they're all called Jenny because they're effectively constructs formed up by Jenny Quantum's powers. Seeing as she was six-years old at the time of forming up the League of Extraordinary Jennys it's not too far of a stretch that she'd assume they were all called Jenny.

But that's just me hunting for a no-prize.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

18:47 / 08.08.05

the League of Extraordinary Jennys

I dunno. I like "Garden of Ancestral Jennies" better. Because it suggest the even bigger writing issue that is Jenny Quantum gaining enough power to be able to take Jenny Sparks AND the Doctor's roles on the team.

Alternativly, the "Jenny League of Authority", "Jennies for a Just Society", and "The Great Jenny Army". Gee Jay Ae. Try saying that five times fast.

Its almost like a "Where's Waldo" picture. "Spot the Jenny".

...at this time I have reduced the word "Jenny" into a meaningless pair of syllables. My work here is done.

14:36 / 09.08.05

Our Lady:
So, as I haven't actually picked up anything he's done since the end of Preacher has he actually managed to develop his L33T pencilling skills to maybe more than three basic types of face for all his characters?

I've never been much of a fan of Fabry's paintings in general, which are all the work he did for Peacher; though they stometimes strike me with the intensity he can bring to a composition with his odd color-choices (browns, greens, blues, oranges, all at once).

The first Kev story has some rough pencils in a more typical Fabry fashion of interesting but awkward facial expression, but they fit the more overtly shiteating tone of the writing.

The second one, 'More Kev', has some just fabulous facial nuances in a cast of characters who all look distinct and generally correlate to real-world faces. It's more refined than what I've seen of Fabry's pencils before, as if he had a great deal of time to work with it. His chapter in Neil Gaiman's largely puff 'Endless Visions' piece was appealing to look at as well, looks a lot like his More Kev work, with good nuance and shit-eats all around.

They're very sharp, very stupid stories.

>>I thought Carlos E was drawing the Kev minis

Carlos Ezquierra (mind the spelling) is pencilling the final Kev story that's upcoming in the fall, 'The Magnificent Kevin'. You can find a short preview here from DC's site. I get the feeling that he's a poorer match for the material than Fabry, who seems to know when and when not to take it very seriously, and gives equal visual credibility to the superheroe-y bits that he does to the guys-being-assholes bits.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:45 / 09.08.05

Carlos Ezquierra (mind the spelling)

Ezquerra.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

14:53 / 09.08.05

The "Magnificent Kevin" preview's not doing anything for me. Dialogue's kind of flat. Its forcfully nasty...not really naturally so. Dunno, maybe I just don't know the character of Kev properly.

15:15 / 09.08.05

Thanks, Haus.

I'm with you on that, Bard. The preview pages for the next mini do nothing for me. If you're intrigued, go thumb through the Kev trade at a store, it'll give you a better idea of whether this brand of stupidity is up your alley.

08:23 / 12.09.05

Just read The Monarchy collected set Bullets Over Babylon. I have to say, whilst it was very good, it's not exactly miles above The Authority in concept and layout. More like a blending of The Authority and Planetary.

Don't get me wrong though, I did like it. What happened to the series? Presumably cancelled. Any particular reason?

09:08 / 12.09.05

Poor sales.