- Pronouns
- he/him
Discuss the latest Article by @Charles EP M. here
tbf his "Day in the Life of Doctor Robotnik" is definitive.Great article. Sorry for being angry for being reminded of Mark Millar who I have....complicated feelings towards him.
I've never read that one all the way through, but have seen the scans of it people shared to go "YEAH SUPERMAN SHOWED THOSE LOSERS" and they were very... uh...Fascinatingly for me, this is only coming about a week or two after Lewis Lovehaug over on Atop the Fourth Wall did his review of the Superman comic you mention briefly at the end- Whatever happened to truth, justice and the American way?; so this is an interesting one to go back and forth between.
When researching, I did find an argument on Sequart that Ellis had retroactively decided this about the Authority after September 11, but the callbacks to Stormwatch, the whole "we killed a whole country" thing, and especially the Planetary crossover by Ellis - where the threat behind everything is an alternate universe Authority and the Planetary team note we better hope our one doesn't go that way - suggest otherwise.I remember hearing about The Authority through tvtropes - Ellis' comment on them being stealth villain protagonists makes it make a heck of a lot more sense, though obviously they seem to have got misaimed fandom.
Flashback ensues.tbf his "Day in the Life of Doctor Robotnik" is definitive.
There is a fact that Morrison and Waid as many other reacted as the usual portrait of the classic superheroes (naturally in a lawyer friendly way) and their general behaviour compared to the 'Super Edgy and revolutionary and megaeffective' Authority and trust me theirr reaction has been veeery tame and classy.tbf his "Day in the Life of Doctor Robotnik" is definitive.
The JLA Classified thing I have read and remember thinking "but Grant, there's no reason given in-comic why the JLA are so much better and competent than your Authority distaffs, outside of It's Our Comic". Very much felt like disgruntlement. (There's an alleged Mark Waid quote that a crossover would see the JLA jail the Authority on page one too)
The impression I got was rather along the lines of 'power without restraint, without being paired with a message of hope and so forth is just terrifying'I've never read that one all the way through, but have seen the scans of it people shared to go "YEAH SUPERMAN SHOWED THOSE LOSERS" and they were very... uh...
Given that the Authority's MO is interventionism cranked up to 11, that seems pretty hypocritical all by itself.not considering Jenny Spark hypocrisy as he lament how bad she feel to have save Clinton life after he ordered the launch of missile at terrorist camp
There was an interesting Sequart article I found while researching this where the guy said the Authority's actions and justifications turn out to be a lot closer to the invasion of Iraq than fans like him would like (especially as Millar was anti-Iraq and War on Terror). It's probably handy for Wildstorm that #13 had them go into Indonesia and not bump off Saddam, or that would've been aaaaawwkwwaaaaard.Given that the Authority's MO is interventionism cranked up to 11, that seems pretty hypocritical all by itself.
It's an interesting dry run for Millar's Ultimates, thinking about it - and the Masters of Evil revamp of 'rogue states' government superheroes that preemptively thump America is an interesting callback, though I dunno if he meant it.One of my favorite comics stories is in fact the G7 Authority. They are just... so awful but that weird thing where their focus is on status quo and ensuring the world stays the same seems really on the nose to me.
Being the guy doing Authority and Planetary at the same time is one hell of an achievement.It still deserves saying that as Ellis was writing Authority he also was churning out some of the best issues of Planetary.
The authority in a nutshellGiven that the Authority's MO is interventionism cranked up to 11, that seems pretty hypocritical all by itself.
Bingore Sudan, it's the bombing of the drugs factory that's the problem isn't it?
Yeah, after a couple of time of this, it become stale from a narrative pow, not considering the lack of characterization except 'we are sooo edgy and shockin' or 'look at us doing sex and drugs, don't you see how we are soo mature'.Unlike Red Son Superman cannot be everywhere at all times. This is the more modern superman and not the silver age that Red Son is supposed to be. In The Authority... they kill the government and when faced with refugees they toss them onto their giant mile long ship which supplies all needs without issue. So in a way The Authority has big ideas but someone should have pointed out they never follow up beyond "do it again and we kill you!"
This is definitely one of those parts of the genre you have to violently force yourself to not acknowledge, if it's an ongoing work-for-hire series. <strike>Marvel</strike>Miracleman can massively change the world but the poor X-Men can never be allowed to truly fix mutant-human relations (nor can it permanently crater & force the X-Men to go to war with a human government). This is mainly an issue if the superheroes are numerous and Very Powerful, as nobody's expecting the Leopard of Lime Street to have ended Thatcherism.My main issue with super heroes is they're very hard to respect because the plot requires them to be useless despite Godlike powers.
Those two between them have ruined superheroes-in-WW2 for me, by having them being so tactically limited as to be useless or "the entire machinery of war just got upended permanently".the Boys ... Uber
One story in the Stormwatch: Team Achilles series had Chechnya riddled with Islamic terror cells quietly working on things, because Chechnya was semi-lawless and they knew the Authority would thump any military force that crossed the border. (I don't think it explained why the Authority continued to let this happen when they became aware)So in a way The Authority has big ideas but someone should have pointed out they never follow up beyond "do it again and we kill you!"
The obvious answer though is he can tell them to wait a moment. Come back with the government and their families, and put them amongst the villagers, wish the troops the best of luck, fuck off, go to pluto and then come back and catch any bullets.View attachment 20356
If we speak of superman and godlike powers the above I feel is important but never treated as canon.
Superman decides to feed the world. So he does. He arrives and the government explains they get the food to hand it out. If Superman does not obey maybe they will shoot those villagers. Couldn't superman stop them? No, cause he has to leave and the government will arrive. Maybe he can get rid of the government... but then what? Superman cannot stay there and fix things. Superman cannot muscle his way out of it. And while it is not a satisfying ending it does show the things which Superman thinks of and why he cannot just fix things in an instant.
Unlike Red Son Superman cannot be everywhere at all times. This is the more modern superman and not the silver age that Red Son is supposed to be. In The Authority... they kill the government and when faced with refugees they toss them onto their giant mile long ship which supplies all needs without issue. So in a way The Authority has big ideas but someone should have pointed out they never follow up beyond "do it again and we kill you!"
There's a very interesting commentary I saw when it came to this intersecting with the whole 'why not just kill the Joker' side of things. For the latter, the question surely is not 'why doesn't Batman (a guy with a code of honour who recognises he's teetering on the edge of villainy at times and puts hard boundaries on what he allows himself to do as a response) kill the Joker. It's why doesn't the State of Gotham just send him to the electric chair?Golden Age Supes is strong and fast and jumps real good. He can make a difference in one town that makes sense. When it comes to the demi god who can survive a nuclear blast and fight Gods and has a whole league of similar demi gods and like the world's richest man. Its really telling that they can't fix basic stuff.
We could probably fix a lot of that today if we cared to. They definitely could. So why don't they care?
There's a very interesting commentary I saw when it came to this intersecting with the whole 'why not just kill the Joker' side of things. For the latter, the question surely is not 'why doesn't Batman (a guy with a code of honour who recognises he's teetering on the edge of villainy at times and puts hard boundaries on what he allows himself to do as a response) kill the Joker. It's why doesn't the State of Gotham just send him to the electric chair?
And if the answer to the latter is because the death penalty is illegal, or because society has decided that's not right morally regardless of the crimes involved, then what right does Batman have to say otherwise, other than to allow people to sidestep the question by just having the guy in the bat costume answer it for them.
Which then brings you to Superman, and the fact that where he really works best is 'this thing is beyond the ability of any government to control or plan for (aliens invade! Time-travelling robot from the future! Earthquake toppling buildings!) so it's up to somebody with superpowers to step in. But on the ordinary day you start getting into more complex stuff. Because it's all very well going for just 'deliver the food why is that so hard', but then you get into the question of whether that solves the issue of why the food needs to be delivered. If it's a temporary blip due to a sudden heatwave, that's one thing. If it's government policies or entrenched power systems however? That's the sort of thing that you actually need local people to solve.
And ironically this is almost where the concept of a world-of-heroes starts to work again, because suddenly it becomes obvious that the only way you can really solve the issues of the gangs of Johannesburg (to take an example) is by having people in Johannesburg sorting it, and maybe that means you get some local vigilantes cropping up here now, and maybe this means you've got local superhero dynamics with all the things that brings up.
Although one thing I really did like in the Blue Beetle comics was where the invading aliens are scanning Earth and basically just go 'what the hell, how are there so many superpowered beings defending this place? I mean they've got two Green Lanterns? And a Kryptonian?'