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Welcome to the inaugural edition of BRICK HOUSE COMICS, where we review comics that we love and excite us, so we feel the need to share them with you and hopefully you’ll pick up something to read that’s totally new to you.
So, with James Gunn announcing that there is going to be an Authority movie sometime soon, I thought it would be a good time to show…everyone…that the perfect trilogy for a film franchise is right…here.
To sum it up.
The Authority are heroes in only the strictest sense of the word.
Ruthless and unforgiving, this group of insanely powerful superhumans face down countless menaces to Earth, protecting mankind with their cold version of justice. An invasion from an alternate Earth, an international terrorist who is laying waste to major cities and a hostile alien intelligence who calls himself God all fall under their rule.
This is THE AUTHORITY. Pay allegiance. Or get your head kicked in.
Created by legendary writer Warren Ellis (THE WILD STORM, TRANSMETROPOLITAN) and artists Bryan Hitch (JUSTICE LEAGUE), Paul Neary (The Ultimates) and Laura Martin (WONDER WOMAN), THE AUTHORITY is considered one of the most groundbreaking titles in modern comics history.
In this I’m only going to talk about the original 12 issues by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch. The proceeding volumes, while…fine…are no match for this initial output.
When The Authority first debuted in 1999 and it was like a lightening bolt to the landscape of superhero comics. I don’t know it’s sales numbers and they were probably not super high, but the shockwave the story brought had not been done in awhile. This is a team of ‘superheroes’ akin to the Justice Leage or the Avengers, and they do not take any shit from anyone. They stamp out dictators, alien invaders, and wrong-doers with force. There are no recurring bad-guys tropes to be had here.
Warren Ellis spun this tale as a spin-off of another book called Stormwatch and he brought along his very talented co-workers, Bryan Hitch (pencils), Paul Neary (inks) and Laura Martin (colors) for all the fun. And fun it was, because you can tell, reading these again recently, that the team was having a blast on every page. Bryan Hitch changes things up in a big way and opens up all the panels to be very wide giving it a clear simplified cinematic look. This allows for wide-screen, bigger than life, action pieces in comics that we’ve never had before.
The main characters are;
- Jenny Sparks, “The Spirit of the Twentieth Century”; the group’s founder and original leader.
- Apollo, “The Sun God”.
- Midnighter a.k.a. Lucas Trent, “Night’s Bringer of War”.
- The Doctor a.k.a. Jeroen Thornedike, “The Shaman”.
- The second Engineer a.k.a. Angela Spica, “The Maker”.
- Jack Hawksmoor, “The God of Cities”; leader of the Authority from 2000 to 2005, and again from 2008 to 2010.
- Swift a.k.a. Shen Li-Min, “The Winged Huntress”.
Getting back on track, within these initial 12 issue are 3 story-arcs;
Story-arc 1 The Authority make their first public appearance to stop Kaizen Gamorra, an old enemy of Stormwatch, who wants to take advantage of Stormwatch’s breakup to take revenge upon the world. To do this he uses engineered supersoldiers to destroy first Moscow and then part of London. The Authority does not manage to stop the attack on London, then predicts the third and final attack in Los Angeles which is averted with heavy civilian casualties. Midnighter uses the Carrier to destroy the superhuman clone factory on Gamorra’s island.
Story-arc 2 The Authority must stop an invasion by a parallel Earth, specifically a parallel Britain called Sliding Albion. As it turns out, Jenny Sparks has met them before when their shiftships first appeared in 1920. Sliding Albion is a world where open contact between aliens (the blues) and humans during the 16th century led to interbreeding and an imperialist culture similar to the Victorian British Empire. After the Authority repel the initial wave of attacks, Jenny takes the Carrier to the Sliding Albion universe where they destroy London and Italy and what’s left of the blues’ regime along with it. In an all-frequencies message, she tells the people to take advantage of the second chance and “We are the Authority. Behave.”
It is during this arc that Apollo and Midnighter’s relationship is revealed, though it had been hinted at before. (Hint, because this was 25 years ago and people were not as ‘out’ as they are today, they’re gay)
Story-arc 3 During the closing days of 1999, strange alien creatures begin building unknown structures in Africa and on the Moon. This prompts the previous Doctors to reveal to the current Doctor a vital secret: the original creator of Earth, the closest thing to the concept of “God” that exists, has returned from a grand tour of the universe to find humanity as an unwanted infestation in its “retirement home”. Thus “God” is terraforming Earth to be habitable for itself (and uninhabitable for humans) in time for the arrival of its person, which is an immense pyramid-shaped object the size of the Moon.
The Engineer convinces the Carrier to leave Earth orbit. The Authority pilot the Carrier into the approaching “God” through a pore and manage to navigate to its brain. On the route they encounter the being’s immune system as well as a civilization that has evolved from parasites over billions of years. During the closing minutes of December 31, 1999, Jenny Sparks carries out her final act as the Spirit of the Twentieth Century, electrocuting the creature’s brain to death before dying in Jack Hawksmoor’s arms.
It’s within these 3 arcs that I think, with some tweaking, adding some character plots and subplots that we could have here a true proper film trilogy. I am skeptical, at best, as to what they will do with the property once Hollywood gets their hands on it. There is a lot in there that could be considered preachy or controversial, but in the right hands it could be more than a ‘comicbook movie’, it could become something that means a great deal to people.
