Somehow, it always comes down to the decision to keep The Authority in play long past their shelf date. Coup D'Etat reflected a decision to recenter a stronger line of titles around the dying Authority concept rather than one of the other three stronger titles that make Eye of the Storm so good, and Wright's first post Coup storyline suffers the most when he's forced to deal with The Authority. They don't look right, they don't act right and their role in the book almost made me put the whole thing down. Fortunately, I stuck around, because once Wright and Smith get past the specifics of the threat that Ben Santini and his team are facing, the story gets a lot more interesting. Bizarre conspiracies and dirty tricks fill the lives of this special operations unit that has become something of a fanatic terrorist cell against an oppressive government, and it's fascinating stuff, with a surprisingly twisted and dark sense of humor to back it up.
Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first: I have never, ever cottoned to the way that Wright sees (and thus writes) The Authority. This issue, he makes use of The Engineer and the Midnighter, and neither one comes off right. The Midnighter looks like a skinny little punk (that one's Smith's fault) and, despite being genetically engineered for combat, is taken in by a simple ruse and easily defeated by people without any speed or strength enhancements. The Engineer, with liquid nanotechnology allowing her to do almost anything, is beaten up by a low-rent superhero with superstrength and tossed unceremoniously into her own teleporter. In trying to build up his own characters as smart and tough, Wright cheats and make their foes completely unthreatening, which undercuts both the point he's making and leaves me wondering why the team doesn't just take out the Authority, since we're clearly meant to believe they could do it without breaking a sweat.
Fortunately, this ridiculous battle takes up only about nine pages of the issue. Before that, we get Ben Santini, the ruthless and smart leader of the book, walking into the United Nations to give a piece of his mind to his cowardly superior, a nice bit of wish fulfilment for anyone out there who's ever had a bad boss, albeit taken to a larger extreme than whether or not they passed you over for the raise or promotion you deserved. Santini often gets to seem like the cool guy because Wright takes the easy way out and makes his villains seem stupider or less powerful than he should be, but at the same time, very often he comes off as just as smart and forward-thinking as he's supposed to be. He reminds me somewhat of DC's ultimate power-broker from the '80s, Amanda Waller, although Wright's portrayal of the character is more on the cartoonish, overly sarcastic side, and the script always seems to err on the side of being funny and sarcastic rather than serious.
From what I've read of this book, it seems that Wright is writing it as part military action-adventure and part satire. Oftentimes, the satirical elements make it hard for me to take the rest of the book seriously, but he's got a pretty good blend going in this issue. The banter between Santini and Flint is terrific, and I've come to like that character far more than I did when she was just an original Stormwatch member. In addition, the notion of a powerful conspiracy funding the Stormwatch team to restore the status quo is a fascinating one, a bizarre little twist for a military team but not something so outlandish for one that operates in a world full of superheroes and aliens.
Anyone who has read my previous reviews of Stormwatch: Team Achilles knows that a big sticking point early on was the art. C.P. Smith is certainly more to my taste than Whilce Portacio, although I have my gripes with his work as well (notably an inability to handle the more unrealistic elements of the book, like a bulked-up Midnighter or impressively technological Engineer). However, Smith is at his best when handling the globe-trotting locales and the realistic characters, which is where the strength of Wright's script lies as well. Truthfully, Smith's a good artist who I'd have been happy to see on the book, but I'm more excited to see Clement Sauve Jr. coming onboard next issue, since I loved his work on Human Defense Corps and this book seems like an ideal match for his artistic sensibilities.
Stormwatch: Team Achilles still comes across as the weakest of the three main "Eye of the Storm" books for my money, not approaching the corporate intrigue of Wildcats 3.0 or the morally nebulous undercover ops of Sleeper. And I'm no fan of the speech balloons and goofy covers, which this issue returns to the industry, although I'm no big fan of the pointlessly repetitive "iconic" covers poisoning the shelves either. However, while Wright's tongue-in-cheek tone doesn't always resonate with me, he's got some very intriguing elements, clever plotting and fun characters here, and I'll at least try to keep checking in to see how the book is doing with its post-Coup status quo.
