Reading The Authority has gone from being an experience of widescreen thrills and dark humor to being a game of "spot the edit." This issue puts that to rest, as the series comes to an end, limping its way past the finish line after various changes, editorial and otherwise, have crippled its style and its image in the public eye. Fortunately, whatever has gone on behind the scenes, and whatever delays took place in getting it out, the creative team is still plenty talented, whether it's Millar's delightfully over-the-top sense of humor and distaste for authority or Gary Erskine's surprisingly strong artwork, easily the equal of Frank Quitely's work on the book. I read the book and there's a sense of sadness for what might have been had it continued along without editorial controversies, but I also read it and get the same laughs and enjoyment I've always gotten out of it.
The formula for this issue is actually what you'd expect, given that Millar spent a couple issues of the arc showing the Authority being degraded and tormented by their enemies. This issue, we get the inevitable payback, which is every bit as imaginative and darkly humorous as the torments that the Authority had visited upon them, with the added bonus of being directed against "the bad guys" which makes it more fun. I particularly enjoyed Shen's casual evisceration of two of the most powerful men in the world or her matter-of-fact termination of Angie's "husband." Although the revenge enacted on Seth was both funny and fitting as well.
What I didn't expect, this late in the game, was to be so taken with the artwork on The Authority. While I've enjoyed some of Erskine's past work, he didn't strike me as an ideal choice for this particular book, but he really stepped up to the plate with some gorgeous artwork. Apollo's battle in the arctic, completed with colors by Baron, is as vivid and exciting an action scene as the book has had, and the opening scenes in Angie's bedroom have a wonderful sense of foreboding and awakening to them. Erskine's work seems to take equal parts of Hitch and Quitely, with a bit of Dillon thrown in for good measure, incorporating the past and never-were artists of The Authority into a style that meets the high standards of the book.
However, while the book still has the same general tone, in art and story, there were some story hiccups and things that felt out of place. Some of them seem quite painfully clear to be edits from on high, such as the reference to "President Gore" which seems odd when contrasted with the completely fictional visual likeness of the current President, who was obviously meant to be Bush. Some seem like Millar was tap-dancing as fast as he could to finish up the arc, notably the introduction of a tear in the universe that made for an interesting moment for the team and humanity, but seemed to come out of left field.
This issue also delivers a bit of a self-congratulatory speech about how the book has changed super-heroes forever, one that is clearly meta-commentary on the changes in approach that The Authority caused in super-heroes at large. With nostalgia-based comics again on the rise, and with the various tawdry details that surrounded the self-destruction of this book, it seems more likely that those changes mean we won't see something like The Authority from DC anytime soon, which is a shame.
