I've cursed DC in regards to The Authority before, but this is the first time I'm cursing them because they've done something right. You see, I own every issue of The Authority, and I really had no need for a deluxe, slipcased, oversized hardcover edition of the first twelve issues... but the production of this book, and the quality of the contents inside, is so gorgeous that I absolutely could not resist it. The Authority was a ground-breaking book that reshaped the way the market looks at super-heroes, helped turn Bryan Hitch and Laura Depuy into superstars in their field and served as my favorite book running for most of its existence. This collection represents what is arguably the pinnacle of the book, under the yoke of its original creative team. And did I mention that it's drop-dead gorgeous?
Contained within the Absolute Authority's oversized pages are the first three story arcs of The Authority, comprising over 200 pages, plus a full script from Warren Ellis and a couple sketches from Bryan Hitch. The story arcs are brilliant, and they just keep upping the ante. One can imagine Ellis cackling to himself madly as he tries to imagine how you top a fleet of superhuman bastards, and then how you top an invasion fleet from another world, and he did it each time. There is a sense of humor and a sense of overcoming challenges in the book, as if the creative team knew that what they were doing was so completely different and new from what had been done before, and it comes through as clearly after the fact as it did before.
In fact, The Authority has new resonance after the attacks of 9-11. It's no secret that DC cooled down on The Authority after the attacks, thinking it might be the equivalent of pouring salt in the wounds, but I actually found quite the opposite. The destruction that Kaizen Gamorra or Sliding Albion or "God" visit upon the innocent people of Earth is more sobering than fun, but seeing the Authority extract revenge in a violent and satisfying manner is often more powerful as a result as well. While The Authority have been called, in retrospect, the villains of the piece, one can see in reading this that they are the good guys, taking the moral hard line that has been the super-hero's forte to its logical extreme and doing "what's right." The only difference is that they do it while smoking, having sex, using bad language and joking about the whole thing, which is really more fun for the reader anyway.
Of course, while The Authority is one of those books that made Warren Ellis's reputation as one of the premiere writers in the comic-book industry, it was also one of the early indicators that he knew how to pick artists who would make his writing look good. The book would not have been half as entertaining (and I probably wouldn't have been suckered into this expensive purchase) if not for the stunning artwork of Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary and Laura Depuy. And if the artwork was impressive at comic-book size, it is mind-numbing in this oversized format, with such wonderful paper stock. The double-page spreads look suitable for framing, and the action sequences seem to leap off the page. The Authority was where the term "widescreen comics" came from, and looking at these pages, it's easy to see the comparison to the widescreen movies that fill the multiplexes every summer.
The Authority was a book that, at the end, suffered a variety of creative changes and rumored editorial interference that ultimately led to an end that was a whimper rather than a bang. If the book returns, it is likely that it will have to be a completely different beast, and it's likely that the lightning that struck once cannot strike again. However, perhaps its best for this book to remain a monument to a particular moment in time, when the stars aligned and a perfect creative team assembled to give us something that will be talked about for a good long time. And kudos to DC for putting out a lasting edition that the book deserves. With any luck, we'll see a volume two, containing the Millar/Quitely/Adams stories, sometime in the next year.
