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THE AUTHORITY: REVOLUTION #1
"The Eternal Return Part 1 of 12: Come The Revolution"
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DC Comics/Wildstorm imprint
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Pencils: Dustin Nguyen
Inks: Richard Friend
Colors: Randy Mayor
Letters: Jared K. Fletcher
Editor: Ben Abernathy
Price: $2.95 US/$4.50 CAN |
During the mostly disappointing Coup D'Etat crossover, The Authority took over the world, and I honestly didn't much care, because I had lost most of my interest in the team long ago. Funny how things change, because a few months later, with Ed Brubaker writing and a frighteningly close U.S. election taking up a lot of my attention in real life, I find myself back in the mood for a little simplistic head-bashing, especially if it's going to provide some cathartic thrills by having the targets of The Authority's ire as politicians and the narrow-minded (or, as we call them here in America, the majority.) All you oversensitive right-wingers can relax, though, The Authority isn't beating up on cartoons of Bush and Cheney or anything like that, instead they're dealing with the more general problems of dealing with politicians and the vagaries of governing citizenry, and it's a welcome shift for a team whose big action movie sci-fi style had become a little stale. The first issue is a solid read, not as engaging or visually stunning as the first issue of the original Authority, but it sets up an interesting foundation for the future of the miniseries, and I'm curious to see where the creators are going with it.
If you're one of those folks who thought the West Wing's Jed Bartlett administration was a liberal fantasy, you're really not gonna like The Authority's administration. This issue sees the Authority dealing with Congress in getting hemp legalized, converting engines from fossil fuel to something more renewable and environmentally sound, among other liberal-friendly causes. It's as simplistic and over-the-top as The Authority has always been, but it provides a comfortable wish-fulfilment for guys like me who cringe at the daily news these days. Brubaker's villains are also cartoonishly right-wing, spouting off the kind of anti-gay, anti-environmental slogans you only hear from half-educated right-wing nitwits on message boards (or, as we call them here on the Internet, the majority).
However, while the story opens up with an almost comedic take on these spandex-clad lunatics trying to run the government, it also features the same kind of sex and violence that made The Authority popular in the first place. Nguyen and Friend use the same ultraviolent visuals for punching heads off that previous artists like Hitch and Quitely did, notably for Midnighter and Jack Hawksmoor. While the joke has gotten a little bit stale, I can't deny that there's still something funny about Midnighter fantasizing about violently killing a Southern senator or Hawksmoor punching the brains and eyes out of a couple of sadistic soldiers.
I wish I was as big a fan of the rest of Nguyen and Friend's art, but as much as I loved these guys work on Wildcats, their work elsewhere hasn't had the same effect on me. The work is solid, and occasionally better than that, but it has a sketchy, uneven quality to it that lacks the visual flash that made The Authority so gorgeous under the pencils of Bryan Hitch or Frank Quitely. Their style is exaggerated and inky, more like the work of Phil Hester or Sean Phillips, and while this style is ideal for a lot of Wildstorm's properties, it doesn't really capture the widescreen sense of wonder that has always been The Authority's raison d'etre.
The bookend sequences in this issue hint that Brubaker has something more in mind than just having The Authority struggle against insurgents rising against their rule of America. Both of them hint at a more cosmic plotline with an epic scope, albeit one that is still tinged with the political side of the story that is the meat of this issue. I'm not ready to declare that The Authority is back just yet, but Brubaker has found an angle that gives them something new to say again, which is half the battle, and I'm curious to see where the story goes from here. 8/10
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