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THE AUTHORITY #27
"Brave New World Part Two of Four"
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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DC Comics/Wildstorm Productions
Writer: Mark Millar
Pencils: Arthur Adams
Inks: Tim Townshend
Colors: David Baron
Letters: Bill O'Neil
Editor: John Layman
Price: $2.50 US/$4.25 CAN |
It probably would have been better for DC if they hadn't published this, because my memories of The Authority were the Tom Peyer version, leaving
me to feel that DC's spiking of this title was a sad waste, but not that
tremendous a loss. By publishing another Millar issue, they've reminded me of
what they're taking away from the fans, and as much as I enjoyed this issue, I
was also quite angry at DC's mishandling of the book. I guess we should enjoy
these last three issues, edited though they may be, while we can, but there's an
undercurrent of bitterness to my enjoyment, at least, wondering what might have
been if Garth Ennis, Brian Azzarello and Steve Dillon had been allowed to
continue along the paths laid down by Ellis and Millar.
Art Adams works considerably
better here than I thought he would, adopting a bit of Frank Quitely's approach
in his artwork and serving up visuals that, if not quite matching the strength
of Hitch and Quitely, are still in the same league. He's got a tinge of vicious
humor in the art, with images such as the Carrier sporting giant billboards, as
well as the streak of sadism needed to make the Authority really work. The
scenes of the Authority suffering under their captors' yokes are terrible and
awful and designed to make us hate the villains, and Adams does his job quite
well.
Of course, it's Millar who
has dreamed up these punishments for his characters, which reminds me to never
get on his bad side. What has happened to the Authority is worse than death, and
Millar and Adams spend quite a few pages this issue showing us imaginative and
dire straits for every member of the team. Given how powerful and arrogant they
had been, to see them brought this low is very effective.
The outside circumstances
that existed around this title are hard to ignore, though. The new Authority
here is very well-developed and explained in a few pages, and the excesses of
their lifestyle completely covered, without using up a four-issue storyline to
do it. The story that explored the new Authority feels even more jarring in this
context, as there really doesn't feel like there should have been time between
what happened in the last Millar issue and this one for that tale.
For a while, The Authority was my favorite comic. It's issues like
this one that remind me why, and I'm glad to get to read a few more issues
before the title spins off into obscurity or worse, self-parody as the
higher-ups at DC continue to screw around with it.
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