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A review by fangirljeanne
The Authority, Vol. 1 by Warren Ellis
5.0
Women in charge, People of Color, and a Gay Couple, Oh my! More like FUCK YEAH!
[I should preface this review by noting that the story lines of a few of these characters actually begin inStormWatch (Force of Nature: StormWatch Vol. 1). I recommend starting to read there, but The Authority can be read and enjoyed on its own.]
We start the story with Jenny Sparks looking to pick up the pieces after the demise of most of her StormWatch teammates. Along with her surviving teammate, Shen Li-Min (Swift) and Jack Hawksmoor, Sparks recruits the Doctor, the Engineer, Apollo and the Midnighter to forma new team known as The Authority. They are not just super powers, but rather protectors of Earth and innocents.
For those who are unfamiliar with Warren Ellis, this is a good place to start. It has the feel of a superhero book, with out all the beat-you-over-the-head heroic themes. This isn’t about the burdens of privileged, pretty, white men. hahaha, not by a long shot.
Let’s start with the line up:
Jenny Sparks is one of my primary arguments that not only is a female Doctor (on Doctor Who) overdue, but absolutely possible. Sparks is an immortal, with the power to control electricity. She is also an alcoholic, bisexual, chain-smoking soldier. She has sent more than a few people to die, and she feels the weight of command like few others, but she also has a very clear grasp of right and wrong. Not to mention she is not afraid to get her hands bloody in the pursuit of protecting the Earth.
Jack Hawksmoor is part Spiderman, part iron man, but something far more complex and interesting than either of them. Hawksmoor is an urban creature. He has a modified physiology that not only allows him to scale buildings barefoot, and to convert air pollution into food, but he can read the mind of a city.
This is one of many ways Ellis introduces and incorporates the idea of sentient inanimate objects. He does it again with the ship that The Authority uses.
Swift (Shen Li-Min) is a Tibetan woman who posses wings and taloned feet, due to a genetic quirk that was triggered by a comet passing earth. She was a pacifist, but sets aside those beliefs, deciding to defend Earth, no matter what. Swift is also bisexual.
Apollo is a bio-engineered super human, who charges his power from the rays of the Sun, hence the name. His lover, and team-member, the Midnighter is also bio-engineered, his ability is to foresee an opponents moves in combat. Oh yes, did you catch that?
They are teammates turned loves, and for old school fans of comic books they are a rather obvious illusion to the underlying homosexual subtext between Superman and Batman. Though, I would argue these characters rise above the tongue-in-cheek humor of their inspiration and become complex, empathetic characters. They are two of my favorite comic book characters EVER!
The Engineer is a scientist who replaced her blood with nanotechnology, and covered her body with liquid metal. Thus she can manifest solid objects via her will, fly and communicate with machinery. She is one of those characters who define the boundaries, or the lack of them, of this universe and grounds it in the realm of science fiction.
Then there is The Doctor, not to be confused with the lead character with the similar name in the popular BBC tv show. No, this character is all Warren Ellis. A drug addict, shaman who possesses the combined powers of countless shaman who came before him. That kind of knowledge and power is bound to fuck up a person on many levels. The Doctor of The Authority demonstrates just how fucked up that can be.
This first trade paperback covers first two missions of the team, battling a nation of super-powered terrorists and stopping an invasion from a parallel world. Both these story-lines break the boundaries of expectation and genre cliches. Which shouldn’t be surprising given this is a cast that is more gender and racially diverse than most of the casts of popular comic books, or even primetime TV shows today. Yet this title is fourteen years old. Add in Ellis’ dark, sarcastic humor and you get a comic book written for adults, in every sense of the word.
If you’re tired of all the comic books people say you should read, that are jam-packed with the same old boring story of a white, straight, man’s burden of greatness. Why not give The Authority a try?
[I should preface this review by noting that the story lines of a few of these characters actually begin inStormWatch (Force of Nature: StormWatch Vol. 1). I recommend starting to read there, but The Authority can be read and enjoyed on its own.]
We start the story with Jenny Sparks looking to pick up the pieces after the demise of most of her StormWatch teammates. Along with her surviving teammate, Shen Li-Min (Swift) and Jack Hawksmoor, Sparks recruits the Doctor, the Engineer, Apollo and the Midnighter to forma new team known as The Authority. They are not just super powers, but rather protectors of Earth and innocents.
For those who are unfamiliar with Warren Ellis, this is a good place to start. It has the feel of a superhero book, with out all the beat-you-over-the-head heroic themes. This isn’t about the burdens of privileged, pretty, white men. hahaha, not by a long shot.
Let’s start with the line up:
Jenny Sparks is one of my primary arguments that not only is a female Doctor (on Doctor Who) overdue, but absolutely possible. Sparks is an immortal, with the power to control electricity. She is also an alcoholic, bisexual, chain-smoking soldier. She has sent more than a few people to die, and she feels the weight of command like few others, but she also has a very clear grasp of right and wrong. Not to mention she is not afraid to get her hands bloody in the pursuit of protecting the Earth.
Jack Hawksmoor is part Spiderman, part iron man, but something far more complex and interesting than either of them. Hawksmoor is an urban creature. He has a modified physiology that not only allows him to scale buildings barefoot, and to convert air pollution into food, but he can read the mind of a city.
This is one of many ways Ellis introduces and incorporates the idea of sentient inanimate objects. He does it again with the ship that The Authority uses.
Swift (Shen Li-Min) is a Tibetan woman who posses wings and taloned feet, due to a genetic quirk that was triggered by a comet passing earth. She was a pacifist, but sets aside those beliefs, deciding to defend Earth, no matter what. Swift is also bisexual.
Apollo is a bio-engineered super human, who charges his power from the rays of the Sun, hence the name. His lover, and team-member, the Midnighter is also bio-engineered, his ability is to foresee an opponents moves in combat. Oh yes, did you catch that?
They are teammates turned loves, and for old school fans of comic books they are a rather obvious illusion to the underlying homosexual subtext between Superman and Batman. Though, I would argue these characters rise above the tongue-in-cheek humor of their inspiration and become complex, empathetic characters. They are two of my favorite comic book characters EVER!
The Engineer is a scientist who replaced her blood with nanotechnology, and covered her body with liquid metal. Thus she can manifest solid objects via her will, fly and communicate with machinery. She is one of those characters who define the boundaries, or the lack of them, of this universe and grounds it in the realm of science fiction.
Then there is The Doctor, not to be confused with the lead character with the similar name in the popular BBC tv show. No, this character is all Warren Ellis. A drug addict, shaman who possesses the combined powers of countless shaman who came before him. That kind of knowledge and power is bound to fuck up a person on many levels. The Doctor of The Authority demonstrates just how fucked up that can be.
This first trade paperback covers first two missions of the team, battling a nation of super-powered terrorists and stopping an invasion from a parallel world. Both these story-lines break the boundaries of expectation and genre cliches. Which shouldn’t be surprising given this is a cast that is more gender and racially diverse than most of the casts of popular comic books, or even primetime TV shows today. Yet this title is fourteen years old. Add in Ellis’ dark, sarcastic humor and you get a comic book written for adults, in every sense of the word.
If you’re tired of all the comic books people say you should read, that are jam-packed with the same old boring story of a white, straight, man’s burden of greatness. Why not give The Authority a try?