The basic concept behind The Authority is getting tired. As in Relentless, the previous collection of Authority comic books, in Under New Management the Authority once again tackles larger-than-life villains, demolishes them absolutely with great violence and profanity, and then moves on to the next big bad guy. As before, entire metropolitan areas are wiped out by the big bad guy to set up the story, and the Authority proficiently moves in for the kill. Blah.

This is not to say that at times the book isn't exciting: but this is just mindless comic action. Now, in the first book I didn't mind the brainlessness of it all. After all, the first book had the advantage of just setting up the Authority, introducing some of its characters and showing us what they were capable of. I had expected this book to move on, but it hadn't. Plus the action sequences here were less exciting, especially in "The Outer Dark"--probably because the enemy was basically a giant blob from outer space. No hand-to-hand combat there.

The second storyline, not penned by Ellis, was interesting in its bulldog approach to corrupt governments. Essentially it started with the point that there was no reason for superheroes to hunt down supervillains when there was so much non-superhuman evil to contend with. The story starts out promisingly enough, with the Authority using their immense shiftship as a refugee camp and their selective use of their superpowers to reform corrupt or genocidal countries. I hoped the rest of the story would stick with this topic. But no--once again, huge legions of (mostly) nameless supervillains swarm over major metropolitan areas, wreaking massive destruction before the Authority moves in to clean them out. "The Nativity" is helped by actually including a battle where the Authority loses (however temporarily). But other problems overwhelmed this minor advantage. First, I really don't like the artwork: Apollo looks too fat, Hawksmoor and Shen too...weird. Second, the Midnighter is really cold-blooded. At one point, he is left alone with the last of the villains he has been efficiently slaughtering. The villain cries, "Please, I have children...." And Midnighter responds, while lopping his head off with a lead pipe, "They're better off without you." Now, I know that the Midnighter is a badass (and gay), but his completely callous response shocked even me.

Hmph. I had high hopes for the Authority after the first volume, but I don't think I'll be continuing with it now.

Copyright © 2002 Steven Wu