Would you like a deus ex machina with that?
The Authority # 13
Writer: Robbie Morrison
Pencils: Dwayne Turner
Inks: Sal Regla
Color: Wildstorm FX
My reading of The Authority is by no means complete. Just haven't
had the time to read the trades, though two of my fave writers, Warren
Ellis and
Mark Millar, have written for it in the past. I came onto the
current ROBBIE1
Morrison run to keep up on the "Coup D'etat" mini-series, since
it seemed like the
sort of thing on which I, as a comic book slinger, should be in the
know.
Quite frankly, the thing floored me. And not in a good way.
Ultimately, the mini-series was designed to whoop up and set the stage
for the big new plotlines in the Wildstorm Universe "hero" books.
What we
got was the biggest lib freak-out I've ever seen. Though the
narrative took
turns through the books Sleeper, The Authority, Stormwatch
Team Achilles, and
Wildcats Version 3.0 (with a totally unrelated fifth edition
that was just blatant
advertising), it basically centered on the Authority having to fix the
damage caused
when a device that can facilitate inter-dimensional travel is
recklessly
deployed by the U.S. government. The major bit of damage is the
dropping of a spacecraft
of ridiculously huge proportions into our reality over the state of
Florida, thus destroying
both the entire state and the spacecraft. This pisses the
Authority off no
end, and because the U.S. president was, to their lights, pretty much
fraudulently elected anyway, they decide to take over the country and
offer up the
president as partial compensation to the aliens to whom the spacecraft
belonged. Does this sound suspicious to anyone else?
You have to admire the cinematic level of cheek, here. Perhaps in
keeping with the old Biblical adage (though given the likely
socio-political
alignment of the writer, perhaps not) that if one's eye offend thee,
pluck it out, Mr.
Morrison went ahead and plucked out the whole damn state of
Florida! And I
have little doubt that there were many cheers when the decision was
made to fry
President Bush in effigy to appease the aliens who would have otherwise
nuked the
Earth. But after reading this outrageous crap, I thought to
myself, "Well,
they can't have this hold out forever! These bungholes have got
to get
what's comin' to 'em and I wanna be there when it happens!"
Silly, silly, silly, silly, silly boy.
When they can win the drug wars by exporting the product to an Earth
where cocaine is a vital and scare nutrient, you know they've thrown
anything
even approximating reality, let alone good plotting, to the four
winds. And sure enough, they've continued in that trend with this
issue.
What's Gone Before:
As the Authority has been lording it over the rest of the world, an
unexpected challenge to their happy ruling junta has come in the form
of the birth
mother of Jenny Quantum suing for custody. For those just tuning
it, a
former member of the Authority was one Jenny Sparks, a heroine who
represented the
"spirit of the 20th century." As such, she expired as of
12:00:01, January 1, 2001, but in her place was born the spirit of the
21st century, Jenny
Quantum. Through means that occurred when I wasn't reading, this
little girl has
been taken in by the Wildstorm Universe's "fun" couple Apollo and
Midnighter
of the Authority, who now function as her adoptive "parents."
Turns out,
though, that Jenny's mother is actually her heretofore unknown twin
sister, Jenny
Fractal (anyone else hear the strains of soupy soap opera music in the
background?), who, having been trained by unnamed foreign powers to be
the ultimate
assassin, has instead gone nuts and is using her awesome power to
destroy ALL
realities. In a direct confrontation with her twin, Jenny Quantum
was killed.
What's Happened Now:
So it turns out that this team member The Doctor, who's supposed to be
the shaman of the whole frickin' planet, figures out that the only way
to
end the threat of Jenny Fractal, and thus save all that is, is to send
the
Midnighter back in time and kill her just after birth. In the
meantime, the
Doctor has found Jenny Quantum's soul and manages to zip it into Jenny
Fractal's
body at the instant of her death (current time, not post-natal), so we
end up
with the rampant destruction of everything averted and all of the
Authority,
including young Jenny Quantum, whole, intact and all going off to
pursue various
and sundry leisure activities.
Holy reset button, Batman!
Yep, sure as giving your 'puter the three-finger salute, the Authority
saves the day by going back in time and eliminating the threat before
it even
became a threat! Nevermind the ridiculous causality
contradictions that
this entails. Nevermind that a potentially much more interesting
and character
developing storyline (the custody fight over Jenny Quantum) was dropped
for this
WAY over-the-top situation. And nevermind the entirely too pat
all's-well-that-end's-well-now-let's-go-party-and/or-screw
ending. We're just supposed
to accept all this and happily pick up the next issue. Yeah,
right! Not
even. Not even for free. Not that I'm categorically against
such a bombastic turn in
the story. Bombast can be great fun if used wisely and for good
(The Ultimates is
an easy example), and this is supposed to be a superhero book, where
you use
the medium to draw stories of great heroism and spectacle, not
courtroom
dramas. But when you solve the problem with such a deus ex
machina moment (and it's not
even your first one in the story), you kill any further possible
attempts at
drama, jeopardy and just plain character development for your
heroes.
That same "reset button" philosophy worked to similar effect in the
Star Trek sequel
series; you fail to give a damn about the characters involved because
they stay the
same from episode to episode (or issue to issue). And considering
that
to a person, the "heroes" of the Authority are self-important,
sex-crazed bungholes
(okay, Jenny's too young for this yet, but give it time. Or not,
if
you're smart), it also renders the comic unreadable. After all,
we all have to deal
with these kinds of folks in real life. Why should we pay to read
about the
exploits of twits with the same 'tude in a comic book? I'm done
waiting for
this to improve, 'cause it won't until the whole frelling lot of them
are
either killed or mightily humbled, which won't happen since that'd be
the end of the
book. Oh, hey! There's an idea!
Recommendation: Leave It. Or burn the mother if you have
it.
1I emphasize the man's first name since just using the last
name can
draw off any GRANT Morrison fans. Since the common practice is to
put only
the last name of the first three creative talents on a given book, this
might mislead
the incautious comics buyer. Bastards.