Of all these new members, I'm most curious about the trucker holding up the decapitated head.
It's a whole new era! Not just because Jenny Sparks has been replaced by Jenny Baby but because Warren Ellis has been replaced by Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch has been replaced by Frank Quitely, and Paul Neary has been replaced by Trevor Scott. They're still putting the colorist's name on the cover but I traditionally ignore the colorist and the letterer and the editor. I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just pointing out that my bookkeeping and organizational efforts only extend so far before I get fucking bored of them.
This story is called "The Nativity" so it'll probably be about a virgin birth followed quickly by four or five people being decapitated. This sentence will act as my content warning for as long as Mark Millar writes this series (until the end, I believe): I will be scanning in every panel of gratuitous gore and violence! If Millar happens to stay away from that (and with Jack Hawksmoor who loves to kick spines out of bodies front and center on the cover, I'm not particularly worried about it), I have no idea what I'll be scanning. Maybe Angie will get her nipples back?
The issue begins with The Engineer super duper far away from the reader blasting nanotech eyeballs all over the place and saying, "Why do super-people never go after the real bastards?" She's so far away that I can't tell if she got her nipples back.
Look. I don't like to call myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader. At least not anymore. But sometimes, just, you know, sometimes, you have to yell at everybody to call you one or else you're gonna do it yourself.
This story is called "The Nativity" so it'll probably be about a virgin birth followed quickly by four or five people being decapitated. This sentence will act as my content warning for as long as Mark Millar writes this series (until the end, I believe): I will be scanning in every panel of gratuitous gore and violence! If Millar happens to stay away from that (and with Jack Hawksmoor who loves to kick spines out of bodies front and center on the cover, I'm not particularly worried about it), I have no idea what I'll be scanning. Maybe Angie will get her nipples back?
The issue begins with The Engineer super duper far away from the reader blasting nanotech eyeballs all over the place and saying, "Why do super-people never go after the real bastards?" She's so far away that I can't tell if she got her nipples back.
Look. I don't like to call myself a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader. At least not anymore. But sometimes, just, you know, sometimes, you have to yell at everybody to call you one or else you're gonna do it yourself.
It took five panels into Millar's run for the first decapitation. FIVE PANELS.
For those who haven't been reading the entire run of The Authority reviews, I assure you that I've mentioned it no more than twelve to twenty times that Millar's run will be full of heads coming away from bodies. It's such a True thing (capitalized!) that he blocked me on Twitter for making a joke about how his writing suffers when there aren't any on-panel decapitations. You just can't say such True things to people without them feeling awkward and afraid. So I get why he blocked me! I'm super scary!
Also, and probably more True, Millar just didn't think I was being funny. But after he blocked me, I had a friend take a screenshot of his Tweet and my Reply so I could remember what the fuck I wrote and let me tell you: I stand by what I wrote. It was fucking funny!
Oh fine. The entire story is told in my Scarab #7 review. Go check it out if you're curious. If you don't care and just want me to get back to the Decapitation Counter, let's continue!
The guys crushed (and decapitated!) were killed by Jack Hawksmoor commanding two blocks of buildings to fall on the soldiers. So he's got that power now. He can speak with and control urban landscapes. Another member who has gotten more powerful (possibly? I actually have no idea her power levels): Swift!
Also, and probably more True, Millar just didn't think I was being funny. But after he blocked me, I had a friend take a screenshot of his Tweet and my Reply so I could remember what the fuck I wrote and let me tell you: I stand by what I wrote. It was fucking funny!
Oh fine. The entire story is told in my Scarab #7 review. Go check it out if you're curious. If you don't care and just want me to get back to the Decapitation Counter, let's continue!
The guys crushed (and decapitated!) were killed by Jack Hawksmoor commanding two blocks of buildings to fall on the soldiers. So he's got that power now. He can speak with and control urban landscapes. Another member who has gotten more powerful (possibly? I actually have no idea her power levels): Swift!
Bursting a body from the knees up? Not a decapitation!
The Doctor walks past a bunch of soldiers who all turn to stone as he goes by. Apollo flies about blowing up jets. Midnighter spends his time winging throwing stars into dicks and faces. They defeat an entire army in Southeast Asia before all of them gather together so they can burst in on the leader of the army as a team.
Hoo boy. So much going on in these four panels!
In the first panel, we see that Frank Quitely has decided Angie's nanotech would give her a camel toe. That answers a question I had in an earlier issue about whether or not her butthole would be a little silver pucker or just a smooth patch (silver pucker!). In the second panel, all the scared assholes point out the guy in charge which guarantees that they all die. What were they thinking?! In the third panel, Angie indeed has her nipples back. And in the last panel, at least one head honcho lost had his head completely obliterated by gunfire. Decapitation!
The Authority take the leader to look at the slaughter his soldiers committed in an attempt to stop people from democratically voting to try to shame him. But he can't be shamed. He simply points out that if he's killed, some coalition of interests will just institute another figure head. Sounds like The Authority are about to decapitate a whole coalition of interests!
After saving the world from several off-planet threats (one of those being a God), The Authority have now turned their attention to making Earth itself a much safer place to live by doing all of the things Superman never allows himself to do because he doesn't want to be seen as a fascist. Batman would do it but he's more of a local guy and also, you know what, maybe he wouldn't do it because has he ever, in the history of ever, cleaned up Gotham by reducing poverty and ending police corruption?
The Authority take the leader to look at the slaughter his soldiers committed in an attempt to stop people from democratically voting to try to shame him. But he can't be shamed. He simply points out that if he's killed, some coalition of interests will just institute another figure head. Sounds like The Authority are about to decapitate a whole coalition of interests!
After saving the world from several off-planet threats (one of those being a God), The Authority have now turned their attention to making Earth itself a much safer place to live by doing all of the things Superman never allows himself to do because he doesn't want to be seen as a fascist. Batman would do it but he's more of a local guy and also, you know what, maybe he wouldn't do it because has he ever, in the history of ever, cleaned up Gotham by reducing poverty and ending police corruption?
Oh, too good to shit next to a refugee?
The Authority used to hide on The Carrier and only respond to Earth invasions. But now they have to do a ton of press to explain how stopping the genocide by a nation of Earth is just as good as stopping aliens from impregnating Tokyo and Africa. Why is it nobody seemed to care when they murdered Kaizen Gamorra and all of his clones? Was it because it was an Asian terrorist attacking Western cities? Everybody was just fine with that, hunh? But now they're wondering if The Authority is overstepping their power when they stop the leader of a Southeast Asian country murdering his own people? I guess what all the pundits are trying to say is, "Who watches The Authority?" No wait. "Who has authority over The Authority?" That's better.
Do these people know The Authority killed God? Like the actual creature that created Earth? God? Do they? Because you'd think a fuckton of people would have a problem with that!
Sure, technically it wasn't the Christian God. But also, it kind of was? Since it created the Earth? Come to terms with that, Pope!
During some down time when the "bastards" are all too scared to do anything bastardly, Jack Hawksmoor and The Doctor visit Jenny Sparks' grave where The Doctor provides some unsettling news.
Do these people know The Authority killed God? Like the actual creature that created Earth? God? Do they? Because you'd think a fuckton of people would have a problem with that!
Sure, technically it wasn't the Christian God. But also, it kind of was? Since it created the Earth? Come to terms with that, Pope!
During some down time when the "bastards" are all too scared to do anything bastardly, Jack Hawksmoor and The Doctor visit Jenny Sparks' grave where The Doctor provides some unsettling news.
Well, it's unsettling to me! I hate zombies!
The Doctor, of course, is talking about her replacement, The Spirit of the 21st Century. His reasoning that it's Jenny (or partially Jenny) is that nothing ever dies and she had so much energy, it had to go somewhere. Obviously he's never heard about entropy. Everything dies, dude. Energy is constantly lost and wasted in systems! Heat dissipates! And even if it is Jenny reincarnated, what the fuck does that even mean? Nobody actually remembers their ego from past lives so even if some part of them is reincarnated, it's simply like recycling an aluminum can. The new aluminum product doesn't remember that it used to be full of Dr. Pepper! So the new Jenny isn't the new Jenny even if it's somehow made with some of the energy of Jenny.
Oh? She's been born on the Pacific Rim? So not London then?
Remember how last issue they showed a baby being born in London with lightning in the background after the stroke of midnight and I said, "What's that about?" and you all went, "It's the new Jenny, you stupid fucking idiot"? Remember that? Well, it wasn't the new Jenny because The Doctor says the new Jenny was born on the Pacific Rim. So I was fucking right to be confused, you dumb jerks!
The president of the United States (who, it surprised me for some reason, is Bill Clinton. Oh 1999. How I miss you) warns The Authority that they're being reckless and endangering the United States, opening them up to terrorist attacks. Jack is polite and doesn't tell him that the United States does a great job of that already and any terrorist attacks on American soil will certainly be because of American international policy and not The Authority stopping violent regimes from killing their own people. Bill snarks off and Jack basically tells him to mind his own business and that's that. For now!
Meanwhile, some clowns in The Hangar, a secret military location so many levels above presidential clearance that it's forty-two, believe they have discovered Jenny Quantum in Singapore. The guy bossing these clowns around is Dr. Krigstein, a little Martian looking bald guy who loves to stay in the shadows. I don't know if he's a new character or part of the previous Wildstorm universe. They send in a strike team to kill the baby because they think they have the kind of power you'd need to kill the Spirit of the 21st Century just a few days in.
The strike team is a Wildstorm version of The Avengers with Commander America, Tank Man, an unnamed version of Thor, an unnamed version of The Hulk, and Hornet. Tank Man kills every baby in a Singaporean maternity ward but misses Jenny Quantum because, I don't know, she's in a box. Is she dead? Is she alive? We don't know!
No wait. The Doctor escaped with her. But not for long as Big Boom Boom and Electro Godhood stop him before he can escape. They've cut off his ability to open Door and also, somehow, cut him off from his ability to do magic. There's no explanation how they accomplished that because any explanation would just be met with my eyes rolling out of my head. Millar did the right thing by just saying it happened somehow.
The president of the United States (who, it surprised me for some reason, is Bill Clinton. Oh 1999. How I miss you) warns The Authority that they're being reckless and endangering the United States, opening them up to terrorist attacks. Jack is polite and doesn't tell him that the United States does a great job of that already and any terrorist attacks on American soil will certainly be because of American international policy and not The Authority stopping violent regimes from killing their own people. Bill snarks off and Jack basically tells him to mind his own business and that's that. For now!
Meanwhile, some clowns in The Hangar, a secret military location so many levels above presidential clearance that it's forty-two, believe they have discovered Jenny Quantum in Singapore. The guy bossing these clowns around is Dr. Krigstein, a little Martian looking bald guy who loves to stay in the shadows. I don't know if he's a new character or part of the previous Wildstorm universe. They send in a strike team to kill the baby because they think they have the kind of power you'd need to kill the Spirit of the 21st Century just a few days in.
The strike team is a Wildstorm version of The Avengers with Commander America, Tank Man, an unnamed version of Thor, an unnamed version of The Hulk, and Hornet. Tank Man kills every baby in a Singaporean maternity ward but misses Jenny Quantum because, I don't know, she's in a box. Is she dead? Is she alive? We don't know!
No wait. The Doctor escaped with her. But not for long as Big Boom Boom and Electro Godhood stop him before he can escape. They've cut off his ability to open Door and also, somehow, cut him off from his ability to do magic. There's no explanation how they accomplished that because any explanation would just be met with my eyes rolling out of my head. Millar did the right thing by just saying it happened somehow.
Oh, and Gigantic Ass Man.
The Authority #13 Ranking: A. Millar takes over with Warren Ellis's main concern for the team firmly established: make the world a better place. Ellis had The Authority make the world a better place by killing Earth's landlord, God, and giving humans complete ownership of the planet (which they thought they had anyway but The Authority did that). Now that humans are completely responsible for fixing the place up and paying for any damages or incidents, The Authority's like a neighbor who helps out here and there. I guess saving Jenny Quantum from a maniacal bunch of baby killers is part of that. All in all, Millar keeps his eye on the ball but changes things up in a significant way. The Authority will make the Earth a better place, no matter what the leader of any country thinks.
Decapitation Count: 3.
Decapitation Count: 3.
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