Thursday, November 28, 2024

The Authority #19 (November 2000)


The rare and elusive upper thigh window.

Had Thanksgiving Dinner with the family members I like last night because of some scheduling issues. So today, on the only proper day to acknowledge that we could never live without community (as opposed to the other days of the year where everything we have was due to our own indomitable spirit and hard work), I re-watched Ralph Bakshi's Wizards while wearing my Wizards t-shirt and eating chips and queso. I wonder if people today would just shrug at the message of the movie that fascism must be fought because, you know, that's difficult and dangerous. Better to be like the Mountain Fairies and just sit it out and wait, or the religious nuts living in the ancient past whose prayers effectively do nothing. It's also pretty harsh on love, in that love is great but it doesn't beat a fucking gun up your sleeve. I imagine there's a pretty large percentage of fascists who haven't seen the movie in some time and believe they love it even though it's pointing out that they're demonic assholes ruining everything for everybody? Hell, some of those fascists probably love the film because of that (and all the Nazi symbols and Hitler sound bites). They probably just stop watching before Blackwolf's defeat.

It's weird to think I grew up on Wizards. It came out in 1976 when I would have turned five. Obviously I wouldn't have seen it then but I did watch it every time I noticed it was on when it wound up on Showtime (at my Aunt's house because she was always on the cutting edge of technology. I don't know when we got cable and any pay channels in my home). Some of y'all younger folk familiar with the movie might be thinking, "Your parents let you watch that?" It was the '70s, man! Nobody looked twice at constant nipples on characters and the movie shat all over the Nazis, so I'm sure our parents were all, "Fuck yeah. Suck that shit down, kids. Nipples and love and fighting fascists are good. And religion and centrism might seem like a smart choice but they've never fucking saved the world. Be sure to come back home when it gets dark! And even if you're late, we probably won't notice! We'll be in the kitchen drinking boxed wine!"

I haven't been updating the Decapitation Count over the last two reviews because no decapitations have taken place. But I'd also like to point out that the last two issues were the worst two issues of the series so far. Is that vindication for me joke replying to a boring fact tweet by Mark Millar that his writing suffers when there are no on-panel decapitations? I think he owes me an apology for blocking me when I was just being astute!


This issue begins with The Doctor pulling a tapeworm out of his own ass with his teeth.

That isn't what's really happening but it's a story by Mark Millar so it could have been happening! Most of you know what's actually going on in that panel. For those of you too boring and vanilla and uncool, I'll explain it to you: The Doctor is doing *gasp* the heroins!

The image of The Doctor doing heroin comes from a video that was released to the press. I imagine the only person who could have taken that video was The Doctor's new bride. If The Authority doesn't finally fucking realize they need to look at her as a suspect, I'm going to pull a fucking tapeworm out of my ass with my teeth.

The media has a field day with The Doctor's video. Politicians begin calling for laws registering or banning super heroes. Things are going full Watchmen here because so many people died before The Authority could act. See? This is what happens when a writer writes stories where the heroes save the world but millions of people still die! It gives that writer an excuse to write characters who question the need for super heroes! Most people wouldn't call this masturbation but I would because it only serves to satisfy Millar and I'm getting sick watching it.

Back in 20 million BC in the Jail Before Time, Midnighter tortures The Doctor from 1967 for more information than "The Earth has begun killing people." What more does Midnighter need? When has he ever needed to know the motive of a murderer before he began killing that murderer? Just because the culprit is the Earth, he's being a bit more cautious? Is Midnighter afraid of punching the Earth to death?

Midnighter learns the Earth just got really scared when Space Daddy's cosmic jizz began terraforming Africa a few issues ago. So now it blames humans and wants them dead.


In seventy-two hours and 20 million years, you mean.

In 1999, were people still afraid of the Earth's poles reversing? Haven't we learned that's no big deal now? Or is the big deal the amount time before the poles fully reverse, where we might lose the magnetosphere? If only there were a technological tool where I could find this information instead of discussing things I'm entirely ignorant about like some meat-headed podcaster who pretends having an open mind means believing and being fascinated by anything said to me in the moment (except actual facts because it's way cooler to believe in shit nobody else has ever heard of).

After learning about the imminent death of everything on Earth, The Authority decide to visit gender-swapped Earth in dimension 838.


So this is going to be like that episode of Red Dwarf where they all fuck their gender-swapped opposites? Except Cat, of course. Unless he eventually did fuck that Dog?

I just realized in the Red Dwarf universe, they're doing the meme where "cat" and "dog" are genders!

Oh, I just remembered that Apollo and Midnighter are gay so they probably won't fuck their gender-swapped duplicates. But The Doctor definitely will. The two Doctors will be fucking forty seconds into this meeting.

Imagine having a massive flaccid dong hanging off the statue that greets immigrants to our country? As seen here, it results in a much better Earth! "Look at the size of that cock, son. America!"

The Authority are visiting alternate universes to evacuate the population of Earth while they try to calm Her down. This is 2000 and not 1950, so their solution probably won't be building a gigantic hand to slap Her. Although this is written by Mark Millar so, um, maybe?


What plan worked? Did I miss something? How is this Doctor responsible for Earth's murder spree?!

Either Millar left out some important details in his story or my comic book is missing a few pages. It sounds like I only added that second ridiculous option to make it seem even clearer that Millar fucked up but I did not. I never actually read the entirety of Neil Gaiman's Sandman until sometime in the 2010s when I realized my collected edition of The Kindly Ones was missing about fifteen pages. I also once purchased the first issue of Terry Moore's Five Years that had about five blank pages. The first time I encountered a blank page, I thought it was part of the storytelling. But the fifth page, I was pretty sure, although not quite positive, that it was an error. I'm slow to learn shit.

Filling in the gaps in Millar's story for him, I guess 1967 Doctor convinced the Earth that humans were why it was suddenly so scared? And he was able to communicate with the Earth because The Doctor was comatose? Is that what happened? I'd ask Mark Millar on Twitter but he blocked me.

The Doctor lets 1967 Doctor know that they'll do whatever they want if he'll only convince the Earth not to kill everybody. But 1967 Doctor wants to be the main Doctor again. I guess that's what's going to have to happen even though it still makes no sense! At least he only wants the powers for one hour. And The Authority is all, "What harm can he do with near limitless powers in one hour? Pretty much nothing, right? He can't warp time to make an hour infinite, can he? Oh, he can? Well, he probably won't do that, right? Let's do this!"

Once 1967 Doctor gets The Doctor's powers, Earth calls off Her attack. And then there's one more issue to go in this stupid story. Hopefully it's full of decapitations so Millar's more passionate about the script!


The Authority remembers that The Doctor can just think people into wind, right?

The Authority #19 Rating: C. Decapitation Count This Issue: 0. 'nuff said! No wait! I actually have more to say! Do you think Stan Lee hated that whole "'nuff said" thing about a year after he began doing it? I bet it haunted his life until the day he died! "Honey, you want to go make love?" "No. 'nuff said!" Although he probably used it to his advantage to, like when he was telling Jack Kirby that he wasn't going to ever get any residuals on any of the characters he created. "'nuff said, Jack! 'nuff fucking said! Get off Stan's dick, why don't you?!" Oh. I just realize I didn't really have much more to say since it was all about the "'nuff said" and not about the comic book. Whatever.

Shit. I just realized The Authority never looked into The Doctor's wife as the cause of all this trouble. Now I have to Google: "how do I get a tapeworm" and "how do I lure a tapeworm out of my butthole."

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