Saturday, November 30, 2024

The Authority #21 (February 2001)


An interlude about these two Storm-washed-up losers.

The month, a story about Jackson King and Christine Trelane, possibly because somebody decided that the readers of this series needed a short break from decapitations and homophobic slurs. That's me assuming that King and Trelane don't get up to some weird shit when they're not sitting in a dark room finger-blasting each other's buttholes while The Authority saves the world. Some of you might think "Isn't finger-blasting each other's buttholes weird shit?" That's my response. Oh! This is a written format. Sorry! My response was slowly shaking my head no and silently mouthing, "Not at all. Not at all."

Doselle Young and John McCrea are taking over the writing and arting of this issue because Mark Millar had to refuel on different ways to chop the heads off of villains and Frank Quitely had to go down to his cellar to feed the pudding people he keeps in the dark as models for his covers. I'm not too familiar with Doselle Young. John McCrea's work I mostly know from his time on Hitman. The two of them worked on The Monarchy which sounds familiar enough that I may have read it. It would make sense since it began during the time The Authority was being published and since I was in on some Wildstorm in those days, I probably took a chance on it.

This issue is called "All Tomorrow's Parties" because Doselle Young was a Velvet Underground fan, I guess? It begins with King and Trelane headed to a party. Trelane relaxes and does her nails while King watches footage of The Authority kicking spines out of people's torsos and decapitating the others. He's a little bit stressed about his current gig.


I didn't expect to see any decapitations this issue but if King keeps watching this footage, I'm going to eventually see several.

Me: "I don't want to go to this event we're going to."
My friend: "Nobody's asking you to spit or swallow."
Me: "Are you comparing this event to sucking dick? And suggesting sucking dick is the worse of the two options? Also, in your scenario, the person wanting their dick sucked broaches the subject by saying, 'Will you spit or swallow'?"
My friend: "Why are we friends again?"

With regards to my friends, asking why they're friends with me is always a fair question.

We interrupt this "review" with breaking news!


John McCrea draws a nice ass!

While Jackson King manages to have a slight amount of fun dancing with Trelane, The Doctor and The Engineer hold court in the engine room with a bunch of vacant-eyed starfuckers. The Doctor points out how he and Angie wouldn't be saving the world if Stormwatch hadn't murdered their predecessors, perhaps indicating that the universe works toward things, that everything happens for a reason, that maybe bad things happen because the universe is bringing about better things. But The Engineer feels adding a moral weight to the results of things happening in the universe is illusionary garbage brought on by an intelligent mind that is capable of reflecting on the past. Maybe she doesn't go that far with it but she might if the discussion wasn't ended when The Doctor began to feel sick. She also might have pointed out that everything happens for a reason and that reason is because of the way things played out in the past, no more, no less. In other words, nothing happens for a reason. Or as Thomas Pynchon said in Gravity's Rainbow: "There was no difference between the behavior of a god and the operations of pure chance."


Oh and some guy blows his brains out while listening from a nearby catwalk.

Has The Doctor's discussion of Ionian Enchantment taken root in the real world since that's how his powers work? If he visualizes something, it becomes reality in some magical way. I learned that from Doctor 1967! So by thinking, "Bad things happen to bring along good things. It's the way the universe is ordered," did his powers go, "Oh, yeah! Let's take a visual metaphor everybody easily recognizes, the flapping of a butterfly's wings, to start in motion something that begins with a hero blowing their brains out and will end in something magnificent!" Last time The Doctor did this, the "magnificent something" was Angie agreeing to fuck him. So this time, maybe two women will want to fuck him at the same time?

As a side note: I'm not sure when this story takes place. Is it a flashback? Is it after The Authority stopped the Earth from flipping Her poles? The narration states that it's a celebration of the anniversary of the 9th Big Bang but, not really being familiar with even American holidays and when they fall, I have no idea when that takes place.

Christine and Jackson are supposed to make contact with a few super heroes for some reason that may have been explained but my mind wandered. Jackson hates the idea and storms out after throwing dancers all over the room with his telekinesis. Also he said he's getting a migraine so it's understandable. I would probably develop latent telekinetic abilities if I were in the middle of a dance floor and suddenly had a migraine just to get out of there before I threw up on everyone.

Here's a helpful hint for migraine sufferers that most people won't discuss because of politeness or something. One of the best ways to get through a migraine is to fall asleep in a dark, quiet room. That's not the hint! The hint is how to fall asleep when you're suffering through a migraine. Masturbate! It fucking works, man. I'm not saying don't pop whatever pills you have or whatever. But if you're in pain and miserable and can't aren't tired enough to blissfully fall unconscious to get you through it, masturbate.


Tommy Monaghan made the party!

I was going to scan a panel where Shen was rubbing her boobs on another woman on the dance floor but then I saw Tommy and I was all, "Sorry, readers! You'll have to Google 'two women rubbing their tits together' now!"

Judging by some of the conversations, I think this story takes place at the huge party after The Authority liberated Southeast Asia.

Hawksmoor, not trusting Jackson King, wanders off to speak with him as the other members of The Authority watch. Just in case Hawksmoor decides he wants to kick a spine out of a torso. At the same time, Trelane sits naked in a hot tub with some woman named Flint (also naked!) discussing how Christine hasn't had her period in 18 months. Is that a weird flex? Or something to be concerned about? Or does it matter because Christine winds up hypnotized by some of The Doctor's butterflies.

Like I said last review, somebody needs to murder that guy. He's a fucking menace!

Jackson King hears Henry Bendix in his head (or actually hears him from, um, somewhere?! Jackson is psychic, after all). Bendix suggests he stops being The Authority's dispatcher and starts up his own thing. He collects a glowing coin from the ground (which was, I believe, the guy who shot himself), gathers up Christine whose powers suddenly seem to have come back thanks to the butterfly, and they leave the party to go form The Monarchy. The Doctor also disappears because he suddenly knows where Jenny Quantum is and that solidifies when this takes place.

The Authority #21 Rating: B. So this was a backdoor pilot to The Monarchy. Did I feel like Wildstorm had tricked me out of $2.50 back in 2001? Probably. I may not have been as bitter and cynical as I am now when I was younger but I still knew when I was being fleeced! Except I'm pretty sure I wound up reading The Monarchy so fleeced or not, the trick worked. Plus I loved Hitman so figured I should follow John McCrea on his new venture. So the event The Doctor's butterflies were setting in motion was the formation of The Monarchy which means they'll be a real force for good in the universe because those butterflies were created while The Doctor was visualizing Ionian Enchantment. Enh, look it up. I had to!

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