Thursday, November 21, 2024

The Authority #9 (January 2000)


So angry at the editor who demanded Bryan Hitch give The Engineer nanotech pasties.

I've been remiss in mentioning The Engineer's nanotech pasties until this cover demanded I stop being remiss in mentioning them because they're front and center now and you can't fucking miss them. After the first couple of issues where The Engineer nipples were alerting readers to how cold it must be onboard The Carrier, they simply disappeared. But they didn't just stop poking out and getting into everybody's business. No, it was evident in every carefully drawn picture of The Engineer that she had pasties covering up her nips. When and why did this happen? Was it a demand by Trelane and King (mostly Trelane, I'm sure) that she cover up if she's going to be saving the world for them? Probably not because nobody demands anything from The Authority! Perhaps Warren Ellis has an untold story left in him where Jenny Sparks pulls Angie aside and is all, "We can't have Jack Hawksmoor's super boner banging up this ship every time he glances at your tits and butthole. Can your nanotechs manage a little bit of modesty?" But I doubt that would be canon anyway because why would Jenny ask The Engineer to cover up in that situation when she should be asking Jack Hawksmoor to maybe control his cock a bit more. Plus I don't think Jack Hawksmoor can get hard unless he's smack dab in the red light part of a major metropolitan area. And then he just fucks a manhole or a sewer grate.

Ha ha! Manhole.

I don't know why pasties became part of The Engineer's outfit. But I do know that I want to go on record as saying it's not right and probably due to the patriarchy. I grew up in the '70s and let me tell you, it was the best of times; it was the most nipply of times. Feminism had unleashed the nipple and everybody was more free than they'd ever been before! I still don't know how there were men in the world who were all, "Gross! We don't want to see your nipples! Put a bra on! Or three sweaters!" What self-hating heterosexual man would ever want a world with less lady nipples?! I blame fucking Reagan. Why not? Everything wrong with society today can be traced back to that fucking shitberg.


Oh shit! Two days left to live!

In two days, we'll discover how a "Spirit of the Xth Century" dies! And, more interestingly, how one is born! Except I don't seem to remember it being that abrupt. Isn't there some wishy-washy bullshit about how the spirit of a century doesn't exactly begin and end on the exact date of the calendar? If I remember, Jenny Sparks has some overlap with the Spirit of the 21st Century. Does Mark Millar get to create and build upon that character? If so, I'm going to guess it's power will be Decapitation. I'm not saying I think that's a huge part of the Spirit of the 21st Century. I'm saying that's a huge part of Mark Millar's writing.

The first death in this comic book is the Voyager I spacecraft. Some unknown and seriously disrespectful alien entity flies right through it on its way to Earth. If they wind up having to pay for it, do they pay the original cost to create it and put it into space or the cost due to inflation? Either way, tons of people are going to be upset about the death of the little guy. Even though he's destined to fall kaput in 2025 (although, as an American, who isn't, amirite?!), it somehow still gives me hope and joy to know his little body's floating out there, continuing to travel and explore our little neighborhood.

The Doctor senses something old, something ancestral returning to Earth, something that recognizes and remembers man. But he senses it way too late for the American astronauts currently in orbit around Earth.


My last words will be, "Oh my Gatos! I don't want to die! How will reality continue to exist if I, the only real person, die?!

I imagine the scene back at NASA after hearing this was pretty chaotic.

NASA Employee: "Holy shit! What's happening?! Make you sure get his final message for his family!"
Way-Too-Literal NASA Employee: "Okay! Okay! Got it! I recorded his final message!"

Later, playing the message back for his family:
Final Message: "HHHOOOGGHH BLEHK GGGL HGGLOHGGGBBBPP"

The load of black space sperm that killed the astronaut while, I'm assuming, it was trying to fertilize him splats into Central Africa and begins burrowing into Earth. Is Earth an egg? Is our universe just the huge womb of some God that the members of Planetary will wind up killing one day?

The Doctor isn't the only member of The Authority to feel the cosmic load bukkake Africa. The Engineer manages to feel it as well via atom-sized nanoparticles that constantly surround her and note changes in the environment.


Ah! Bryan Hitch pulls a classic David Finch and draws a woman coming out of the shower. Although Hitch lets her have more clothes than Finch usually does.


Although not a whole lot more.

Well shit. Bryan Hitch can't do this to me! He can't put in a scene where Angie transforms while wearing clothing and we see that her clothing remains unaffected by the transformation. What am I supposed to do with the knowledge that she's completely naked whenever she's The Engineer? Basically every shot from the back, I'm looking at her butthole! I'm already constantly distracted by my cat sitting on my arms and keeping me from typing. Now I have to worry about the constant boner I'm going to sport while reading this?!

Meanwhile in Australia, a couple of First Nations men spot something huge and dark against the sun. But even scarier, the reader learns the moon has got Morgellons Disease.


Gross.

I think the moon was the egg the space sperm were supposed to fertilize. Hitting Earth is like blowing your load right up the butthole. Pretty close for such a cosmic blast but since you're beginning on the wrong path from the start, this is a hand grenades and horseshoes situation. I think.

The Doctor gets taught a lesson that most of the Doctors from his past have decided wasn't important enough to teach him earlier. But once they sense the cumshot, and remember the date is a few days from 2000 which is still a year away from the end of the millennium. But you can't fault cosmic shit from happening a year off the actual end of the millennium date when you're discussing numbers going from 1999 to 2000. That's way more exciting than 2000 to 2001. Boring! Although Arthur C. Clarke got it right. There's a reason he called his book 2001 and not 2000. Because he's a smart ass smug bastard.

Oh shit! I went on a tangent and forgot to explain the lesson the Doctor learned! Here, I'll let you see it for yourself.


It probably would have been easier to just type that out.

It was especially daunting to scan that picture because my scanner has a hinky wire that makes it lose connection to my computer if the slightest thing around it moves. And right now, my cat Gravy has the fucking USB cord between the toes on her back foot as she's crashed out behind my laptop. I giggled the entire time the scanner was scanning which made the situation even more precarious because she kept opening her eyes and looking at me every time I giggled.

Jack and Angie report Angie's weird feelings to Jenny and she contacts the Doctor to see if he's feeling anything weird and huge and apocalyptic as well. He is because the owners of the Earth have arrived. Hopefully they're just here to pick up the rent check and not to evict. But never mind that. Something even bigger is happening that needs to be noted.


Homina homina homina.

Angie also slips out of her underwear but not on panel because Bryan Hitch knows how much his readers can take before their pants simply explode.

Since the space sperm missed the target, the moon takes upon herself to blast her eggs to Earth. It's become a full on alien invasion. And all just before Jenny Sparks kicks the century bucket.

The Authority #9 Rating: A+. This issue was far better paced than some of the previous issues which seemed to spend far too many pages on inconsequential battle. But every moment in this issue plays up the invasion, even when not much is going on. Some Finlanders see parts of the moon exploding. The Australian First Nations guys see something coming out of the sun. The moon explodes in gross tentacles and then shoots eggs at Earth. Voyager I is ripped apart by some mysterious being. All purely visual moments but build the tension of the story happening around The Authority as they take showers, drink, learn lessons, and — I'm guess because Apollo and Midnighter did not appear in this one — assplay.

No comments:

Post a Comment