The Authority Annual 2000: Devil's Night (December 2000)

Is Devil's Night a gay sex thing?

Neither Warren Ellis nor Mark Millar wrote this annual. It was written by Joe Casey whom I don't know much about but according to Google Image Search, has never taken a photograph without sunglasses on. According to Wikipedia, he has a ton of credits across all the mainstream and indie publishers. This is the first comic book I've ever read by him (or re-read by him. None of my 4000 or so reviews have a "Joe Casey" label) and it's an annual so I won't judge him too harshly if it's shit. How many comic book writers ever give their A-game when writing an annual? The annual gigs are usually reserved for new writers and guys desperate for a little extra cash working on a project that nobody expects to change the comic scene. Like this one: it's either a story about Apollo and Midnighter egging houses or Apollo and Midnighter in a five-way with a zombie little leaguer, a zombie accountant, and a zombie bicyclist.

God I hope they're egging houses!

The issue begins with The Engineer alerting everybody that they have a Speedster on board.

If she was one of you, knocking her unconscious would be for what? Pay?

I don't understand what the Speedster is getting at other than he has determined that Swift is not a freak. But why he's killing her for sport, I don't know. What's the alternative if she were one of him? I could proclaim that I'm too ignorant to comprehend the statement but I'd rather, in a slight change of pace from my usual form, blame Joe Casey. Maybe take off your sunglasses and do a re-read of your script, pal!

I don't mind speaking rudely to Joe Casey because I'm only speaking to the shadow of Joe Casey projected onto the walls of my mind who's composed entirely of sunglasses, bro attitude, and my spite. Why my spite? Because I'm a bitter piece of shit! Duh.

Meanwhile in Siberia, a massive Communist ship breaks out of the ice. I'm assuming it's Communist because it has red stars on it. Red stars = Communism. Blue stars = Cowboys.

Double meanwhile (unless going back to the first synopsis should be prefaced with some other introductory clause like "Back on The Carrier" or "Returning to that other nonsense Joe Casey was writing"), let me start this paragraph over.

Returning to that other nonsense Joe Casey was writing, another dead super hero arrives on The Carrier. His name is Amaze and his super power is run-of-the-mill homophobia.

This guy calling men "girls" as an insult probably gets super triggered by people who declare their pronouns.

I'm a man and I live most of my life by asking the question, "What Would Sailor Moon Do?" So if somebody calls me a girl, my eyes turn into big, pink hearts, I squeal, "Thank you!", and I fall in love with them forever. Which is also the reaction I have when somebody casually calls me "Brother"! I contain multitudes! If "two" is a multitude, anyway.

Amaze sounds like MAGA after Trump was elected. Before 2016, there were generally, "Man, I hate the gays! But it's wrong to openly hate and beat them!" Then after 2016, they were all, "Oh! People love homophobia and hatred! I can tweet homophobic slurs from my Twitter account with my real name!" And later they were all, "What are these consequences? Why does my family hate me? Where's my free speech?" Then they began wearing swastikas and claiming that the Left made them into a Nazi. Just real stand-up people, you know?

I don't know who Amaze and that speedster are because I have zero knowledge of the Wildstorm Universe. And judging by Amaze's initial reaction to Apollo and Midnighter, I'm happy to be ignorant of it.

I'm sure Joe Casey is just really good at writing to create such a monotonous homophobe. His bro glasses in every single picture ever probably have nothing to do with that.

Amaze throws Midnighter through a window on The Carrier and into the screaming abyss. Is Amaze that strong or is Midnighter that dense? I bet if Midnighter just leans against a window in The Carrier, he could crash right through it. Even if The Carrier's windows are super strong to prevent exploding into the void of The Bleed every time it travels. That's just how bad-ass Midnighter is.

Apollo flies into the screaming abyss to save Midnighter while Amaze calls them Pippi Longstockings or something.

"Bye you gays!"

The rest of The Authority have already left The Carrier to deal with the massive Communist ship I mentioned earlier. I don't think this story is that important based on the cover. I think it's just an excuse to leave Apollo and Midnighter alone to battle homophobic zombie super heroes.

Oh, I forgot about Swift. I always forget about Swift. Usually as a joke though. This time, I really forgot about her.

Swift kills the speedster by flying into its path as it runs in circles super fast around The Carrier's caged baby universe. A speedster should never die this way. If a speedster can be killed by somebody stepping out in front of them as they run, then speedster should be dying all the time by running into buses or just crashing into walls because they couldn't turn a corner quickly enough. The whole point of a speedster is that they react faster than everybody else in the world. Swift stepping out in front of him should look like a slow motion bird person walking slowly into this speedster's way and he should easily step aside. Unless? Is Swift named Swift because she's also super fast? Because then it's more like two people walking at normal speed who do that thing where they both step to the same side as they try to walk around each other. Except really fast and they actually do collide and Swift's sharp feet tear the fucker in two. Except I don't think she's actually that fast. I think Joe Casey was too busy checking out his reflection in his mirrored sun glasses in the reflection of the mirror he was looking into and not busy enough satisfying the Internet reviewer with the worst, most bitter, and pickiest takes on the stories he reads. How dare he not think about my reaction?!

After killing the speedy intruder, Swift tries to Door out to St. Petersburg to help but is attacked by some zombie Green Lantern character.

That's a terrible Lantern oath.

Maybe I was wrong about the Communist ship. It seems to be manned by zombies so it might be part of the same attack force.

Living, undead, it doesn't matter. If you've got a spine, Jack'll kick it out of your torso.

Apollo and Midnighter re-board The Carrier just in time for Amaze to call Apollo a "Mary." Where does he come up with these witticisms?! Amaze accidentally mentions pain which gives Midnighter a massive erection and the opportunity to go into his "You think you know pain? You don't know me!" schtick. Midnighter decapitates him with one punch before pushing him out of The Carrier's broken window. That decapitation doesn't count toward the regular series' Decapitation Counter because that's for Mark Millar specifically and not The Authority in general.

Jack Hawksmoor discovers the Communist ship was decommissioned in 1955. Before that, it had been created as a deterrent. What happened in 1955 that the soviets decided they didn't need it anymore? I mean, who was it created to deter also? That was the main question, I think. Because whoever it was meant to deter must be back for it to come back from the dead to deter that person.

Coincidentally and maybe not having anything to do with Jack's question, some blue and gold wearing super person emerges from the deserts of New Mexico. Does this have something to do with Roswell? Oh. No, it's just some super duper arms race where America created a guy named Adam Bomb and the Soviets created a massive ship to murder him. As for the other guys, I don't know. Are they some kind of Justice Society knock-offs?

Angie tries to enter Adam Bomb because doing that will give her some information or something? Seems weird. But Adam isn't into her non-consensual penetration and he blows up in a huge mushroom cloud. Or orgasms? I don't know. I've seen that orgy episode of The Boys. Supers are into weird shit.

Apollo blows the ship up not just in St. Petersburg's airspace but basically in the streets of St. Petersburg. No thought to what might happen when it blows up. Luckily nothing does happen because this is an annual and you can't have events in the annual affecting events in the regular series! Who needs Russia upset at The Authority for blowing up St. Petersburg after Apollo flew through the contained Baby Universe in Russia's version of The Carrier? Obviously that didn't happen. The ship blows up politely, doing very little damage to buildings that hadn't already been damaged by the zombie crew.

Adam Bomb didn't blow himself up. That's just his power. Builds up a charge, blows up, repeat. All in the name of freedom. He's an unwilling accomplice though. The Authority decide that instead of ending his life, they'll show mercy and biologically casterate him.

Yes, casteration. Admit it. You thought I was the idiot, didn't you?! Jerk!

Oh wait. They do murder him. They just did the casteration so they could have time to kill him. It's okay though because he begged for it!

I guess the other hero zombies were all old members of Stormwatch? Or just some of Bendix's goons? Like I said, I don't know shit about Wildstorm.

Joe Casy's lucky I don't rate annuals. I shouldn't even rate the regular comics either but it's the thinnest thread I can think of to keep my rambling blog posts attached to the concept of a "review." I guess "Devil's Night" was a big Wildstorm annual event where the dead came back in the annuals of all the regular Wildstorm comics. Too bad I have no idea what the fuck just happened!