Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Action Comics Annual #4 (July 1992)

I'm sure Superman's mouth is full of milk and not Billy Batson's spunk.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Action Comics Annual #4 (July 1992)
By Dan Vado, Chris Wozniak, Karl Altstaetter, Karl Kesel, Trevor Scott, Steve Mitchell, Albert De Guzman, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Edited by Dan Thorsland and Mike Carlin

The Cover
Being an art critic is so far beyond my capabilities that I'm completely stymied by the color palette. I guess there's an abundance of purple to indicate the Eclipso possession. But why the lime green background? Maybe they're fighting in a jelly mold? I do appreciate how Superman's muscles were drawn thick with sexy veins while Billy Batson retains his "I'm from a totally different comic book company universe and actually a child in a thick, veiny man's body" flat, clear, animation-style facial features. At least the sticky white residue in Superman's mouth has kept me from pondering how he's been Eclipsed being that he's full of sunlight and Eclipso's one weakness is sunlight and also he's full of somebody's semen. Not Billy's because that would be too wrong to even consider. I guess Superman's possession was pre-explained earlier when Eclipso pointed out how his power is magical in nature and we all know how susceptible Superman is to magic for some reason. Maybe they didn't have magic on Krypton? Man. Imagine a world without close-up magicians approaching your table during dinner? What a dream!

The Story So Far
A bunch of loser super heroes have been Eclipsed because they're losers. Yes, I know Wally West was Eclipsed. The king of losers. I didn't even like Barry Allen but Wally? What a piece of shit. All of you assholes who just love Wally West to death are fucking wrong. I mean, sure, I never read Flash so it's possible I'm wrong. Not likely but possible! I only know Wally West from Justice League Europe and that guy was a fucking idiotic sex pest who shouldn't have been allowed around women. The fact Power Girl never ripped his balls off is testament to how much power the Comics Code Authority had.

Also some people have started to go missing without being Eclipsed and we have to assume that Bruce Gordon has gone Ozymandias style. Bruce Gordon is missing and so is Blue Beetle. My guess is he's grabbing up all the heroes capable of making a gigantic fake sun to shine into the crater on the moon since the real sun isn't cutting the mustard. Stupid sun. Can't even shine into a fucking crater on the side of the moon that bare asses itself to it at least once a month. I don't know how space works so I'm assuming that's how often that happens.

The Story
Since Bruce, Mona, and Blue Beetle are all missing or Eclipsed, Superman and Fire's butt have gone to recruit Mona's dad for some reason. I guess he's also a solar scientist? Is that how Bruce and Mona met? Do I even care?

Even Mona's dad doesn't give a shit and it's his world that's in danger.

Every time I type "Mona's dad", I can't help thinking "Anna Madrigal". Stupid brain! You're a man and a girl!

Superman decides to leave this man alone which is great because who the fuck is he? Why is he suddenly a character in this story?! I barely know why Mona and Bruce Gordon are in this story let alone Anna Madrigal! I mean Mona's dad! Does he piss sunshine? Does he fart solar radiation? One fact about him: he's clinically depressed. At first I thought Booster was just exaggerating but Chris Wozniak made sure to draw a bottle of pills in the background of one panel. Plus that shot of him lying in bed with his knee up and his arm thrown over his face? Classic depression pose!

Booster talks like a eugenicist and Booster is from DC's future so, um, guess what, everybody? The racists apparently won!

I don't know if Booster means "them" as in academics or as in people with no powers or what but since Booster Gold is a working class guy whose whole schtick is based on stealing his gear, I suspect it's both? He's what rich racist elite Republicans would call a "real American". Which totally explains why he's also a sexist creep (as seen in the Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Justice League America Annual and pretty much every other Justice League America issue).

Superman's plan to save Mona and the people of Crater Bay (who were all Eclipsed in whatever series the last Superman annual was in. Man of Steel? Superman? Adventures of Superman?) is to give himself to Eclipso in exchange for freeing the regular people who always let Booster Gold down. Then it's up to the Justice League to stop Superman from doing whatever Eclipso wants to do with him. It seems like a bad plan in a number of ways but the worst way is that Superman must not remember the current roster of Justice League America. Who the fuck's going to stop him? Ice? Fire? Bloodwynd? Blue Beetle? Booster Gold? Doesn't he remember these are the people who couldn't even stop Doomsday from killing him? Oh wait. I guess he hasn't learned that lesson yet.

Obviously the plan would be to call Batman and borrow his Kryptonite. But since that plan is too obviously obvious, I guess they'll drag Billy Batson out of class and remind him that he's an alternate member of the League.

Did Wozniak model this shot of Superman off the Thanksgiving Day Parade float of Supes?

I'm never going to get through a full annual if I keep scrutinizing every panel but I'm glad I am because I just noticed this tiny figure of Booster Gold in the background. You know how Booster Gold usually has no indication of genitalia? Well, well, my friends. Discover the truth!

Booster Gold has a massive schlong.

Booster Gold, Fire, and Ice decide they'd better find a way to defeat Superman before he gets himself Eclipsed for the good of a few dozen yokels (and Mona). Clark's an idiot! He might be able to negotiate a deal to save a few people for a little while. But at what cost? No, his best bet is to stay unEclipsed and help Crater Bay by defeating Eclipso. Why's he acting so dumb?!

Look, that was a rhetorical question. I know why he's acting so dumb: Dan Vado is writing this.

We, the readers, being smarter than Booster Gold, Fire, and Ice combined, know that they should contact Batman and get his help. Instead, they decide to ask Hairy Lex Luthor for some advice. He and his team have developed a Solar Trap based on Bruce Gordon's solar work. But he's not sure it will work because, um, Dan Vado is writing this, I guess? Is this the the short period of time when Lex Luthor was trying to act humble because he was supposed to be his own Australian son and he didn't want anybody realizing it by whipping out his brain-dick every time he was asked to help solve a problem? Now he's all, "Man, having hair really mellows a guy out! I'm barely angry anymore! Chicks want to fuck me and I can finally masturbate again without fear that my bionic hand will rip my manhood off!" I suppose Angry Lex could have built a solar trap that definitely works but Angry Lex was also always stressed out and screaming at people. Chill Lex can barely fucking care because he's thinking about all the puss that's going to be on his face later.

Ice contacted my dick. Did that joke work? Did it make sense? Fuck it, I'm with Chill Lex now. Who cares if shit works when you've got puss on your face!

And what I mean by puss on my face is, um, cookie crumbs. They're fucking everywhere! I probably shouldn't have learned to eat cookies from Cookie Monster.

Night falls on Crater Bay and Superman heads over to throw his (and everybody on Earth's) life away. Superman doesn't even make sure Eclipso lets the hostages go before he picks up the Black Diamond and tries to get angry. What the fuck? The whole point is to save people? Why would Eclipso let them go if Superman becomes Eclipsed first? Like I said, Clark's an idiot.

It's possible Superman's learned enough about the Black Diamond to get mad at Eclipso so that when he turns, he'll have to beat the shit out of Eclipso before Eclipso can manipulate him. But probably not because I've still got a whole pile of The Darkness Within annuals to get through. And the last Superman one has Superman Eclipsed on the cover fighting Guy Gardner and Lobo at the same time. I know! I came directly into my pants when I saw that!

Superman becomes Eclipsed but we never find out what made him so angry because Eclipso just starts manipulating him immediately. Did Dan Vado not read his editorial notes for the story? It's probably because . . . no, no. You know what? Dan Vado founded the Alternative Press Expo so I'm going to give him a free pass on this. It was probably editorial's fault anyway. I'm sure Vado was all, "Yeah but in all the other stories, the character had to enact vengeance on the thing that made them mad before Eclipso could properly control them?" And Editorial was all, "Shut up, Dan Vado. Did you read the Flash Annual? He didn't enact vengeance on anybody, did he?" And Dan Vado was all, "I don't know because I didn't read it. It hasn't been published yet. Nobody sent me the script." And Editorial was all, "You think you're so smart, don't you, Dan Vado? Well just make Superman angry and Eclipsed and we'll worry about any inconsistencies!"

Also, I'm only on page 17 so any "inconsistencies" will probably be explained away and I'll feel stupid for making this stink. Anyway, did I mention that even though Chris Wozniak has been drawing a fucking awful Superman, he does a cute Ice?

You know I think she's cute because I bypassed a dozen panels of Fire's ass to scan this panel.

It's possible Ice is cute here because the inker has changed between the terrible Superman panels and this panel. It's hard to tell because what the fuck do I know about how an inker's style changes a penciller's style?! I told you right at the beginning that I'm not an art critic! Besides, there are like eighteen inkers credited for this thing!

Meanwhile, during a scene that I'm positive was going to end in Lex Luthor and Professor Emil Hamilton fucking, Bruce Gordon's Ozymandias Plan claims two more victims. You know, the two who were definitely about to fuck: Emil and Lex.

Back in Crater Bay, Captain Marvel arrives to scold Superman and also hit him a lot. "Hey man! Golly Gee Whiz, dude! Why you being so gosh-darned mean?" They beat each other senseless for many, many pages. Neither one seems to have the upper hand even if Captain Marvel's power stems from magic and, well, that's Superman's main weakness! I guess the magic that makes Billy strong and invincible doesn't mean the strength itself is magical. At one point during the fight, I'm convinced that Captain Marvel is just Martian Manhunter disguised as Captain Marvel because, um, why would fire hurt Captain Marvel?

Is he just pretending the flames hurt so the reader feels a little bit of drama and tension during this pretty spectacularly boring battle?

The only reason I knew this couldn't be Martian Manhunter is because Martian Manhunter is pretending to be Bloodwynd right now. He's too busy to pretend to be other people.

By page 35, I begin wishing instead of discussing the story, I just went through and scanned pictures of Ice and Fire's asses. Because, oh boy, are there a lot of panels highlighting them!

I've got a pretty good idea for a coffee table book!

Yeah. I stopped caring about the story and just began scanning butts. Fucking sue me.

The Ranking!
Luthor and Hamilton's solar trap works but overheats almost immediately. So everybody in Crater Bay is saved but Superman manages to get away. And Mona is nowhere to be found. On the plus side, did you see all of those butts? I'm sure there's a moon joke to be made here but I'm way too horny to think of it. I think I just figured out what's in Superman's mouth on the cover. It's my own dried semen from 34 years ago!

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Superman Annual #4 (June 1992)

All the cool kids are getting Eclipsed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Superman Annual #4 (June 1992)
By Dan Vado, Scott Benefiel, Trevor Scott, Albert De Guzman, and Matt Hollingsworth
Cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti
Edited by Dan Thorsland and Mike Carlin

The Cover!
I'm trying not to focus on Lois Lane's boob but as you can see by the way I began by mentioning Lois Lane's boob, I've already lost the battle. The male gaze more effectively possesses the mind of a man than one of Eclipso's Black Diamonds. At least I'm able to embrace it whereas many angry men want to believe the modern world will crucify them if they acknowledge their own lust and horniness. And judging by Lois's line of sight, she's currently captured by the Female Gaze as she stares straight down Superman's cock outline in his tight spandex Kryptonian briefs. Or is that still the male gaze since a male, Joe Quesada, drew this and thought, "If I were Lois Lane, I'd be thinking about sucking off Superman's steel beam right now." Which is less "horny" and more "gross" because he just drew Lois beating the shit out of Superman and he thinks she's thinking about fucking him right after? No wait. I'm thinking he's thinking that which means I'm more gross than horny. Whoops! Maybe I should stop exposing my true inner self on the Internet by writing pretend comic book reviews? Naw. What else am I going to do with the rest of my life which turned out to be way, way longer than I originally thought it would be. It's like, "Enough already!", amirite?

One more question about the cover which will probably be answered when I read the comic book so just regard most of this as a psychic form of physical masturbation. I'm asking the question for my own pleasure, I mean. "Why is Lois Lane beating up Superman after becoming Eclipsed?" It's been established that after a person is possessed by Eclipso, the God of Vengeance, they must destroy the thing that made them so angry. So what did Superman do to Lois? Not washing dishes, my man? Poor quality control in the bedroom? Did she find his Kryptonian Playboys and the red sun fleshlight in his Fortress of Solitude's Fortress of Solitude (the bathroom)? Boy howdy do I hope these questions are answered in this comic book and that the answer is that last one I suggested!

The Story So Far
Eclipso continues to sit on his moon toilet talking to Valor while his Black Diamonds scattered all over the Earth do all of the work. He doesn't have much more of a plan than "I hope some super heroes get really angry after finding and picking up one of the thousand shards of my original Black Diamond prison!" Currently he has control of Valor, Starman, The Creeper, and maybe Star Sapphire and Hal Jordan? I read that Annual so long ago that I can't remember who was still possessed when it ended.

No.

The Story!
Superman has failed to locate Eclipso because, well, he's not Batman and did Batman do it in Detective Comics? No, he fucking didn't. Although Superman, being able to fly into space and think about flying into space and having the moon be a territory within his reach that he must think about on occasion, should think, "Where would I put my base of operations if I were a being whose entire identity was based around how the moon blocks out the sun?" It's not like it's the most complicated riddle in the world. So instead of searching for Eclipso so he can attack him at the source, Superman flies around Metropolis looking for a couple of Black Diamonds that may or may not be there. Somehow he lucks onto the one person in the city who has a Black Diamond sitting in their pocket. Not because the guy is angry and smashing downtown Metropolis but because he's holding a gun to a woman's head and ranting like a paranoid schizophrenic. Superman doesn't know the guy has a Black Diamond but Bruce Gordon runs up, panting and sweating from his long sprint from Gotham, to tell Superman that the man has a Black Diamond. Bruce Gordon knows because he's got a device that can find Black Diamonds when they're in use or when the plot needs him to know where they are.

Why am I suddenly thinking about my first junior high school crush?

Bruce Gordon believes this man having the Black Diamond was an intricate trap by Eclipso to catch Superman. That's even more paranoid thinking than the guy holding the woman hostage screaming about needing a ship to go into space and fight an alien demon. Mostly because that guy's talking about Eclipso which is actually happening and Bruce Gordon's theory relies on the Black Diamonds having way more control over their own destiny than "being found in a gutter" or whatever. I guess once a person is possessed they become Eclipso on Earth which means he can use them to sort of get Superman's attention and then he can try to shove the Black Diamond up Superman's ass or however he means to possess him. So, okay, now that I've given it a little more thought, maybe Bruce Gordon isn't totally nuts. Also he's the foremost expert on Eclipso so maybe I should be trusting the experts, even if they're a fictional comic book character currently being written by Dan Vado. I should but it's hard. Where did I leave my hammer?

Superman beats up another of Eclipso's manifestations while Bruce Gordon bathes it in sunlight. Afterward, he questions the man who brought the Black Diamond to his city.

There you go! He's on the moon! Go get his ass!

Crater Bay? Was that a popular location in the DC Universe in 1992? Or is this just a city used in this story as a clue to Eclipso's location? Whatever its origin, Lois Lane is on the case! She's off to investigate the strange goings on in Crater Bay. I bet she runs into a bunch of fish looking motherfuckers who drive her insane.

No, wait, she's actually investigating a possible case of corporate corruption and illegal dumping of toxic chemicals. She also outs herself as a white supremacist.

What else could she mean by "one of the last bastions of real America"?

So fucking sick of this "common sense" idea that "the real America" lies in the exact place and time after the indigenous peoples have been run off, killed, and exiled but before the Civil Rights act and brown foreigners began coming to share the American dream. As if rural means anything at all. Or fucking "Heartland". Don't fucking mistake the metaphorical, bullshit meaning of that word for the literal reason it was coined: the area known as the heartland is simply center mass in the country. I wish the ass were thought of as the central component of the human body so we could just start calling the flyover states the Assland. Not that I think the people living there are ass (I mean, sure, some of them (maybe a lot of them!)) but it's better to be the butt of a joke than be raised up on some kind of white supremacist pedestal because of the word heart coinciding with a place where a bunch of dumb people think mostly white people reside. I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, for a few years and if it weren't for the humidity and the Huskers fans, I might still live there yet. Summer lightning storms? Yes please. Lightning bugs?! Hallelujah! Blizzards that trap you at your married friends' house so that their four year old son could tell you about how, when he was in his mommy's tummy, he wanted to be a girl? Fantastic! His father's look every single day after that as he tried to process it? Priceless!

Lois Lane finds her reception in Crater Bay to be slightly chillier than she's normally received even in places that don't want journalists poking around.

Then why is he fucking running the inn?!

The angry old man is actually Eclipsed Starman in disguise because Starman can apparently change shape which is why Eclipso's so happy to have him. Now this is an obvious Superman trap! I knew trusting the expert was the right thing to do even if I really, really, really, really didn't want to and also because I despise him and his stupid Commissioner Batman name.

Eclipso, pissed off at everything (which is why he wants to destroy everything. He kind of has to because everything is what made him so mad), monologues a little more information about his plans (unless it's not a monologue when you're kind of talking to the alien in a coma and/or trance floating nearby). Crater Bay is the headquarters for his secret possessing Superman headquarters. The people of Crater Bay network with other possessed people around the world to distribute Black Diamonds to where Eclipso can manipulate leaders, heroes, and even the economy (probably. Maybe he doesn't care about money so much). See? The name of the town is a clue to is location! What an idiot. If I lived in a crater on the moon, I would name my Earth city base of operations, Venusville. It's like how my banking password is "IVENEVERSUCKEDADICKBEFORE".

An Eclipso monster confronts Superman, Bruce Gordon, and Mona (and Mona's amazing ass) on the road to Crater Bay and Superman has to smash the creature into a greenhouse that uses solar power to heat the place. It destroys the creature whose soul goes screaming to the moon.

So let me get this straight: any power generated from the sun can destroy Eclipso. Solar Lance toys. A flashlight powered by solar energy. Batteries charged by solar panels. If this is the case, can't anything destroy Eclipso since the source of all power on Earth — all of it! — comes from the sun? Couldn't Superman just smash a tree into Eclipso? Throw coal at him? How many degrees of separation must there be between "direct solar energy" and pretty much anything on Earth before it has no effect on Eclipso? Isn't he just basically safe from, um, rocks?

The fight destroys Gordon's Black Diamond Detector and almost destroys his Solar Flashlight. That just means it broke but he fixed it but it's also probably down to a negligible charge. Superman will probably have to defeat Eclipsed Lois Lane by spunking on her. "Gordon! Mona! Hold Lois down so I can titty fuck her! My semen's loaded with yellow sun juice and a facial seems like just the cure!"

The developer whose wife is being held hostage by Eclipso so that he'll help lure Superman into town spends all night trying to get Lois angry so she'll turn be Eclipsed. He spills two cups of coffee on her and tries to put his hands on her to sop up the spilled beverage but none of it gets her needle moving. No, to get her angry, things have to be personal.

Oh, of course! Condescension's the thing! That's so Lois.

So Superman kills Lois and saves the day. Next annual!

The Ranking!
Okay, maybe Lois Lane wasn't killed. Who can tell? Somebody would have to finish reading this comic book and did you know? It's 60 pages long! DC knows the kind of stupid dumb idiots who read comic books, right? They expect us to read sixty whole pages in one sitting?! Fucking hell. It's just too much. I can't do it. I won't do it! Unless the next page I read expresses how Woke Lois Lane is, I'm just not going to continue and assume she died. Or should I assume she was cured by that facial idea? Hmm. I wonder if I can commission Scott Benefiel to draw that scene so I can staple it into my Annual?

Yield means Yield, you cretin!

Okay fine! I'll finish! I hope Lois goes off on how terrible Reagan was after she's cured!

The story simply ends when the sun rises. Superman does the thing where he distracts the vampires and/or trolls and/or Eclipsos so that they lose track of time and get destroyed by the rising sun. But Mona winds up Eclipsed and hides in the houses in Crater Bay with all the rest of the Eclipsed inhabitants. Superman decides he'll have to come back with some "Marvel"ous help to save the residents later. He still doesn't even contemplate checking out the moon. Maybe he's decided that guy who wasn't actually crazy was crazy in just that one small detail of Eclipso living on the moon?

For some reason, I didn't find this issue as good as Detective Comics Annual #5. Come to think of it, I haven't read any comic book as good as that one. And yet why am I having trouble remembering any of it?

The Authority #28 (April 2002)

You're not allowed to show one naked penis on a comic book cover. But if it's a bundle of three or four dozen? No problem!

I'm beginning to think that Frank Quitely quitting this comic over a better job offer wasn't the reason the comic book was delayed for four months. Once Tom Peyer and Dustin Nguyen took over, it came out every month for four months straight. But then when Millar came back? It was two months before the 2nd part of "Brave New World" (nine full months after Part One!) was published. And now the 3rd part just took 3 more months after that. It's been a full year and Millar has only put out three issues of his four issue story arc. I think I might know why this comic book was cancelled after part four! Garth Ennis was scheduled to take over after Millar's run but he probably got sick of waiting and moved on to other comics.

Last issue, we got a glimpse of Rush's ass. This issue, I'm hoping for half a labia!

This issue begins with The Surgeon putting all of the world's Gods to the firing squad while introducing a new God for the pop culture oriented man: Religimon.

These are the Gods after editorial got through with them: Gandalf, Mr. Spock, Doctor Who, and, um, Scarlet Witch?

The main feature of Religimon is that the G7 nations of the world own the rights to the new religious imagery (which, I'm assuming, is composed of hundreds of cute and various other Gods. Gotta worship 'em all!) so I can seen how it wouldn't seem weird to have them killing the other pop culture heroes which Religimon will replace. But apparently the soldiers were supposed to be killing Jesus and Mohammad and Buddha and Yahweh which makes more sense, especially considering this soldier that interrupts The Surgeon during his introduction of Religimon.

I think to fully kill Jesus, you have to consume him before he resurrects. Like a troll in Nethack.

Back on The Carrier, the readers learn that Colonel not only has a shit fetish but he's a rapist as well. It's not surprising being that Mark Millar hadn't explored every corner of degeneracy yet.

Um, no?

Turned on by all the megalosalmon shit splashing across The Carrier's windshield, Colonel does a sex attack on Rush. By that I mean he throws a soccer ball at her face and then threatens to electrocute her when she calls him a lunatic. If he's this out of his mind from horniness by seeing some fish shit, what happens when the Colonel lifts the lid on an unflushed toilet? Does he instantly jizz himself? Does he fuck whatever's nearby, like the drain in the sink or a toilet roll tube? Does it matter since he's going to be dead by the end of next issue, if not this one?

The Surgeon interrupts to let Colonel know that something terrible has happened on the ship: Street has been run over by a pizza delivery motorcycle.

I should stop reading so I always remember Rush like this, adorable with everything still intact.

I don't know how Street was killed by being run over by a motorbike that's mostly moped. I guess if Midnighter is riding it, it becomes more deadly than usual.

Last Call checks on The Carrier's caged baby universe in the Engine Room because Machine felt a disturbance in the whatever. He doesn't notice Jenny Quantum sitting beneath it manipulating it to her will. I guess that means Jenny Quantum can render herself invisible to homophobes.

If at any time during the year long wait for this story to continue, readers were thinking, "I hope when the story comes back, it'll have more attempted rape than normal," they were in luck! Because the next scene has Teuton telling Apollo he was always interested in fucking guys but didn't want word getting around. So now he's got a gay guy tied up and helpless who will be dead soon and so won't tell anybody that Teuton fucked him!

Luckily for Teuton, the good guys don't fuck the holes they make in the bad guys' heads. Even with Millar writing.

The rest of New Authority hold a meeting to figure out who's going to battle Midnighter. If I were them, I'd lock myself in some out of the way storage closet and just wait for Seth to beam aboard and take care of him.

Seth appears before any of them can find a closet to hide in which saves some of their dignity. Luckily, they don't have to pretend they want to fight Midnighter because Seth has four dozen raging hard-ons throbbing at the prospect of finally killing Midnighter. Too bad Midnighter finds them before Seth finds him.

Noooooo! RUSH! Um, I think?

I think the lone feather and possibly some blood stains indicate that Rush was strung up by Midnighter when the lights went out the first time. Then The Surgeon was shot and/or stabbed through the chest. Elsewhere on The Carrier, Apollo blew Last Call's head off. So now it's just Machine, Colonel, and Seth left to fight.

Colonel gets taken out in two panels just like everybody else. New Authority put up nearly zero fight, as expected. Hopefully Seth will put up more of a fight.

Why's the focal point always gotta be Seth's multiple dicks?

Apollo kills Machine while Seth tears out one of Midnighter's hearts (yeah, yeah. Apparently he has a back-up). Now it's just Apollo, Jenny, and Seth facing off at the end of reality (because The Bleed is hemorrhaging).

The bigwigs have a meeting while Swift waits on them in her underwear. They discuss how Seth needs to be terminated now that he's taken care of The Authority (um, what? He hasn't even!) and, right there in front of Swift, they mention how Seth has a kill switch! That makes sense because Swift always has to prove her worth in the smallest way possible every story arc. In this one, she gets to find out the means to kill Seth! Unless the means to kill Seth will just be Seth finding out the government's going to terminate him and Swift asking Seth to join them like she asked Doctor Krigstein. That would be really fucking disappointing though.

The Authority #28 Rating: B. Too many New Authority members died too quickly. It wasn't any fun! Now I suspect the battle against Seth next issue will be just as anti-climactic. I think maybe Millar was either getting bored by this point or super annoyed at editorial putting a stop to his super edgelord shit. Whatever the case, Arthur Adams doesn't even make it to next issue! They laid part of the blame for the delay on waiting for Arthur Adams to finish a job and catch up on the script and then he only hangs around for two issues anyway! Christ, what the fuck was going on at Wildstrom in 2001?!

The Authority #22 (March 2001)

Sometimes orgies go wrong.

Just typing the phrase "orgies go wrong" makes me (and I suspect any of the few people who have seen the movie as well) think, "Eating Raoul". The synopsis of the movie is "Buck Henry kills swingers and then eats a guy in a surprise twist final scene that was blown by the title." I don't think Buck's wife ever eats Raoul's ass when they begin having an affair but that would have gone a long way to obfuscating the reason for the title and make the ending a little more surprising. Maybe.

The next four issues comprise a story called "Brave New World." That's a line from Shakespeare's The Tempest, something about a brave new world that has such people in it. But more people probably think of it as a referent to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a book that I should remember better than I do. There's definitely people in it but I don't think that's why Huxley chose the Shakespeare quote as his title. I remember there was something about people not conceiving children in the regular way, and they took loads of drugs and maybe fucked freely a lot? And then this guy born from an actual vagina comes to visit their little temple and begins smashing tables and screaming a lot? It ends in — get this — an orgy gone wrong.

Having looked at the covers, I know the next three issues of this story take place on an alternate Earth or with an alternate Authority, based on the various characters and a nice graphic design element where The Authority logo on the next three covers does not use a bar over "Authority" which fills the space after "THE". Instead it uses a triangle. Does that mean that, judging by this cover, Jack Hawksmoor will become the savage who enters a new world and realizes the dystopian nature of what the populace believe to be a utopia? Will Jack take the role of both Miranda, first enthralled by the people of another world he never knew about, only to revert to the "savage" of Brave New World and attempt to tear it down?

Or was Mark Millar just all, "That sounds like a cool title for The Authority checking out another dimension!" Probably not that. Even for writers whom I disrespect (and, to be clear, I don't disrespect Millar's writing. Sometimes I disrespect Millar himself, or his mother, or the size of his penis. But never his writing (also if you find evidence of me disrespecting his writing, it was an, um, joke! For comic effect!)), I would never suggest that they are not aware of the literary references they've built their story upon, especially when they're European! An American writer, I might think, "This guy is too stupid to live." But a European writer? I've got my tongue out and their pants down before I even begin reading their shit!

One of my favorite genres of tumblr post are the ones where young people first discover major literary foundations in the wild and become fucking gobsmacked by a thing they had been reading one way only to realize, upon discovery of a new thing, what the author was referencing. I say "young people" because old people just can't get up the energy to be surprised by anything anymore. They read something new that changes the context of some other piece of literature they'd been familiar with and they just go, "Yeah, okay. I get it. Interesting." All periods, man! Not an exclamation point to be seen in the life of a fucking oldie!

That's probably why I use so many exclamation points. As camouflage for my elderly status!

Oh no! Midnighter is dead!

Midnighter is probably not dead. But that's how the comic book begins and I wanted to try to be an earnest reader reading earnestly. It's been so fucking long since I felt anything!

I thought that was Midnighter's mask in the sand but apparently it's snow because it was found in Antarctica. Now when I look at the vast panels full of this beige-colored whatever, I just think it looks like mashed potatoes.

A group of seven people trek across Antarctica to their new base. They are not The Authority. They may be the "new" Authority. One of them certainly has wings like Swift. But they're all drawn too small to really work out who they might be.

Some of them look familiar, right?

I just glanced at the next few issues of this comic book and discovered I'm probably wrong in my assumptions. The next four issues with the triangle in the name are all written by Tom Peyer rather than Mark Millar. So it seems like this four part story will be interrupted by Peyer's four part story? Will it be a kind of flashback story within a story, a little Scheherazade action in The Authority? Should I stop guessing at shit and just read the comic book?

It seems this new group were promised a base on the moon but were instead given The Carrier as their new base, since The Authority seems to have all been killed (or gone missing or pretending to be dead or decapitated). We'll find out what happened to them soon because after a double page splash of just The Carrier sitting partially buried in snow, the story does the whole "One Week Earlier" thing. Because if there's one thing you can count on in a comic book, the notion of "in media res" just gets doubled over and cream pied until it comes spastically, passes out, and the story eventually begins right at the beginning anyway.

One week earlier, Jack Hawksmoor was giving an interview defending The Authority's policy of destroying genocidal governments and threatening aggressor nations.

The Doctor has Jack snowed. All of that disaster was caused by The Doctor so he could get in Angie's nano-panties!

Meanwhile, something bad is happening on board The Carrier. Angie feels it but Apollo and Midnighter are too busy bickering to feel anything. They seem to be housing resentments towards each other based on one being a guy everybody loves and one being a guy everybody fears. Their argument's interrupted by a pizza delivery person (yes, delivering to The Carrier on her motorbike) who goes through her entire pregnancy right before their eyes.

Does pregnancy always end with the woman exploding into green goo?

Just in case the reader thought this alien exploded out of the woman's stomach, Frank Quitely draws the woman's torn underwear across the alien's back. Just to make sure the earnest reader knows exactly how this alien tore itself out of this woman. That's BodyHorrorWang!

Are there easier ways to sneak yourself onto The Carrier? Possibly but not when Mark Millar is writing the series. The only other way I can think Millar would have an alien sneak onto The Carrier is by exploding out of somebody's butthole. Or urethra!

"Bursting out of a woman's vagina just isn't shocking enough," thought Millar. "What if the alien declares they're a pedophile too?"

You might have noticed Apollo lying on the floor with his head and face on fire in that previous panel and been confused because I didn't mention how the first thing the alien did after pointing out that it didn't use a rubber (which means it came itself into this woman? How does that work? Did it turn inside out through the tip of its penis to wind up inside the woman?) was try to blow Apollo's head off. I'm assuming it didn't work or else I'd have brought up the Decapitation Counter.

I apologize for scanning this but I've been documenting how casually Millar loves to have characters taunt Apollo and Midnighter with homophobic slurs so I couldn't miss this huge one.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Millar should be tarred and feathered for that panel. It would be nice if he'd left this out, sure. But for some reason, Millar seems to think the only way to show that a villain who just raped a woman, killed her by exploding out of her vagina, and then declared itself a pedophile is by having it call Midnighter a faggot. Okay, I guess this alien is a super-duper baddie? Because guess how Millar and Casey, in the Annual, felt they had to show bad guys being bad guys? By calling Apollo and Midnighter Marys and Queens and Poofs and Girls and Liza. It just never stops. It's almost as if Mark Millar and Joe Casey only cared about having gay superheroes so that they could have the bad guys use gay slurs.

I've definitely had my edgelord days. I'm a white heterosexual male. Of course I did! But reading vastly different types of literature in college, especially Victorian novels written by women, really helped tone that shit down. A lot of it still lingered for many years, in that way that "I'm joking!" types of shit continues to exist. And I still write some shit that's downright vulgar and tasteless and offensive. But usually I'm making a deeper point while looking as shallow as hell. It's a thing I do! But what I mostly stopped doing was using satire to lampoon terrible ideas and people by pretending to be one of those people. I still do it on occasion but in a way where I spell out exactly what I'm doing and how stupid it is. One of the main things that made me hyper aware of satire being done irresponsibly was The Colbert Report. I never really watched it much because I gave up cable around 2002 and never went back. But whenever I was some place that had cable, I'd watch one of two channels: The Game Show Network and Comedy Central. One time I was staying at a hotel in Los Angeles with my old, old, old friend Bobby Henline (you might know him as the Burnt Comedian now, or something like that). He was there to get another major eye surgery after being nearly burned alive in Iraq and I was there to support him in that and in his first attempt at stand up comedy. We had adjoining rooms and just kept the door open between our spaces. I was watching The Daily Show and laughing my ass off when Bobby came in and was all, "What the hell are you laughing so much about? I'm in my room watching Fox News and you're over here having fun!" So he sat and watched with me a bit and while he did, he said, "I really like the guy after this. That conservative guy." And while I didn't say anything, I just thought, "Does Bobby think Colbert is fucking serious?" And my mind just went, "Shit." I often say how anybody reading what I write who votes Republican is stealing because I don't want them reading my shit. I certainly don't want them thinking that I believe the terrible shit they believe so I try to stay away from satire. Like if I made a joke satirizing lazy, asshole husbands by saying, "Get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich!" To me, I'm laughing at the idiot who actually believes that kind of shit. But to people who believe that shit, they just read it, laugh, and say, "Right on, brother!" But I am not their brother and do not want to be thought of as their brother! They can go to fucking Hell!

Young Bob and me on that same trip. I was giving him bunny ears since his were burned off. Come on! He'd find that funny since 95% of all of his jokes are about his having been blown up and burned.

The alien kicks Midnighter in the stomach and he's out. I guess he was too surprised by the explosive birth to run the battle simulation through his mind computer one million times to figure out how to win the fight.

Also this "alien" is a redneck born of eight counts of incest, just in case y'all weren't shocked enough!

I guess this guy isn't an alien but some malformed experiment used as an assassin by world leaders who hate The Authority flexing their muscles on the international stage. I say "world leaders" but I mean "American president" because who else would use a redneck from . . . well, you know what state I'm thinking of. The one where incest is legally defined as "fornication between one hot ass family member with another." I don't want to get in trouble on picking on anybody specifically after I just ranted about picking on people specifically, so I will not mention the West Virginia I'm thinking of. I mean state! I said state!

Seth takes out The Doctor off-panel because Mark Millar just wrote a four issue story showing how impossible The Doctor is to beat. What the fuck could Millar possibly show in a fight between Seth and The Doctor that would get readers who just read "Earth Inferno" to believe The Doctor could be beaten in that specific way? Best to just do it off panel so readers could make up how it happened in their minds. Although it looks like he just riddled him with bullets. Doctor 1967 survived his body exploding and getting his brains punched out on the sun. But Seth takes out the better and more efficient Doctor by shooting him.

Is Seth the mascot of Comicsgate?

Do I need to mention how easily Swift gets taken out? And Angie just has her nanobots sucked out of her. Seth's still on his book tour for his autobiography, Who Am I? I Will Tell You as I Kill You, so he explains how the seven richest countries modified a hillbilly to become more powerful than the Earth, every Shaman, Space Daddy God, and every member of The Authority. Just one member left: Jack Hawksmoor. And just a little more explication for who Seth is and why he's killing them.

This motherfucker (literally?) got the super power to vomit up razor sharp Yu-Gi-Oh cards!

Seth opens up his torso and engulfs Jack Hawksmoor into it. Finally, he goes to eat Jenny Quantum (oh god please just eat her) but finds her stroller empty. That's because Midnighter was only faking having his neck snapped! He races off on the pizza delivery girl's motorbike with Jenny in his arms and flees out of Door, probably to return in four issues after the interlude story with the new, better, younger, more obedient version of The Authority.

Oh, also Seth calls Midnighter a faggot again. I wonder how many people read this and thought, "Jesus, Mark! Why have him call Midnighter that?" And then as they learned Seth was a hillbilly redneck, they were all, "Oh, okay. I get it now! Hillbillies and rednecks are just like that!", exposing their own bigoted ideas of the world while challenging another. Do you think that was Millar's excuse? "It's just natural hillbilly language! You have to publish it!"

Midnighter returns through the Door about thirty seconds later flying a jet plane directly into Seth. They crash through several walls before hitting something extremely volatile (probably not the Caged Baby Universe because that would rewrite the universe remember) and causing an explosion big enough to crash The Carrier into Antarctica. I'm guessing it didn't kill Midnighter or Seth. But we won't know because it's now a week later and we've returned to the new team, The Young Authority!

O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is!

The Authority #22 Rating: B+. It was action packed and thrilling! Sure, something in the world exists more powerful than The Authority who were more powerful than everything that was more powerful than everything else. But of course there is! Of course the people running the world have a creature like Seth! And of course they reward Seth for having killed The Authority (and not dying, of course) with "a harem of under-12s." I think in 2000, people were pretty skeptical of how much pedophilia was rampant in the halls of the rich and powerful. But we've seen some pretty gross shit over the years and I'm talking about real shit and not Pizzagate nonsense or Q-Anon finger pointing to distract from the actual conservative pedophiles. I mean Catholic shit and Epstein shit and Boy Scouts shit and Subway mascots! It's fucking crazy man! But ignoring that, this comic book was just kind of enjoyable seeing what the world's richest and most powerful would turn into a weapon that casually tears The Authority apart. And to think, "This is the guy enforcing all of the terrible shit in the world? This is why we can't have health care and living wages and equality for all?! This fucking incestuous, pedophile turd?!"

The Authority #20 (January 2001)

The Earth from the top rope.

This is not the last issue of The Authority (that'll be Issue #29). But you think it would have to be. They're fighting the Earth. If they win, the Earth is destroyed and they have nothing left to protect. If they lose, well, that's obvious. The comic is over, right? At least that's what somebody who didn't read last issue might think and I read last issue so I know better. The Authority aren't actually battling Earth somehow! They're battling the psychotic Doctor from 1967 who somehow talked the Earth into killing everybody. I'm still not super clear on that part because Mark Millar never made that part super clear. At some point he just went from "The Earth got scared and it's lashing out at humans" to "the Earth was convinced to lash out at humans by The Doctor from 1967 and now he's the only one who can ask it to stop." Once the leap from plot one to plot two happened, it was easy to understand that's where the story was going. I just don't know why Millar decided to make it a leap without any explanation between jump and landing instead of at least one page with an easily followed path between the two points. But then I'm not worth multiple bajillions of dollars so I probably read the comic book wrong somewhere.

As it stands now, The Doctor has given his powers to 1967 Doctor for one hour in exchange for him calling off the Earth's attack on people. They have no idea what he's about to do but think they're prepared to defend themselves against him. Have they not been paying attention to The Doctor's powers? If he wants them to stop existing, they're going to stop existing. Even Midnighter can't super think his way through that problem.

We get it, edgelord writers. Some of the characters are gay!

That was the first panel of this issue. I guess that means Doctor 1967 plans to destroy The Authority with his powers?

I'm sorry. After Doctor 1967 called some of the members of the team "poofs," I started thinking about how stupid this story arc is again and now I'm dumber than I was before I started thinking about it. The first two issues when natural disasters were happening were shit issues and that was before the story stopped making any kind of sense at all. The Authority didn't know who was causing the disasters but Angie or Jack or somebody came up with a list of possible culprits. That led to Midnighter blaming it all on Doctor 1967 because he was a psychotic who maybe could do all this shit if he still had his powers and also wasn't in 20 million B.C. But he doesn't have his powers and he wasn't in the year 2000 and why they listened to him at all doesn't make a lick of fucking sense. And then the ultimate problem: why the fuck did they suddenly believe he was the only one who could convince the Earth not to kill all the humans by basically committing suicide? Without that bit of the story, which Mark Millar definitely did not provide, having The Authority give the verifiably insane Doctor 1967 the god-like shaman powers, even for an hour, to end the threat is fucking stupid. Better to try themselves until the last second to stop the Earth throwing its fucking tantrum than end everything by giving a nutjob the power to, you know, end everything! Millar never shows nor tells why The Authority felt their hands were tied and they were desperate enough to try this out.

Maybe if Millar had thrown in a decapitation or two, I'd understand what the fuck was going on.

Fine, call them queens. I expect a Millar character to do that. But fat?! Where the fuck is he getting fat from?!

Reading this story arc is the first time I'm glad I've been giving my "reviews" grades because it proves that I thought the first two parts of this story were mediocre before I even got to this fucked up nonsensical finish.

Doctor 1967 beats Apollo in two pages and kicks Midnighter all the way back onto The Carrier. Midnighter decides not to go back to a useless fight (remember his head computer! He knows he loses every iteration of the battle!) and comes up with another plan to fetch somebody who can defeat Doctor 1967. But that means Jack Hawksmoor, The Engineer, and *snicker* Swift have to keep him occupied for another 57 minutes. Apparently at the end of that time, The Doctor (the real Doctor) gets his powers back automatically and the world is safe. I say "apparently" because if Mark Millar cares to explain why The Authority felt this was their only chance, he hasn't explained it yet.

That's what I said!

Just repeating myself yet again here: the reader was never told how Doctor 1967 was the only person to convince the Earth not to reverse its magnetic poles (and who cares if it did?!). Hopefully Millar will at least have Doctor 1967 explain why he wanted the shaman powers back for an hour. Surely it wasn't just to kill a couple of fat gay guys. He must want to fuck a black hole or something.

Also, if The Doctor was cut off from his powers, how is he visiting the Garden of Ancestral Memory? Can Door reach it?

The Ancestral Doctor also mentions that Doctor 1967 could stretch the hour to infinity which is also something I pointed out last review! Which I guess means I should be praising Mark Millar for such good writing! And I will as soon as The Doctor's plan is revealed and it's so fucking awesome and contains so many decapitations that I'll literally shit my pants from excitement. At that point, I'll only slightly be disappointed that Millar didn't explain why The Authority feel they couldn't stop the Earth and only this psychotic Doctor could.

Jack Doors Doctor 1967 to Mexico City so that Jack can be as powerful as he possibly can be anywhere on Earth. He fights with him a little bit before asking the rest of The Authority for some Goddamned back-up and somehow he doesn't laugh himself silly when Swift is all, "I'll save you!"

I have no issues with Swift's boobs but if she spent 20 grand to get them to where they are now, what the fuck kind of mess were they before?! Were they square with tangled nipples?!

I have no problems if an Asian person wants to refer to themselves as "Oriental." But it is a bit fucked up for a white guy to write an Asian person who refers to themselves as "Oriental"!

Swift does the one thing that Swift does that's impressive: she explodes Doctor 1967 by flying directly through him. It's why she's useless in large fights but when there's only one enemy, I can see the benefit of having her on the team. Plus the way Frank Quitely draws it, I think we've got a +1!

Decapitation Count: 11!

Swift should have blown through his head and exploded his brain so his dying mind wouldn't have time to put himself back together. But she fucked up and winds up flying face first into a concrete fist. Jack was taken down some other way, maybe Doctor 1967 turned his organs into traffic cones. He defeats Angie by going back in time and molesting her as her high school doctor and then being all, "Hi! Remember when we last met!" Then when she's freaking out, he blasts her through a building.

Just to be clear: I didn't make that up. The Doctor molests Angie in the past just to rattle her during their current fight. So, yeah, giving this psychopath God-like powers sure seemed worth it, right?

Next, Apollo has picked himself back up and Doors himself and Doctor 1967 to the surface of the sun where Apollo proceeds to punch his face off.

That's for calling him fat!

Apollo doesn't defeat him even when he punches his brains out across the face of the sun. Doctor 1967 beats the shit out of him again and they return to Earth where Doctor 1967 turns a light sprinkle into a shower of aborted fetuses just to prove he's the biggest fucking edgelord this universe has ever seen. He only shuts up when Midnighter pisses on him from a tiny Door over his head. And remember how awesome Midnighter's blood was? That probably means his piss smells fucking disgusting.

Midnighter's plan wasn't just to piss on Doctor 1967; it was to bring with him all the gender-swapped heroes of that alternate Earth they visited. The plan doesn't work because Doctor 1967 snaps his fingers and they all disintegrate. Then he decides to reverse the poles because that seemed to be a super scary thought in 2000. Doctor 1967 just thinks it's funny because they gave him the powers to stop the Earth from doing that and now he's going to do that. Ha ha! Good one, Aborted Fetus Rainman!

But before he can do it, that's when The Doctor's plan finally kicks in! Doctor 1967's fully enlightened brain finally catches up with his raging homicidal behavior and he can't commit genocide anymore because he's overwhelmed by empathy. Yeah. That was the plan. Captain Aborted Fetus Rainman suddenly feels a twinge of empathy for every living creature in the universe and he just stops killing cold. Sure. Whatever.

And it happens at 59 minutes so, um, great plan? He did all that harm and he only had about 15 seconds left of his power before stopping willingly? Get the fuck out of here.

So no explanation as to why Doctor 1967 was the only one who could stop the Earth. And I guess the only reason he wanted one hour of power was to get hard from genocide? That's the only way he can feel aroused? Not much of a motivation but then this is Mark Millar. He probably just thought, "That's hilarious! Great ending!"

Oh fuck. This was The Doctor's plan all along! He caused all the fucking natural disasters and blamed it on Doctor 1967 because he knew it would lead to fucking Angie! He's a monster!

That's the only way this story makes sense! The Doctor was behind it all because he knew he'd fuck Angie at the end. The Doctor is the one who convinced The Authority that Doctor 1967 was the only one who could stop the Earth! But The Doctor had that power all along, obviously. He has unlimited powers! Of course he could stop the Earth. Part of the switch of powers included stopping the Earth from destroying itself which means The Doctor was the one to stop it. He probably also used his powers to convince Doctor 1967 that he was somehow behind it all. The Doctor is a diabolical sex pest!

Fucking and smoking with Jenny Quantum in the room is okay though, right?

The Authority #20 Rating: C-. So The Engineer basically gets molested by two different Doctors in this issue and The Doctor is all, "All's well that ends well!" And Angie is all, "I don't know why I'm fucking you but I guess it's my choice, right?" And nobody questions reality anymore when they witness just how much control The Doctor has over everything. Somebody needs to fucking murder that guy.

Decapitation Count: 11!

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."