Why I Hate the Authority
In the beginning, it was good. The Authority under Warren Ellis was well written and had clear goals. Their enemies were interesting, challenging, and quite unlike much of what other superheroes were fighting. And they wanted to help the world.
I was given a copy of Coup D'Etat for my birthday, so I've been reading it. Some of its well written, mainly the parts involving Jack Marlowe/Spartan trying to explain to people that changing the world doesn't have to involve massive violence. The rest of it...the Authority has lost its way. Somewhere in between Ellis' run and now it's evolved from "There has to be someone left to save the world...and change it" to "Anyone with a US government paycheck must die becuase a small faction within the government is EVIL because they're stupid and greedy". It's gone from a high minded ideal of superheroes being socially responsible to a bunch of squabbling pre-schoolers who think that superheroes are only cool when they're slaughtering hundreds of people with a single blow.
Now, the Authority has always been willing to kill, becuase the villains they've been facing have always been too strange or impossible to reform or imprison (how do you imprison a giant alien the size of a planet that wants to destroy all life on Earth?), and that's fine. But when they start killing soldiers who's only crime is "I figured I'd go on a 5 year tour of service to be able to go to university", I draw the line. That's not gritty. That's not edgy. That's just plain hypocritical.
Furthermore, I'm getting really tired of parody after parody of George W. Bush. The man's an idiot, we all know that. So further parodies of trying to pack 10 Bush-isms into four panels is just getting silly.
I have lost hope for the Authority. Jenny Sparks is turning in her grave.
End rant.
I was given a copy of Coup D'Etat for my birthday, so I've been reading it. Some of its well written, mainly the parts involving Jack Marlowe/Spartan trying to explain to people that changing the world doesn't have to involve massive violence. The rest of it...the Authority has lost its way. Somewhere in between Ellis' run and now it's evolved from "There has to be someone left to save the world...and change it" to "Anyone with a US government paycheck must die becuase a small faction within the government is EVIL because they're stupid and greedy". It's gone from a high minded ideal of superheroes being socially responsible to a bunch of squabbling pre-schoolers who think that superheroes are only cool when they're slaughtering hundreds of people with a single blow.
Now, the Authority has always been willing to kill, becuase the villains they've been facing have always been too strange or impossible to reform or imprison (how do you imprison a giant alien the size of a planet that wants to destroy all life on Earth?), and that's fine. But when they start killing soldiers who's only crime is "I figured I'd go on a 5 year tour of service to be able to go to university", I draw the line. That's not gritty. That's not edgy. That's just plain hypocritical.
Furthermore, I'm getting really tired of parody after parody of George W. Bush. The man's an idiot, we all know that. So further parodies of trying to pack 10 Bush-isms into four panels is just getting silly.
I have lost hope for the Authority. Jenny Sparks is turning in her grave.
End rant.
posted by Derek the Bard at 1:33 p.m.
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