Whatever happened to those Winter and Summer ‘specials’ Wildstorm used to do – the fun one-shot anthologies that let writers and artists to try out ideas, revisit past continuity, or turn their hand to books they weren’t usually assigned to?  This issue of Authority is sort of like that:  though written by Abnett and Lanning as usual, it’s drawn by a different artist and is slightly out of sync, containing 4 short ‘interludes’ – three flashbacks and a setup – that sit outside the main series timeline but set out the stall for DnA’s third reel; we’re two-thirds through their 15-issue run, and they’re clearly drawing the threads together.  We get definite confirmation, via spectacular reference to Authority Volume 1 (heads up, ‘Shiftships’ fans!), of the identity of the tweed-suited alien who controls Rendlesham; we see the Authority in the immediate aftermath of Armageddon, miserably undone, with tragic focus on the missing-in-action Doctor and on Midnighter’s recognition that he’s been here before; there’s a sly reference to the last page of ‘Number of the Beast,’ which kicked off World’s End (as always, Scotland gets the worst things first!), and we close with some quality mwahaha-ing as someone makes a welcome move from backup story to main feature.  All the Authority’s old friends are coming out to play – bring it on.

But despite all of the above, this issue really belongs to the guest artist, Brandon Badeaux.  His work is astonishing, and I sincerely hope to see more of it in the World’s End stories.  I strongly feel that Simon Coleby owns the Authority series at the moment; his dark, sinewy, claustrophobic style gives the characters a worn-out, savage grace we’ve never seen before, and his splash pages render traditional widescreen subjects, like the Carrier, in ruinous Gothic detail that perfectly suits the tone of DnA’s writing.  All that said, Badeaux’s style here is genuinely outstanding:  fiendishly detailed, with visible pencil-shading that gives everything a delicate art-house texture; colourist Carrie Strachan compliments it perfectly, moving from the bold night-and-fire colours used for Coleby to a jewel-like, stained-glass look.  The ‘Shiftships’ flashback pages, the Rendlesham fight sequences, and the Doctors’ memory garden are simply jaw-dropping.  What’s especially striking, other than the overall beauty, is the way he places tiny human details into epic scenes – the miniscule figure pushing a shopping trolley across a wrecked cityscape, the traffic cones still upright.  If I have any reservation, it’s that this style may be slightly too pretty for World’s End, too fine a world to work in this context.  But I’d like the chance to be proved wrong, because this is serious old-school Bryan Hitch-level art, and Wildstorm should hang onto it.