AUTHORITY #17
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
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Size: pages
Price: 2.99
This review contains spoilers, click here to read
This issue is the last for Abnett and Lanning, who've
steered this neglected gem of a series through some choppy waters. Their
run took a lot of risks, stubbornly not giving readers the firepower and
flippancy they've come to expect from an Authority outing, instead giving us a
team ravaged by impotence and self-doubt, struggling with its ruinous failure
to build Jenny Sparks' finer world. They got precious little thanks for it
in sales terms, but DnA did an outstanding job of poking the Authority concept
with a big stick and giving it some new emotional and moral texture while
staying true to the original ideas, supported beautifully all along by Simon
Coleby's artwork.
The last few issues have been the 'third reel',
spiralling to a conclusion of some sort as DnA complete their arc.
Enjoyably for Ellis fans, DnA chose to bring the reduced team team full circle
in issues #12-16 by pitting them against not one but two of their oldest
adversaries – Kaizen Gamorra (Wildstorm's Saturday-serial villain, talons and
all) and Lorenzo of Sliding Albion, newly sprung from Rendlesham and deliciously
smarmy. While entertaining, these issues felt very compressed, reducing
their potential for fun, new/old storytelling to bare bones and making their
central purpose – as plot devices for the repowering of Angie and Jack – overly
blatant. The most interesting storyline there was one of DnA's long-game
side-plots: the lonely journey of Midnighter to the wilds of Scotland,
driven by a cryptic dream to search out a cure for Apollo's super-virulent
strain of the Warhol virus. This had the lion's share of the World's End
atmosphere, with elements of old-fashioned British fantasy: dream
visions, heartache, an enchanted island, and a bloodthirsty 'Green Man'
forest-figure whom Midnighter nonetheless recognised as Habib, the vanished
Doctor.
Here, Midnighter learns the source of his visions is a
child named Gaia, and finds a way to free her and the Doctor from their mutual
torment. It's a surprising development, but the fact that Gaia is a plot
strand drawn from the first World's End issue of Stormwatch PHD is further
proof that the World's End books have been a model of 'cohesive universe'
storytelling. There's support from
Swift, Angie and Jack, but the key to events is the instinctive empathy
Midnighter has for Gaia, and her gesture of thanks. I've always liked the way DnA write
Midnighter – both unashamedly emotional and matter-of-factly violent, with no
sign that he's troubled by the contradiction – and by far the most satisfying
part of this issue is the resolution to the Apollo-Midnighter subplot which has
been the strongest emotional thread in the series. It's characteristic of DnA's aims and themes
that the team's final recovery is expressed not by a widescreen feat of strength
or victory pose, but by an intimate scene of personal triumph. Kudos to the whole creative team for their
mature, timely and affectionate reimagining of this title.
Art: 5 - Excellent
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