The Authority: The Nativity - Part 1

[history79]

"The Authority feels like a crusade to me at the moment. Superheroes have been useless for too long. Let’s make them mean something again. This is a poke at superheroes at both DC and Marvel. Why should they always fight for the status quo? Sometimes I’d just like to see what Lex Luthor could do for the world, you know?"

- Mark Millar




8 pages of 24

Comments

[bradygirl_12]

The World's Finest couple!

[crimsonmoonmist]

I must say I really love that they used the "world's finest" wording to cheekily drives home the fact that, yes, this world's equivalent to Clark and Bruce are totally a couple. I love it!

[bradygirl_12]

It's grand! And what we've always known. ;)

[beyondthefringe]

Frank Quietly art. I can never decide if I love it or hate it. Everyone always looks so -weird-.

[stolisomancer]

I have a mixed reaction to him most of the time. As a draftsman, he's undeniably legit, and his panel composition is among the best in the business.

His human figures are always these towering piles of misshapen dough, however. I get the feeling that if somebody hired Quitely to do a book that was about robots or aliens, it'd be the most popular work of his career.

[laughing_tree]

The inking really doesn't do it any favors here; this is some of the weakest Quitely art I've seen.

[captainbellman]

I can't tell if the use of the slur "spastic" is of-its-time or purpsefully meant to indicate that the speaker is a rude git.

[icon_uk]

"Of it's time"? This isn't THAT old, the speaker is, at best, a rude git.

[sagrada]

"Southeast Asia" could you be more vague, Mr. Millar? Couldn't you just put up "Foreign Parts"? Because that's actually the very reason(besides the Cold War) most superheroes only ever deal with fictional problems in fictional places.

Since basically always superheroes have been representations of western societies' power and freedom of movement, and for decades they would have thought nothing of going to another country and "sorting out" its problems in a pretty similar fashion to this.

But somewhere along the way people figured out that having white people go to real places and just fix all the problems with superior violence or superior intellects was maybe not a good way to help facilitate a healthy understanding of the world. And, of course, superhero fiction relies on a very specific setup to not just be another branch of science-fiction in fact as well as spirit, which would undercut its whole conceit of the ordinary made extraordinary.

Also this was way better done in Tintin and the Picaros. There at least the invincible heroes didn't kill a bunch of people for literally no good reason and the hilarious pointlessness of the fighting regimes(is there another power group ready to govern 'Southeast Asia'? Does even the Authority care about that?) was made part of the fun.

[sadoeuphemist]

Millar originally intended it to be Indonesia and President 'Habibe'.
http://sequart.org/magazine/2461/censorship-of-the-authority/

[baihu]

Yup, I could tell it was Indonesia, but you'd have to be someone who lives in the region to pick up on who it was supposed to be though.

On the flip-side, Millar probably could have come up with some fake name or something instead of being so vague.

[matrix_dragon]

In his defence (There's a line I don't use often), it was going to name him directly, but editorial changed it at the last second.

[reveen]

Indonesia?

https://triip.imgix.net/triips/images/2524/2724/b3c40392922e11e49ac59adf0a168030.jpg

That one?

Comic writers regurgitating Cold War era stereotypes will never get old. Though to be fair this was written in 2000 so I dunno.

[baihu]

Indonesia is really quite a huge, there are still less developed kampong areas, though not as the stereotypical undeveloped villages as Millar views them.

Also my country was a target of Konfrontasi back in the late 60s, and recently they honored the saboteurs that bombed some parts of Singapore by naming two battleships after them...

...so yeah, Indonesia IMO is still guilty of some shady politics, but not in the same way or violent extent that Millar is writing here. They're not the freaking Khmer Rouge.

[filthysize]

He was referencing a specific event. That scene is supposed to be the Aceh military massacre in 2001, which happened right when The Authority was coming out.

Which is why this scene actually became more offensive when DC censored him from directly naming the country and President. Instead of condemning a current event, the vagueness made it come across like they're depicting how things just are in that whole region.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

"South East Asia"

Way to raise awareness there, Millar.

This issue sucks for a host of reasons, but one of the worst IMO is when we have Millar, via Hawkmore, take a shot at Princess Di when talking about Jenny Sparks.

For all her flaws, Di was a real person who did good things, and Sparks is just a fictional character. Drawing tasteless comparisons should have been my first clue what a hack Millar is.

[scelestus]

This is exactly what I'd do if I had super powers.

There are times where I'll admit I'm not necessarily a good person.

[wizardru]

The biggest problems for me with Millar's approach is this:

1) Beings with this kind of power doing this is terrifying to normal humans. It's presented totally in a 'this is so RAD' style, here, with a 'why NOT let the superhumans take over' vibe, never once showing how the rank-and-file of the universe feel about demi-gods deciding to take over. We get a shot of Jack Hawksmoor explaining that it's not a take-over, why that's CRAZY TALK, but no reactions of fear. Why no, it's totally an Absolute Good, if only people would let these handful of people decide what's Best For Everyone.

2) It's makes the classic mistake of highlighting things that comics should never highlight, because it opens the door to how many things do not click. The Authority removes the regime in power...then what? We don't know and Millar doesn't care. The 'bad guys' are removed from power...and now the 'corporate masters' are forced to take over. Indonesia has, what, dozens of different ethnicities over multiple islands? But killing one corrupt leader and some generals will instantly create peace? All the various language, cultural and linguistic differences that created the situation are fixed?

3) It feels (and felt at the time, IMHO) tone-deaf. A bunch of Americans and Europeans travel to an Asian country and show them how to behave. I know Swift is supposed to be Asian herself, but rarely is drawn that way, from what I recall. None of these characters have their voices to reflect their diverse backgrounds (I only just found out that The Doctor was Dutch by googling it...I always assumed he was American). It feels very 'white man's burden' to me.

[reveen]

Actually, the Doctor being Dutch is really, really unfortunate for a superhero invading a country that's apparently supposed to be Indonesia. Indonesia used to be a Dutch colony, and the Netherlands were utter shits even compared to the other colonial powers.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1740_Batavia_massacre