The Authority: The Nativity - Part 2

[history79]

Trigger Warning for Rape

DARIUS: Okay, now for the rape. When Apollo crashes, we see the Commander, the Captain America analogue, with his hands on his belt. When we next see the Commander, it looks like he’s zipping up. The clear implication is that the Commander has raped Apollo. Moreover, when the Commander enters the nursery in #13, he leaps over the counter and the Wasp analogue asks Tank Man, the Iron Man analogue, if he’s going to “do” them. The implication is that the Commander has liked sexual conquest with martial conquest, that he actualizes this upon the beaten bodies of everyone from Apollo, a powerful super-hero, to virtually helpless counter ladies. The DC message boards have been on fire about this.

MILLAR: I’m delighted and fascinated by the response. And you know what? I’m not telling. I want you to draw your own conclusions on this one. I’m leaving this open. I wrote the scene (and subsequent follow-ups) to be ambiguous and, like all the best drama and horror, I want the reader to use his or her imagination and make up their own mind. What intrigues me about this is that we saw the Commander (again off-camera) rape two nurses last issue and Tank Man burn a maternity ward full of sleeping babies.

DARIUS: Right. I loved that. “Are you kidding?”

MILLAR: An awful lot of people were very disturbed by this (and this was my intention), but I certainly didn’t write these scenes just for shock value. The emphasis on solving real world problems highlighted at the beginning of #13 was given a superhero twist here. Weren’t rape-camps and burning babies some of the most shocking things we heard about from, for example, Kosovo. And isn’t Kosovo, you might have noticed, where Earth’s Premiere Super-team honed their skills (according to Tank Man in #14)?

DARIUS: The point about how these tactics, burning babies and whatnot, are real-world tactics is particularly salient, I think. Somehow, when it’s in art, people get offended. It’s like there were no concentration camps — or like art should just entertain, like some Disney cartoon, always alluding enough to vice to tantalize but never being so obvious as to cause a moral revulsion.

Source: http://sequart.org/magazine/2186/mark-millar-on-the-authority/



8 pages of 24

Comments

[crimsonmoonmist]

Midnighter's got all of Batman's smarts and brooding atmosphere.
Yet is also open enough about his feelings that he can bond with a random superthug
on the battlefield and neutralize him with a simple hug.
This is what I wanted Bruce to develope into for all these years,
yet whenever he learns to open up, the status quo sends him right back
into the tired brooding asshole mode that always greatly disappoints me whenever it happens.
Thank god for Midnighter and the higher ups at DC who allowed him to have his own book today.

[chalicother]

To be fair, comicbook characters depend on their characterizations to bring in readers. If you get rid of batman's flaws, you might lose readership. Honestly the only media you can really expect character development from is movies , television, and animation. Due to the fact that they have to end. Characters such as Batman, though are flagship characters and have to continually exist. Midnighter is nowhere as known as some of the extended and internal bat family members. You can have him defy his own status quo. It's one of the things great about the obscure heroes , they have the chance to really develop.

[lb_lee]

Yup! It's actually one of the reasons I can't really like forefront heroes in the Big Two, because they aren't really allowed to CHANGE. I always enjoyed more minor league characters like, say, Amanda Waller or Guy Gardner because they were actually allowed to grow and change over time.

It's also why I tend to enjoy superhero cartoons way more than the comics. You summed it up really well!

[icon_uk]

Which is why we have the DCAU Batman who can punch the Joker's lights out, or sit quietly holding the hand of a dying girl (who happens to have god-like reality-warping powers) so she won't be alone at the end.

[joetuss]

At least Batman doesn't kill people

[cyberghostface]

Kind of funny how we can have graphic violence and rape but can't have swearing.

[wizardru]

But not 'funny ha-ha', just 'funny strange'. The 'censorship' of Millar's Authority run was weird; seeing the pencils and what was changed only makes it moreso.

[halloweenjack]

I tend to think that most of the "censorship" in Millar's Authority run concerns scenes that he deliberately put in to generate publicity for him and his book, aided considerably by regular cites in Lying in the Gutters (Rich Johnston's venue pre-Bleeding Cool), that made him look edgy at the expense of DC, whom he was about to kick to the curb anyway in moving to Marvel and his own creator-owned work anyways. But, then again, DC wasn't really covering itself in glory anyway, with their genuine censorship of one A. Moore in the most petty and pointless manner after reassuring him that their acquisition of WildStorm from Jim Lee wouldn't result in their interfering with his America's Best Comics in any way.

[rainspirit]

That's a great Midnighter moment. I love that his understanding of human psychology lets him use it for gestures of both compassion and compassionate cruelty.

[sagrada]

Yeah, those were real things. This is not about those real things, this is about how the Authority is better than the Avengers because they're trying to change their fictional world. There is a slight difference.

Also that green colour is incredibly ugly. I can only imagine it's supposed to make them look more "military", but it just makes it look like we're seeing them through a filter. Which going by the link sadoeuphemist shared last issue is probably the case.

[silicondream]

Was it ever explained how the Doctor's goggles are attached to his face?

[razsolo]

"It's magic, we don't have to explain it" ;)

[thatnickguy]

Heh, I know that quote was Joe Quesda being a jerkface, but in this case, I'm oddly okay with that explanation.

[baihu]

To this day I lament that Singapore got written about by Millar instead of Ellis...

Though at least he did draw the place minimally, so it's not wholly inaccurate. The part where the administration would be in disarray is a bit laughable though, our government's crazy prepared for just about anything, including a bomb being set-off in the city center and this looks like it's just Chinatown. Especially since this comic's in the era where LKY's still alive.

[nyadnar17]

I'm sorry can some explain to me how they beat the Doctor? I see scans of him beat up often, but never the actual beating.

How the hell do you beat a guy who's powers are basically Calvinball.

[sagrada]

I think it's just a case of "if they can see you coming, you lose" with the Doctors. Somebody got the drop on him I'd guess.

[beeyo]

In this particular case I believe there was some kind of power dampened in place. After Apollo and the rest showed up, The Doctor took Jenny and escaped into his weird dream realm. One of the bad guys followed him, kicked his ass, and took Jenny.