"The Authority" - classic or dud

Started out classic--well, actually started out as a genuine dud called Stormwatch. Warren Ellis took it over a few years ago, and did some very, very interesting things with it, culminating in a pretty brilliant story called "Change or Die," in which a thinly disguised Justice League of America (plus the Shadow etc.) decides that they're going to use their superpowers and technology to overthrow the world's governments and establish an anarchist technological utopia; in response, the series' protagonists, who take their orders from the U.N., kill them all.

Then there's a year of a new Stormwatch series: three stories of increasingly massive scale, culminating in one in which most of Stormwatch gets killed off-panel by the alien from the _Alien_ movies. I am not kidding.

Finally, there's the Authority as such, which is fantastic but keeps hitting the "EVEN BIGGER!!!" button. I believe the new issue, which wraps up the Mark Millar storyline, is now going to be the final one for right now; there were originally supposed to be a few more stories by other writers, but a) it's had TERRIBLE scheduling problems over the last year or so, and b) there's simply nowhere to take it after the end of this story--it's maxed out.

they're meant to be getting Garth Ennis in to write it.

ye horrore.

As the man who gave Mark Millar his start in comics, I can't resist jumping in here, though I've only read the collections so I'm way behind. I thought Warren's version was a lively and imaginative new JLA style book with some strong ideas and a few characters I liked (The Engineer is a very good idea for a character, though insufficiently fleshed out). The first two stories, despite good moments, are dull as hell, however. The finale was better.

Mark Millar's first was, I thought, tremendous: the idea of Jack Kirby being a kind of supervillain-creation-guru was brilliant, one of those ideas that gave me a fixed smile while I was reading, and it had me thinking "Why didn't someone come up with this before?" Great fun, and a bravely low-key ending.

It's had good art all the way, which helps. Anyway, this is a comic for fans of superhero comics, not one where it's going to be of great interest to other people, I think. Too many in-jokes, too much reacting against the standards and paradigms.

The name is good, I might steal it next time I am out drinking. It would sound better than "fear me for I am Menelaus Darcy"

I foolishly bought the latest "The Authority" thinking it was by Grant Morrison.

It's actually by Norbert Morrison.

I nearly fell for that too! My friendly comic shop guy alerted me to it, though.

I've heard nothing but hatin' about the new Authority comics, so i have assiduously steered clear of them.

Really should get around to reading the original series, sometime.

my friendly comics shop guys are probably still laughing at me.

Comics shop guys aren't friendly.

Worst. Customer. Ever.

For what it's worth, Robbie Morrison (See here) is wrapping his Authority run up in the next couple of months, & Ed Brubaker (Catwoman, Sleeper, & so on) will be taking over soonish.