The Authority: Relentless

Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Bryan Hitch
Published by Wildstorm

In February of 1962, the face of superhero comics changed forever. It gained whiskers, a damp nose and an expressive tongue. The ass of superhero comics changed, too--it grew a tail.

That month's issue of Adventure Comics saw the debut of the Legion of Super-Pets. Comprised primarily of animals who assisted Superboy in his adventures, such as Krypto the Super-Dog and Beppo the Super-Monkey, the Legion was an ancillary organization to the 30th century's Legion of Super-Heroes. Presumably, the pets would assist the human Legion in their various adventures, while occasionally taking on casework of their own.

That's right, folks--they had PETS fighting evil. And this was before the widespread popularity of LSD.

You'd think that when you've reached the point where you've got super-powered animals invading the action, maybe it's time to take a break from the superhero genre, see what you can do with a shitkicking western or spooky horror tale. But superhero comics have endured, thrived and survived.

The spirit of the Legion of Super-Pets lives on, too, though not in such an outlandish and surreal manner. The past five years in superhero comics have been about pushing superheroes to extremes--Superman died, Batman lost his city to an earthquake and the JLA got trapped in a battle between Heaven and Hell. There's an element of super-pet insanity in all of those stories, and whether the stories lean toward melodramatic tension or rip-roaring adventure, writers are continually seeking to push the envelope into more wildly imaginative stories.

There's a healthy dose of the Super-Pet spirit in The Authority, too, though it's definitely played for high-concept superhero action, with a dash of sly humor thrown in for good measure. Writer Warren Ellis has taken the ashes of the Stormwatch team and dragged a phoenix from them--a moralistic phoenix with a subtle agenda to affect real change in the world they've pledged to protect. At the same time, Ellis and artist Bryan Hitch continue to push the envelope of superhero comics by substituting a fierce and original creative spirit for any of the pretensions of grim reality that plagued superhero books in the late eighties and early nineties.

The Authority: Relentless collects the first eight issues of the ongoing Authority series and depicts the team's first two adventures, both of which wouldn't feel too out-of-place alongside the most insane of Stan Lee's early Marvel adventures for the Fantastic Four. The first storyline pits the Authority against the island of Gamorra and its mad leader Kaizen. Kaizen has a cloning chamber where he's continually breeding an army of mindless soldiers who can fly and shoot lasers from their eyes and hands. As a matter of fact, the opening pages of the first issue depicts an army of thousands of these soldiers descending upon Moscow and obliterating the city. Kick-ass. Kaizen also gets to say lines like "Go, with my love...and my HATE," which automatically qualifies him for the Supervillain Hall of Fame.

Throughout both stories, the action doesn't let up--thanks to the Authority's mothership, the Carrier, they can step through an energy portal known as the Junction Room and appear anywhere on Earth. When they arrive on Earth, they quickly begin to kick bad guys around and generally save the planet. Unshackled by any constraints of reality, Ellis' mind goes spinning off into new ideas at the drop of a hat--the explanation for the Carrier's unique abilities could carry its own series, and yet Ellis tosses it off in a few panels, quickly moving on to the next wild concept. (He then throws out a new interdimensional location for the Carrier just about every time it appears, each one more outrageously creative than the next.)

That's the real joy of The Authority--the idea that these heroes act less as a protective force and more as a proactive one is established, but hasn't yet been developed at the end of the trade paperback collection. The characterizations are lively and lead to some clever one-liners; Ellis' gift for a great phrase is as visible here as in Transmetropolitan. But what floats The Authority above the other current superhero team books is the thrill of reading as Ellis executes such breathtaking leaps of creativity, and Hitch's pencils follow along without missing a step.