AUTHORITY, THE 37
as part of the Dark Age series, provide insights regarding the evolution of content
in American superhero comics, even going as far as making the Silver Agent and his
subsequent execution a virtual allegory for the death of Silver Age comics. All of this
metatextual commentary is presented skillfully in a manner that does not crowd out or
overshadow the main story lines, which are often classic superhero tales.
Th e issues of Astro City are collected into trade paperbacks and published under var-
ious imprints, all overseen by Busiek’s company, Juke Box Productions. Th e series has
won numerous industry awards, including at least eight Eisner Awards , fi ve Harvey
Awa rd s , and four CBG Fan Awards. In addition to his personal Web site (available
at http://www.busiek.com/), Busiek also maintains http://www.astrocity.us/ which
reports on all the latest happenings in Astro City. Alex Ross and Brent Anderson both
keep their own Web sites, http://www.alexrossart.com/ and http://www.brentander
sonart.com/ respectively, where readers can browse original artwork from the series as
well as catch up on the artists’ other projects.
Craig Crowder
AUTHORITY, THE. The Authority is a superhero title created by Warren Ellis and
published by Wildstorm Productions starting in 1999, known particularly for its
widescreen action and violence. Many of its primary characters originated during the
time Ellis was writing for the previous Wildstorm title Stormwatch , which focused on
a government- sanctioned international superhuman squad. After a succession of in-
terceding writers, Ellis inherited Stormwatch from Image Comics founder and Wild-
storm Editorial Director Jim Lee , intensifying the political and ultra-violent nature of
the series. Ellis’s Stormwatch was briefl y relaunched in 1997 and ran approximately a
dozen issues before being spun into Th e Authority , which featured a far more indepen-
dent and extreme team of superhumans determined to safeguard Earth.
Ellis cleverly dismantled the Stormwatch force in the pages of an inter-company
crossover, WildC.A.T.s/Aliens. In his book How to Read Superhero Comics and Why ,
Geoff Klock suggests that, due to the special appearance of the Aliens property from the
fi lm franchise of the same name, it would be especially diffi cult for any future writer to
undo what Ellis wrote. Th at is, since the permission to depict the trademark-protected
Aliens would be a legal nightmare for subsequent projects, their slaughter of the Storm-
watch team would be Ellis’s Gordian knot, preventing time-travel, alternate realities,
or any other fi ctional convention from tampering with his decision. While the cross-
over has been reprinted since Klock’s observation, the general thrust of his argument
remains the same: Stormwatch ’s demise and, thus, Th e Authority ’s origin has not been
overturned.
In the wake of Stormwatch’s downfall, several of its remaining team members, many
of whom Ellis had himself created, took it upon themselves to form Th e Authority.
Th ey included a number of the more covert and ruthless of Stormwatch’s clandes-
tine Black team, such as the century-old but still-youthful Jenny Sparks, an electri-
city generator and manipulator; Midnighter, a dark Batman -esque, biotechnically
