the authority | the m0vie blog

New Escapist Column! On The Sincere Nerdery of James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DC Slate…

Posted on March 5, 2023 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist last month. With new creative heads James Gunn and Peter Safran announcing their slate of upcoming DC films, it seemed worth taking account of a production schedule that includes oddities like The Creature Commandos, The Authority and Swamp Thing.

In modern pop culture, “fannishness” is worn as a badge of honour. Producers and writers will often give interviews stressing their sincere affection for the source material with which they are working. However, these adaptations are often superficial or shallow, drawing on surface level details from the rich tapestry of these very old properties. What makes Gunn and Safran’s slate so appealing, even if it may never actually materialise, is that it genuinely feels like the work of enthusiastic and hardcore fans with a deepset and long-standing appreciation for the source material, complete with deep cuts.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Comics, Movies, Television | Tagged: Authority, comic books, Comics, creature commandos, dc, James Gunn, swamp thing, the authority, Warner Bros | Leave a comment »

The Absolute Authority, Vol. 2 (Review)

Posted on September 21, 2011 by Darren

With Wildstorm being officially folded into the relaunched DCU (the “DCnU”), I thought I might take a look at some of the more successful and popular Wildstorm titles that the company produced. In particular, The Authority, the superhero saga that spun out of Stormwatch – a series that is getting its own post-relaunch book written by Paul Cornell, easily one of my more anticipated titles.

In many ways, it was The Authority that established Mark Millar and Frank Quitely as talents to watch in their own rights, rather than through their associations with Grant Morrison. As a concept, the series was launched by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, but the duo picked their own replacements. I have to say, I think they chose rather wisely, even if the series has lost a rather considerable amount of its bite nearly a decade after its initial publication. That said, it’s still a highly entertaining superhero book, and one which had more than its fair share of influence on the mainstream titles over the last ten or so years.

There's a new Authority in town...

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Filed under: Comics | Tagged: All Star Superman, Bryan Hitch, censored, censorship in comic books, comic book review, comic book superheroes, comic books, controversy, dc universe, deconstruction, frank quitely, Garth-Morrison, jack kirby, jeph loeb, mark millar, midnighter, midnighter (comic books), midnighter (comics), Paul Cornell, politics, review, sencorship, superheroes, the authority, the authority (comic book), the authority (comics), warren ellis, wildstorm, world war ii | Leave a comment »

The Absolute Authority, Vol. 1 (Review)

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Darren

It’s really hard to grasp how much of a revolution Warren Ellis’ run on The Authority was, in hindsight. Sure, the writer had been playing with the idea of a more “real world” superhero team (at least in political and philosophical terms) since his original run on Stormwatch, but it was with The Authority that Ellis and Hitch managed to effectively lay out the design of superhero comics in the twenty-first century. It’s no coincidence that both halves of the creative team behind The Ultimates cut their teeth on the title (albeit at different times).