I have thrown in my 2 cents on the issue of how accurate the Elite is to Millar’s Authority. I feel that they are an accurate representation, or at least, not a severe exaggeration. If we want to include civilian deaths, pull back a bit to include Ellis’ run and I’m pretty sure everyone in Sliding Albion Earth’s Italy would qualify. Several posters seem to feel that early Millar’s Authority was somehow more heroic than the Elite; this is not a statement I agree with, and I have backed that opinion up, including qualifiers regarding degree of exaggeration and examples not yet brought forward to support my opinion.

In 24 posts, I saw no response to T’s statement that Superman defeated the Elite by acting more like them. Did I miss it? If not, I provided it.

I suppose Ricardo hit my last paragraph, but it makes a nice summation paragraph for why I in particular like this book, so I left it in. If I didn’t have other issues I wanted to address, it probably would have been my whole post on this issue.

No big problem, really, it’’s just that you still seem to be saying that this story is satirizing a phase/version of the Authority which hadn’t happened yet. I get what you’re saying about how “the Authority after Millar almost became their own parody” but when this came out Millar was still on the book, so I’m not sure how what you’re saying helps this story’s case.

I’d say this is a parody of Millar’s Authority as he seemed to miss the balance that Ellis had set up for them, and they did basically act like a bunch of drunken, orgy loving brutes.
Throw in the fact they spent every issue talking about how they were changing everything for superheroes, despite never actually doing that (they took down one dictator, and then spent the run fighting supervillains) and they really do look a lot like The Elite.

For anyone who maintains that Millar did a good job with The Authority, go read his Jenny Sparks mini… utterly terrible.

Anyhoo – Millar’s Authority? Superheroes who enjoy killing and do it as SOP. The Elite? Superheroes who enjoy killing and do it as SOP. There may be something to be said that Manchester Black sics the Hat on some villains families, but really, it’s not that far a cry.

Also, Superman wins by acting like the Elite not because he has to, but because he is making a point. What he does is knock them out, the way Superman always does, but in such a way that it looks like he did something much worse. The point he is making is that people think Superman is out of date and should start being more hardcore, but Superman acting that way isn’t Superman, and it’s terrifying to those he defends. The world wants heroes like the Elite, bad mammer jammers who don’t take no crap off of no one, but they want Superman there at the same time, to fall back on, to depend on, to stand for something. When it looks like that’s gone, like Superman has decided it’s time to punch through someone’s head because that way he’ll win and they won’t bother him again? When “They saw all the ugliness. The anger… and I bet it frightened them.”

This is a story about who Superman is and why he has to be that way. This is the story I give to people who think Superman is dumb and out of date and a pointless big blue boy scout. I gave it to all of my friends when it came out. I don’t like Mahnke’s art, but this is one of my favorite comics in my collection.

I have to admit, I never thought about Kingdom Come like that (your views about the actions of Superman there make sense), but I still think it’s a great story.

I think that what Waid and Kelly are protesting is the fact that this type of “extreme” superheroism became so popular and that the older heroes were seen as outdated and ineffective simply because they wouldn’t torture and kill the bad guys. They might have come a little too strongly,but I think it was a point that had to be made. Waid had Superman leave because the public didn’t want him anymore. They wanted Magog. I don’t think that shows perseverance or spirit on his part. He and the other heroes like him were simply what people (comic book readers included) wanted at the time.

And yes, Coup D’Etat came after this issue of Action Comics and by then the Authority might as well have been called Thunderbolts for all the heroes that they had in the lineup

Coup D’Etat didn’t come out until 2004, so this story could not have been a statement about or satire of that much later period of the Authority.

If this is true, I wonder if what happened is that the creators of Coup D’Etat were fans of this story and altered the real Authority to make them more like the Elite. Because I never read Coup D;Etat but I agree that Ellis’s Authority were never this bad. If they were made to become as bad and unlikeable as the Elite a few years after this story was made, it makes sense that the influence of this story played a role.

I agree with T when he says that the Elite was too easy a target and the message came across heavy-handed but I think that Kelly is simply trying to make the same point that Mark Waid did with Kingdom Come: there’s nothing wrong with the so-called old school heroism and this new breed of heroes is not all it’s cracked up to be

Problem is, I hate Kingdom Come even worse. It’s an even bigger failure in what it sets out to accomplish than this story, and even more heavy-handed and sanctimonious. Saying it’s like Kingdom Come is not a compliment in my book. Kingdom Come Superman basically gets mad at new-school heroes for not doing things his way, so what does he do? The equivalent of a little kid playing touch football who gets a bad call, he sulks and takes his ball and goes home to pout. He just stops fighting crime altogether because they won’t play his way. The new school heroes, we’re supposed to hate them for being so extreme or something, but I ended up admiring them because AT LEAST THEY NEVER GAVE UP. They kept trying to make a difference until the end. They never threw in the towel. What’s so heroic about Superman in that story? That he’s a spoiled brat diva who won’t come back to save the world unless it comes back and begs him to his satisfaction. If the new heroes are really as bad as you say, that’s even MORE reason to stay in the game and lead by example, not sulk and wallow in self-pity. He’s basically waiting for them to fail and screw up so that they can see he was right and he can say I told you so and lecture them. It’s the usual problem with DC….they tell, don’t show. They feel if they just tell you something in-story enough, like Superman is the ultimate self-sacrificing and inspirational hero, there’s no need to show it with any actual corresponding actions. Seeing Superman fail to save the new heroes in the end and then have the audacity to give one of his typical heavy-handed speeches while everyone kisses his ass for some of the most unheroic and selfish behavior I’ve seen from a superhero really nauseated me.

You’re absolutely right. Coup D’Etat came out much after this issue of Action Comics. My point was that the Authority after Millar almost became their own parody.

And even from the beginning the Authority was a very violent and no-nonsense team that obviously wouldn’t appeal to everyone.

I agree with T when he says that the Elite was too easy a target and the message came across heavy-handed but I think that Kelly is simply trying to make the same point that Mark Waid did with Kingdom Come: there’s nothing wrong with the so-called old school heroism and this new breed of heroes is not all it’s cracked up to be

Any comic who nods to “The Wild Bunch” has got to be awesome as well.

Remember the Coup D’Etat crossover? Where they simply decide to kill the President and take over? There was no heroism in the Authority by then.

Fair enough, I stopped reading by then so you may very well be right.

I’m even more glad I didn’t pick that comic up, now.

That’s because it isn’t. There is nothing jingoistic about the story at all, aside from the fact that Manchester Black is British and Superman is American, and Superman wins. Does that make any story that features the Titans beating up the Brotherhood of Evil jingoistic because Mallah & The Brain are French? Absolutely not. Manchester Black does not represent the “British Way” at all — if anyone thinks that, they have a low opinion of British culture and morality.

There’s no “rah rah, America, F#ck yeah, Britain sucks!” in this story at all.

When the Authority first appeared, I agree that they bore no resemblance to this Elite and were a really great, albeit tough superhero team(they were in good hands. Ellis, then Millar), but after that I’d say that they more than deserve this treatment.

Remember the Coup D’Etat crossover? Where they simply decide to kill the President and take over? There was no heroism in the Authority by then.