Rotting Era!!

Hey how you doing. I'm so sorry for the super late reply— school's been kicking my balls for the past 3 months.

About the Authority, unfortunately, I can't in good coincidence recommend Wildstorm comics without a disclaimer. A lot of WS media is really, really, REALLY dated and I don't want to set the wrong expectations going in.

If you find yourself stuck, treat the process like it's media archaeology.

I love Wildstorm is because it the perfect time capsule of the 90s- 00s. You can see the birth of the modern culture war, the death of class analysis, and the consequences of Reagan-era policies. It's really fascinating.

Oh and the silver woman is the Engineer aka Angela Spica. She shows up in Authority 1, 1999.

And heads up, the main architect of the Authority is Warren Ellis, a man accused of and admitted to sexually coercing multiple people.

Reading order—Ill do my best:

Stormwatch:

tbh you can skip most of this. Stormwatch is an Image comics property that didn't sell well. It's a UN sponsored super human team. Stormwatch Jul #37, Warren Ellis was brought onboard to turn the ship around.

Stormwatch #37-#50: Jenny, Swift, Jack introduced to Stormwatch. If you don't read it, it's fine dw. Although, check out issue #44— really, really cool homage to comics. SW ends with everyone dead in an Aliens crossover event.

Authority 1999/Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch 1-12: Jenny's arc begins in Stormwatch #37, and ends in Authority #12.

#1-12 reads as a stand alone as a y2k disaster story, end of the world etc. etc. The engineer is introduced issue one without much explanation— basically, she's a scientist who gained access to Stormwatch tech and becomes superhuman.

Authority #13-29/ Millar, Quitely: It's a hard read... Very controversial but series/genre defining run. To put it succinctly, it is the spiritual precursor to the Boys. To make reading more bearable, look at the date of publication and try to recall what happened that year (9-11, George Bush election upset, war on terror). If you read the Ultimates (Marvel), a lot of its... quirks? Were tested here

IMO, there is one line in the final arc that makes this worth it.

Authority 2003-2004/ (Grant) Robbie Morrison: A lot of people don't like this run, I thought it was fine. It's introduced a lot of cool high scifi concepts but didn't do too much with them. Dunks on scientology before dunking on scientology was cool.

the Authority Coup d'etat—>Revolution/ Ed Brubarker, Dustin Nguyen: Another series defining run— btw Henry Bendix, if you skipped Stormwatch, is the old leader of the organization. This pre-dates Marvel's Civil War (written by Mark Millar).

Authority Lost Year, Grant Morrison: Things happen. the team gets trapped in space. Wrestle with the consequences of Revolution.

Authority World's End 2008-2011: ill keep it 100 with you, I don't remember why the world ended. This was a big Wildstorm comic crossover event and sets up the N-52 merge.

Dog, I'm gonna sound like a dick.

Heres a pretentious tangent:

I've been trying figure out what this story intends to say since reading it 7 years ago. IMO, Stormwatch #37–The Authority #12 functions as an accidental rejection of Francis Fukuyama’s End of History—the idea that humanity has reached the endpoint of political evolution. All forms of governance inevitably will converge toward neoliberal democracy. Jenny Sparks embodies the listless final years of the 20th century: her life was marred by unimaginable suffering, insurmountable geopolitical conflict, and the ideological drift into neoconservatism and neoliberalism. I thought Jenny Sparks' last hurrah reads as a dying struggle against the void—a desperate struggle against comfortable complacency. She sober up (slightly) from her consumerist slumber to see there is no rapture. There is no revolution. To wait for John Cumberland is akin to waiting for Godot.

Hindsight 2025, we look back at Fukuyama and scoff but, in 1999, a lot of people genuinely thought that Clintonomics, neoliberal democracy was it. And I say accidental refutation because I'd argue Ellis, in 1999, was squarely a liberal. I'd point to Transmetropolitan as evidence of his then politics. Transmet contained the underlying belief that the truth mattered. That we live in a system where justice will prevail when bad apples are exposed as frauds, cheater, liars, fascists.

20th century end on a triumphant note, but not without with a warning: Change is inevitable, progress is not.

There is a lot more I can say about this series. I got 7 years worth of showers monologues to pen on paper.

I'm so sorry for dumping this on you. IDK ab N-52 very much. The DC merge is not for me so idk the deets.