(via Lost Authority by ~Roboworks on deviantART)
Basically, some lost pages from a (hilarious) 2 issue arc of The Authority: the Lost Year. click through and download to see the big version. some things are the same, but other pages (and costumes!) have been changed dramatically.
Bad, bad coloring work.
Source: Stormwatch #1 (volume 3)
It’s not the colorist that does that, it’s Miguel Sepulveda, half the stuff in his art is copy and pasted from photographs. He’s awful. It happens in Red Lanterns too.
So sad to read this. Not that I wasn’t seceptical to the wildstorm migration of them but still… Had hopes.
I know… it’s like… Wildstorm had a very different tone than DC, so it was always going to be a challenge, and under ideal circumstances I would want them kept separate. But Wildstorm was ending, some bad editorial decisions and Grant Morrison up and leaving Wildcats and Authority after two whole issues kinda ensured the universe was no longer viable to keep going. I think at the end it was down to like 5,000 issues per month, which simply can’t be profitable. So, it was basically down to rolling the characters into DC or just letting them fade away. Neither one is a great solution, but it was all that could be done at that point. I think rolling the characters into DC CAN work with the right approach, but I don’t think they came close to that with Stormwatch. Team 7 comes pretty close to getting it right, though. It’s a little rough, but I think it has potential, and there seems to be a respect for where these characters came from and what people found appealing about them which isn’t present in Stormwatch, Grifter etc. I REALLY hope my pipe dream theory about Bronson and Higgins being Apollo and Midnighter in that pan out. It would fix SO MUCH, and all it needs is some erased memories to make it work, and they had their memories erased in their original origin anyway and Lynch is right THERE… He erased memories quite a few times in Wildstorm. Since the time i first posted about that, evidence has built for Bronson being Apollo, not Majestic which was the other main choice. Mainly, we finally saw his hair, and he’s blond, it’s also becoming clear that his suit gives him a set of powers and weaknesses VERY similar to Apollo, minus all the sun stuff (which admittedly is a big part of Apollo, but still). So I’m hopeful.
I don’t think the Authority is a good fit, unfortunately, it’s too large scale. But I think the characters can work in solo books or on other teams. (it sounds like the new JLA would be a good fit for many of them if it wasn’t already crammed with like 9 characters) but for solo, let’s face it, many of the sales from Stormwatch right now come from fans of Midnighter and to a slightly lesser extent Apollo, they are the biggest draw. They’re featured prominently on most of the covers, and the story revolves around them. If Stormwatch characters appear in other comics it’s been Midnighter appearing twice in Grifter, once in Deathstroke (which, I must say, was a stroke of brilliance from Kyle Higgins, (…wait a sec. HIGGINS. Could Jordan have given the character that name on purpose because Kyle Higgins was the one who established the Deathstroke/Midnighter connection, and Team 7 is where they meet? mind blown if Higgins actually does end up becoming Midnighter.) and I hope it’s built on by Justin Jordan when he takes over Deathstroke, because those two characters are PERFECT adversaries), and once in I, Vampire, and Apollo and Midnighter will be in the Valentine’s Day special. of the others, Apollo and Jack shared the I, Vampire appearance, and Angie and Apollo shared one of the Grifter appearances, and beyond that, nothing. People want Midnighter, obviously. I think he could have supported a solo (well, duo with Apollo) book easy. Midnighter supported a solo book already as recently as 2008 for like 20 issues. He’s the one who should have gotten a solo, not Grifter. But they can still do it. Get a good creative team, and make a sign that they’re returning to his roots somewhat (give him back his damn coat already, for a start) on the covers etc. and I think you could win back fans of his who felt burned by Stormwatch.
It was like DC was trying too hard to make it different and fresh, that they forgot what made the characters appealing in the first place. Then they got stubborn, like they were going to stick to their guns even if the new approach clearly wasn’t working. I would have been fine with some changes, but it feels like their CORE is gone, especially early on. I will give Peter Milligan credit for bringing Apollo and Midnighter’s personalities a bit closer to what people expect from them. Cornell had Midnighter as a creepy stalker with a crush that talked a mile a minute, and Apollo as an angry standoffish personality, they just didn’t feel right at all, it was almost like their personalities were switched. Milligan made Midnighter the driven badass he should be… or close to it anyway. I don’t like this angst over how violent he is, but he talks a lot less, which is a good thing, he seems to always be looking for a fight, as it should be, and the creepy stalker vibe vanished. Apollo got his nice guy personality and impulsive/reckless streak back as well. But it seems we’ve gotten that at the expense of Angie who has just been destroyed, which is unfortunate. Also, Apollo’s dialogue in battle has been terrible. But… still a step in the right direction. (Jack Hawksmoor does not have much of a personality at all, which is sad, but can be fixed)
I doubt any big changes will happen until the book’s been cancelled, though. On the up-side, at least from my perspective, it’s sales are sitting at 17,621 as of issue 13, and dropping about 1000 readers a month, 15,000ish seems to be the point where books start being cancelled due to low sales, so…
Since I brought it up in a previous post in response to The Engineer enacting rules against romances on the current Stormwatch. Jackson King catches Farenheight and Hellstrike in an, um, intimate moment, awesomeness ensues, and he rescinds rules against relationships. From Stormwatch vol. 2 #4 and #5.
The end of Midnighter. January’s solicits seem to suggest that Midnighter goes rogue. Does this make anyone else nervous?
Late reply, just saw it int he Stormwatch tag. But I’m actually kinda hoping he (and Apollo. Apollo’ll come to his senses, you know he will, DC would never split them up. The cover is just to get you to buy it) DO leave… as long as they have somewhere else to go. Look at the timing of this story, it’s right when a bunch of books are getting cancelled, and, this is the important bit, new ones are being launched. OK, it’s a long shot, I know. But I mean, we can hope for an Apollo and Midnighter book, right? :p I just think that, even if you ignore what happened in Wildstorm, they are not a good fit for Stormwatch in terms of their ideals. Midnighter is too much of a lone wolf, doesn’t trust the leadership, and is more concerned with people-based problems than the space based stuff Stormwatch deals with. He wants to stop people being bastards to eachother. and Apollo has flat out said he has real problems with Stormwatch’s strict policy of secrecy, he wants to be out in the open. So maybe they should leave and just do their own thing, or join a team that better fits their ideals.
Oh Apollo, you’re so awesome. Though I really would have liked to see Midnighter tear the Joker apart…
I was reading an article about Multiversity the other day, (which you should check out, it’s got some Frank Quitely art and sounds pretty cool) and it ended up reminding me how much I miss the Bleed, Shift Ships, all that, and I sincerely hope that the reason DC has not included the Bleed in the new 52, (despite it already being canon in previous continuity, and including most of the Authority characters) is because they promised Grant Morrison he could introduce it in Multiversity.
Hyperspace is no proper substitute for the Bleed, and the Eye is simply not worthy to take the place of the Carrier. The Bleed had this typically Warren Ellis vibe to it, which other writers seem to have trouble with. It was based on real science, but the way it was depicted was poetic and evocative; it inspired a sense of wonder and awe that’s just not there with Hyperspace as it’s being used in Stormwatch right now, where it’s a mere backdrop and means to remain undetected. That sense of wonder, I don’t know why, but other writers just seem to not quite get it. Planetary was ALL ABOUT capturing that sense of wonder, and that’s one of the reasons it’s so cool.
Back to Grant Morrison and Multiversity. I am getting a strong hunch that the Bleed may well feature, for a few reasons. One, the story is all about alternate dimensions, which is all the Bleed was when boiled down to it’s core, the stuff between dimensions, through which Shift Ships such as the Carrier could travel. This makes it a logical place to include the Bleed if DC is planning on ever using it again. Two, in Multiversity communication across dimensions is achieved through the pages of comic books. This seems strange, (it IS Grant Morrison) but the Bleed is named after the bleed area on a comic book page, so it all fits. Three, in his ill-fated run on the Authority, which lasted a whopping 2 issues, they ended up trapped on our Earth, or at least one one very similar to it. Jack and the Doctor end up in a comic shop…
So. Just like in Multiversity, comic books are acting as a means of communication across dimensions. They may be reading about their own adventures, but they are in a different universe. And finally… Grant Morrison says in that article that he’s been working on Multiversity for 6 years. Guess how long ago his Authority run was. Go on, guess. I think his unfinished run on the Authority was the seed of the idea behind Multiversity, basically. It may involve different characters now, maybe even a whole new plot, I really couldn’t say, I am not sure how close they stuck to his plot for the Lost Year, so… But I do think the seed of the idea for Multiversity began there, with the Authority getting stuck outside their dimension when the Carrier’s power source (a baby universe. see? that’s so much cooler than some old Daemonite relic) died. I have my doubts about seeing the REAL Authority again, since there are new versions of many of the characters in the new DCU, but the Bleed is still missing, and I can see no good reason for it’s exclusion, especially since they’ve already had some characters doing some dimension hopping. So I am hoping that the plan all along was to have Morrison introduce the concept in Multiversity.
