Daily Breakdowns 040 - Amazing Agents of Authority

Agents of Atlas
Written by Jeff Parker
Penciled by Leonard Kirk
Inked by Kris Justice with Terry Pallot
Published by Marvel Comics. $24.99 USD

You know, handing out a cup of rice to a starving African child sure looks more impressive than just normal, day-to-day parenting, doesn't it? What I mean is, when a writer does decent work about a bunch of characters no one gave a crap about for decades, it stands out more than, say, a decent effort on Spider-Man. So Jeff Parker actually has a little bit of an advantage going in.

That said, this is pretty good work. Seven Soldiers of Victory, Terra Obscura...I like those forgotten teams that were around before I was alive. I also like that in this first storyline, Parker comes close to, if not Golden Age, at least Silver Age pacing. The team gets together quickly and solves the mystery of who is behind the Atlas Foundation. I especially liked how quickly they investigated the various Atlas-named businesses--so many writers would have devoted an issue to each, where Parker just takes a panel or two. Of course, brisk pacing wouldn't matter if the story and characters weren't interesting, but they are. There's an appealing, straightforward innocence here: many of the heroes follow leader Jimmy Woo because he's a good guy and a good tactician and they trust him. That's all they need. Parker has done plenty of research to make these sixty year-plus old characters make sense, and that's all fine, but mainly I just liked them together doing their thing, and I especially liked the Yellow Claw recast not as inscrutable Asian mastermind but rather a playful genius who has accepted his place in the scheme of things and is only trying to bring his replacement, Woo, up to speed. I didn't like the cover or logo at all, but for the most part Kirk's art is on the money. Note: the trade is a little overpriced, arguably, in that the six issue miniseries is augmented with Golden and Silver Age appearances of the characters making up the team, and most of that old stuff isn't worth a damn.


The Authority: The Lost Year #3
Story by Grant Morrison and Keith Giffen
Script by Keith Giffen
Art by Darick Robertson and Trevor Scott
Published by Wildstorm. $2.99 USD

Picking up from where Morrison and Gene Ha left off after their two issues, Giffen is left with a story of superhumans dropped down into a world that's never had them before. As Giffen admitted before the book even came out, this is one of his least favorite kind of stories. Add to that few are at their best when they're working from someone else's outline, and no one ever accused Giffen of being similar in style to Morrison, and you've got a recipe for a misfire, if not an outright disaster. Oh, and I think the current The Authority ongoing by Abnett/Lanning is already dealing with what happened after this "lost year," so it's not like there will be a lot of surprises, right?

That said, I was still curious to see if the book would have any promise, and I have to say it's pretty dire. For one thing, it's alarming that a series that presumably had a pretty decent lead time to get its shit together has to use two artists, and Robertson's and Scott's styles aren't particularly compatible. It also doesn't look like Robertson's best work; it's pretty stiff and most of his scenes are dialogue-heavy and set in boring metal hallways. In fact, that's the biggest problem here, that in trying to get readers up to speed and moving the story beats along, Giffen seems to have forgotten one of the hallmarks of The Authority is big, mind-blowing images. Sure, there's a huge space-Cthulhu thing at the end, which is cool enough. But the wordless Midnighter assault at the beginning is poorly staged and dull, and then the pages in between these two events are almost entirely talking. The normal folks highlighted here aren't very interesting, and Giffen so far has only captured the broad strokes of the Authority members. One nice bit, though: Midnighter admitting that his conception of their purpose is right in line with fascism, and he doesn't have a problem with it at all. I suppose that question--can The Authority do good without taking over this world--is at the heart of the year's worth of story. But right now I'm not convinced I should stick around to find out the answer.



Amazing Spider-Man #612
Written by Mark Waid
Art by Paul Azaceta
Published by Marvel Comics. $3.99 USD

This is my first foray into the Spider-Man books since his twenty-year real time marriage to Mary Jane turned out not to be true. Come to think of it, I dropped out with the repellent Norman Osborn-has-sex-with-Gwen-Stacy garbage, so it's been a while since I caught up with my favorite superhero. It's hard to be absolutely sure yet, but I might be in good hands again with Waid and Azaceta.

This is the beginning of "The Gauntlet," whose cover--at least the variant--suggests Spider-Man will be dealing with a lot of his classic rogues gallery. As the issue goes, it's a complicated plan by Kraven the Hunter's daughter, and the first part of the plan involves Electro, who takes advantage of a controversial government bailout of the struggling "DB"--formerly the Daily Bugle--by its owner and current governor, Dexter Bennett. Electro transforms himself from second-rate supervillain into a kind of folk hero, a voice of the people, and somehow they lap up his lies about only ever going after banks and corporations and never endangering working citizens. Of course, Spider-Man picks the wrong time to make a preemptive strike on Electro, and I do take some issue with that--isn't Peter Parker really smart? Has he no sense of timing? Aside from that, not a bad effort at making an old villain a little deeper than he's been before, and good art from Azaceta apart from a kinda thuggish Parker.