Product Description

High above the planet, aboard a fifty-mile-wide alien vessel, The Authority - seven awesomely powerful meta-humans - act as bouncers for the Earth. If you threaten the life and liberty of its inhabitants, they'll get nasty in the pursuit of your blood. Reality Incorporated is the first ever multiversal business corporation. They strip-mine and globalise on a universal scale. Now they want The Authority's technology as their next exploitable resource or they'll reduced the Earth to an asteroid cloud. The Authority has only one answer - fight's on! The latest volume in this acclaimed, gut-crunching series features a brilliant new creative team to pitch The Authority once more into action!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #917104 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Review
The List, 27 May-10 June 2004: " The Authority has a pretty respectable pedigree...an intelligent swipe at consumerism writ large across multiple universes with added super powers."

Customer Reviews

No great shakes
It's a shame, but so many great comic series lose their way when their originator moves on to pastures different. It looked like The Authority (itself that rarest of beasts, a spinoff as successful as it's original title) was going to dodge this pitfall when writing duties fell into the safe hands of Mark Millar. But his run has come to an end and the drop in quality is staggering.

The Authority has succeeded as a series because of the sharp balance it paints between the political lives of the most powerful beings in the world and the private lives of a group of reasonably screwed up individuals.

Harsh Realities shies away from the political depth of previous story arcs, the group's relationships are treated in a heavy handed way and worst of all the team use their colossal powers in the most tedious ways. Jack Hawksmoor, surely one of the most interesting superheroes of the last few years, seems to now rely on the 'dive into the ground and then burst up causing an explosion' tactic almost exclusively. The whole team do nothing more than 'HULK SMASH' from start to finish.

That said, the world in which The Authority is set is interesting enough to carry the lacklustre plotlines along. Jenny Quantum, Jenny sparks reborn for the 21st Century, is a great character (an all-powerful toddler). The artwork's pretty good. This is a better graphic novel than a lot I'll read this year.

If you've got this far with the Stormwatch/Authority series you're not going to put off by just one dud, but be aware that this isn't the jewel in the crown.

Refreshing
I've always enjoyed the Authority stories, but I have to admit that when Warren Ellis left after #12, the series didn't have the same luster and quality that it had begun with. Harsh Realities overturns this quite neatly, breathing new life into the series. There are a few disconcerting quirks, but most reflect a new maturity on the part of the characters. They seem smoother and more comfortable with their place in the world, and the stories seem more coherent than in the previous collections. Definitely a worthwhile investment for any Authority fan, but those not familiar with the series should start with The Authority:Relentless, or one of the Stormwatch collections.