The Authority Books 3 and 4 from DC Comics

I reported on The Authority graphic novel collections before, and how impressed I was with where the book was going. The comic book was doing some very interesting things as it was the only super-team that was doing what most super teams generally don't: really start fixing the world. I felt book 2 of the collected works could have taken this concept farther, because I never felt that the Authority was ever dealing with anything but a bunch of super-powered enemies.

In fact, this was the basis of Book 3: a big battle with an evil super-villain. And when I mean big, I mean big. Apparently, the poles of the Earth are reversing themselves due to something that occurred in Book 2. The book never got into details as to what would happen if that actually occurs, but you get to see New York get flooded like at the end of Deep Impact.

The only way to stop it is to evacuate the planet of its populace. All this is done by moving the Earth's population to Alternate worlds. Don't ask me how, but they get it done.

After that, the Authority must put their hopes in a former Doctor. The Doctor is a member of the Authority whose powers are stem from sorcery, and this Doctor is a title that gets transferred every once in a while. Supposedly, this is a tip of the hat to Doctor Who.

That little adventure clears up in a way that didn't make any sense to me at all, along with the next mission. This involved some sort of Russian spaceship crewed by zombies, and a man named Adam Bomb. This story ends with pretty much no explanation whatsoever.

Fortunately, there is Volume 4. This one starts out with a bang as a super-villain shows up and kills the Authority. At least, that's what it looks like. Oddly enough, a new Authority is ready to replace the old one. We find out later that the government didn't trust the old Authority and essentially replaced them with versions who they could control. In fact, this version of the Authority is practically a mirror image of the old one. This Authority does some pretty heinous things, under the leadership of the Colonel (who, as far as I can tell, is David Beckham).

I wouldn't be surprised if the comic lost a lot of readers when this new Authority was replaced. However, the old Authority was simply put into holding. You may be asking yourself: why didn't they just kill them off? That's easy: the Old Authority has to break out and kick butt and take names. And that is exactly what happens, but it is so spectacular.

I suppose it would be easy to just assume that only even-numbered Authority graphic novel collections are good, sort of like Star Trek movies. That would be too easy, though.