Superman and the Authority

Grant Morrison started writing comics for DC over thirty years ago and, according to him, this is going to be his last.  It’s fitting, then, that it’s a story about Superman confronting his fading powers, his mortality, and deciding what he wants to do with the time left to him.  In the Man of Steel’s case, it involves him assembling a team for off-the-books operations with a power set that complements and compensates for his own.  It’s also a team that’s as much about giving greater exposure to underappreciated heroes as it is about giving second chances to those who may not even think they deserve it.  Which is why most of the first issue is given over to professional tosspot Manchester Black as Superman tries to convince the man who has tried to kill him on multiple occasions to try and work with him for once.

“Superman and The Authority” won’t stand alongside Morrison’s best work in the DCU – his “JLA” and “Batman” runs, as well as “All-Star Superman” – but it’s a fun little swan song that spotlights the writer’s strengths.  So expect to see plenty of clever uses of super-powers, smart uses of logic to defeat super-villain thinking, and an overriding sense of optimism about the human condition that likes to wear cynicism like a cool jacket.  It also features some great art from Mikel Janin who illustrates the majority of this miniseries and gives it a sense of grace and beauty even as the fists and feet start flying along with the electrical discharges.  He also gets some nice assistance from Travel Foreman, Evan Cagle, and Fico Ossio.

Morrison has also been dishing about this miniseries’ origins as part of the failed “5G” initiative on his Xanadum newsletter over at Substack.  From what I’ve heard, it’s impressive that it turned out as well as it did.  “Superman and The Authority” also sets up the current storyline in Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s current run in “Action Comics” and I’ll admit that I’m now more curious to check it out.  So it’s nice to see Morrison setting up another writer’s run in a story that’s all about wrapping things up and moving on and doing it quite well in the process.