Reviewed: The Authority #15 by Mark Millar, Frank Quitely and Trevor Scott; Published by DC/Wildstorm.
The plot: The group learns the truth about the enemies that have made off with Jenny Quantum, and move to take back the infant, who is the reincarnation of Jenny Sparks and the Spirit of the 21st Century.
The twisted roller-coaster ride that is the Millar/Quitely Authority continues, as the team licks its wounds from the thrashing it got last month at the hands of an Avengers-like squad of sadistic superbeings. There are some nice, quiet character moments here, including a nice swipe at Jack Hawksmoor after he bitches about where his tax dollars are going ("What are you talking about? According to your FBI file, you haven't filed a return since 1987."), and a terrific interlude between the Midnighter and Apollo.
Millar and Quitely introduce a new element to the mythos, the Hive-Mind, a sort of virtual reality where the team is able to get together in cyberspace, with access to visual tools unavailable in the real world. We learn, in this segment, of the ascension of Dr. Krigstein, who provided hundreds of superheroes to the U.S Government, all of them cooked up in his fevered imagination ("The kind of man who probably would have created all your favourite comic book characters if he hadn't been snapped up by Eisenhower at the end of the war."); it's "What if Stan and Jack were Evil and Worked for the Government?"
The Marvel pastiche will apparently continue next issue, as the final page sees the Authority attacked by a team I can only hope are called the Uncanny Y-Women. Millar and Quitely may be getting a little cute, but my guess is that this arc will serve as much as an exploration of the Marvel mindset as a rollicking superhero brawl. However it turns out, I'm in. The Authority is the best superhero comic published today.
