The Ultimates

Mark Millar, Bryan Hitch & Andrew Currie
The Ultimates volume one (2002)
I'm confused. For some reason I was under an impression of this having been the gritty version of Marvel's Avengers which inspired The Authority by Warren Ellis and prompted Alan Moore to apologise for that whole violent, unhappy superheroes with herpes and criminal convictions trope resulting from the entire comics industry having missed the point of Watchmen; but the dates all seem to be in the wrong order, so I have no idea which came first, who inspired what, or whose fault it is.

Well anyway, if nothing else, it's fairly clear that The Ultimates was a significant influence on Marvel's big screen version of the Avengers, a film I very much enjoyed as it happens, although  enjoyed without necessarily wanting to rush out and see it again. The Ultimates, I guess taking cues from The Authority, re-imagined Marvel's Avengers from the ground up, and being sprung forth from the biro of Mark Millar, it's well told, brilliantly observed, and undeniably cinematic - partially helped by great art, of course. The marginally more fanciful elements of the mythology are revised to aid suspension of disbelief, so the Hulk no longer results from Banner's exposure to transforming radiation, and we learn that basic biology prevents Giant Man from growing taller than sixty feet, this being the limit beyond which his bones would no longer be able to support his body. I'm sure Richard Dawkins would still find something to moan about, but you have to make a few allowances, otherwise you're just left with a story about a guy called Marty who sells shrimp from the back of his van.

As a comic book, it's impressive and kind of fascinating, but is let down by the fact of most of its characters being horrible tossers, presumably for the sake of Alan Moore patented gritty realism, without much in the way of wit to redeem them - which is why the film worked better, I thought. Additionally, the scene in which Hank Pym beats up his wife, and the rampaging Hulk's apparent intention to rape some former girlfriend cast an extraordinarily unpleasant tone over the whole endeavour, and enough so as to ensure that I probably won't be bothering to pick up further volumes. I've defended Mark Millar's gratuitous use of shock on previous occasions because for the most part I tend to think he gets it just right and has thus generally been able to justify a few readers throwing up over their comic collections, but this is horribly misjudged, and is probably exactly what his critics have been talking about all along.

Despite everything this book has going for it - yuck!

The Authority volume one: Restless

Warren Ellis & Bryan Hitch The Authority volume one: Restless (1999)
What can I say in my defence? I'd already read volume two and concluded that the work of Warren Ellis was probably mostly wank smuggled in under the comics radar on the grounds of him holding a British passport, but it was cheap and Bryan Hitch's art is beautiful throughout. Give the fucker a second chance, I thought to myself.

The Authority is the first great superhero team book of the twenty-first century. Beside it, everything else seems pale and stale and repetitive. Be honest.

That would be Grant Morrison's introduction. Quite aside from wondering which Alan Moore title he was probably referring to in the veiled terms of everything else, I really don't get how The Authority constituted a major departure from a million other examples of late twentieth-century caped landfill. It's set in a world where super-powered humans actually do big scale stuff like saving the starving millions, and threats tend to be threats to the entire planet illustrated by splash page after spectacular splash page of four million epic occurrences all exploding at once, but I wasn't aware of any of that being particularly revolutionary even back in 1999. If anything, it just reads like a template for modern Doctor Who - everything being the biggest everything that has ever been scored to the four billion loudest Philharmonic orchestras ever to drown out the big bang itself punctuated by the usual generically cinematic dialogue just to remind you there's a story buried under there somewhere - this ends here, you don't have to do this, and the usual crap that passes for wit in whatever action-packed blockbuster Matt Damon landed this week. I'm not saying it's terrible, just that if you like a side order of narrative content whilst having your eyes burned out by page after page of prog rock album cover artwork as big as the sky itself, you might be disappointed. The second half of the collection gets a little better as Ellis daringly recycles one of Alan Moore's old Captain Britain stories, garnishing his versions of alternative England with the inevitable Dan Dare pastiche, although at times it's difficult to tell what's supposed to be happening over the noise of amplified awesome.

That said, the art really is fantastic; or don't know about your brain but you look all right, as Graham Bonnet so charmingly sang on Rainbow's* 1980 hit single 'All Night Long'. In other words The Authority is fine providing you don't expect too much in the way of conversation.

*: Obviously here I'm referring to the version of Rainbow formed by Deep Purple trombonist Richie Blackmore as opposed to the popular children's television show which brought George, Bungle and the somewhat futuristic Zippy to the forefront of the nation's consciousness.

The Authority Volume Two: Under New Management

Warren Ellis, Bryan Hitch, Mark Millar & Frank Quitely

The Authority Volume Two: Under New Management (2000)
I seem to have heard a lot about Warren Ellis, but nothing more detailed than yeah, he's really good. I recall wincing at his Lazarus Churchyard strip in the understandably short-lived Blast!, and considering that back in 1991 it only took an X-prefix or references to Aleister Crowley to fool me into believing I had experienced quality product, that must have been some serious wank. Even the name Lazarus Churchyard - if it was music you just know it would have been some post-ironic steampunk-goggle-wearing technogoth toss buried under four tons of digital reverb. I browsed a copy of Warren's apparently amazing Transmetropolitan in a comic shop at some point, but it bore an uncanny resemblance to self-consciously edgy cyberpunk landfill so I presumed it had nothing to offer. I could be wrong, but y'know...

The Authority is a revisionist superhero series, because if there's one thing the world needs, it's another team of super-powered cartoon characters with tidily flawed personalities and erectile dysfunction...

Okay - bit harsh maybe. The Authority actually isn't bad, and no-one could possibly deny that the art is beautiful, although the Warren Ellis issues reprinted here - and keep in mind that he created this title in the first place - do little to contradict or expand favourably upon my impression of him as a writer. Snappy lines punctuated by entire pages bereft of dialogue can work, or it can read like shorthand cool - the comic book equivalent of underlighting one's face by flashlight whilst pulling stern expressions and growling Shakespeare with a German accent. I mean it's okay, but it's a bit obvious.

The key to writing superheroes used to be in getting Doctor Octopus to a branch of Subway so as to have Spiderman crack jokes specifically tailored to the situation about knuckle sandwiches or whole wheat rolls of justice or whatever, and this is surely just the ergonomic modern equivalent. I have no idea whether Warren Ellis is currently working on some steampunk title, or whether he's pooped out a fucking Torchwood novel, but I wouldn't be surprised at either.

However, once we come to the Mark Millar issues reprinted herein, things definitely look up. For some time Millar was allegedly known within the comics trade as - if you'll excuse the schoolyard sexual politics - Grant Morrison's bum boy in reference to the obvious influence of baldy's writing, unless of course those two really were engaged in red hot manly action. Millar may well be no more than the Poundland Grant Morrison, or it could be that they both tend to to laugh at the same jokes; but either way he's still immensely entertaining, writing loud and stupid without losing any of the more delicate touches - even doing a bit of a Pat Mills with a thinly disguised parody of Marvel's Avengers. If it's value brand Grant Morrison, then at least it forges the Grant Morrison who used to tell stories rather than just photocopying a pair of Genesis P. Orridge's underpants and give you a spooky look meaning it's all connected!

To pause for a moment of potentially monumental pretension, in Studies in Classic American Literature D.H. Lawrence wrote:

An artist is usually a damned liar. Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.

Even with a slightly poor fit in terms of Mark Millar being writer rather than critic, he nevertheless does a good job of saving this tale from its creator. Frank Quitely still has some weird shit going on with all those massive chins, but never mind.