We are getting an Authority movie from James Gunn’s DC Studios setup. And the marketplace has responsed with back issue sales booming on eBay.
We are told that the upcoming DC Comics movie The Authority courses of James Gunn will see WildStorm characters join the DCU as “members of The Authority take matters into their own hands to do what they believe is right” featuring the superhero team created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, from Stormwatch characters created by Ellis, Hitch, Tom Raney, Jeff Marriott and Ron Lim. And the marketplace has responded, though there are some opportunities for speculation that have yet to be picked up. Keep an eye on these new prices on the DCStudios tag.
The Authority #1 from 1999 created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, first appearances of The Doctor and The Engineer, just sold for $90 raw, and $550 slabbed at CGC 9.8.
The Authority #13, first issue by Mark Millar and Frank Quitely, has just sold for $15 raw.
The Authority #29, featuring the marriage of Midnighter and Apollo by Ellen DeGeneres – and Mark Millar and Gary Erskine has sold for $5 raw,
Stormwatch #28 (1995) first appearance of Swift, created by Jeff Mariotte and Ron Lim has sold for $5,
Stormwatch #37 first appearance of Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor and Rose Tattoo, created by Warren Ellis and Tom Raney, has just sold for $90.
Stormwatch #48 first appearances of previous versions of The Doctor and The Engineer created by Warren Ellis and Tom Raney, and the origins of what would become The Authority, has just sold for $5. but $58 in CGC 9.8.
Stormwatch Vol 2 #4 first appearances of Midnight and Apollo created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, has just sold for $160 and $250 CGC 9.8.
The Authority was created in 1998 for the comic book studio WildStorm, owned by Jim Lee, which was bought out by DC Comics, with Jim Lee becoming VP and now Publisher/CCO of DC. Coming out of a series and using characters that Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch had worked on for DC/Wildstorm’s series Stormwatch, The Authority was different. It jumpstarted the trend for what would be called “widescreen comics”, using the comics page in a more cinematic fashion, and decompressing stories to take place over more pages, the series was adult in nature, political, and pushed against traditional ideas of superheroes. It featured prominent queer characters, with Midnighter and Apollo as a couple based on Batman and Superman, and included wisecracking characters, substance-abusing characters such as Jenny Sparks and Jack Hawksmoor, in the John Constantine model. As a team, they were hedonistic, debauched and all-powerful, taking down the big bad guys trying to control, or invade the Earth, but in doing so revealed themselves as immoral and lacking in principle. Before The Boys, there was The Authority. The title of the comics, The Authority, was meant to be a note that however much you enjoyed their actions, they were the bad guys. Just the bad guys who happened to be needed at the moment.
The themes and tones established in The Authority would be taken by artist Bryan Hitch and the series’ next writer Mark Millar when asked to do similar with Marvel’s The Avengers in the comic book series The Ultimates. It was that series, with its roots in The Authority, that would most inform the tone of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, specifically in Iron Man, Captain America and The Avengers movies, with Ellis’ work on Iron Man also heavily informing that franchise.
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