Following Mongul’s brazen attack on Earth, Superman’s world has been turned upside down: conflict between Atlantis and the surface world, the discovery of an immensely powerful new element, dead refugees with mysterious ties to Krypton, and expulsion from the Justice League! When Superman re-forms the experimental, antiestablishment Authority to join him in liberating Warworld, Batman comes to them with a request: join him for one unorthodox, off-the-books mission first, one he could never ask the Justice League to be a part of…and one he doesn’t expect everyone to come back from.
Buy this book. To have Batman needing the Authority to help him close some loops in the whole Multiverse dilemma that he arguably opened up with Death Metal is awesome. Turns out our Big Blue Boy Scout knows that in order to beat Mongul's Warworld, his team needs to flex their muscles against an alternate Al Ghul threat. Turns out the Multiverse is still a playground that needs to be dealt with. Read Full Review
TheBatman/Superman: Authority Special #1should be one of the number-one sellers for DC Comics, and there's a great reason why. The story is engaging and epic, it opens many avenues for future stories, and of course, it features our World's Finest team. Some serious narrative thought's gone into this issue, as well as a taste of fun superhero banter. The art is gorgeous and eye-catching, and I've collected both the initial cover and variant and do not regret it. I don't think you will either. Read Full Review
While most of the Authority doesn't get too much more fleshing out here, the story is compelling and also serves as a one final team-up for Batman and Superman before Superman leaves. But the ending cliffhanger promises there are maybe more twists coming for the Dark Multiverse. It hits on basically all cylinders and makes me hopeful Johnson will be coming back to this twisted world before long. Read Full Review
Superman and The Authority has been a delight, so what happens when you add Batman to the mix? Well, it actually somehow manages to get better. Read Full Review
All told, Batman/Superman Authority Special is an exciting story that features some great character interactions and a heck of a high-stakes story. The many artists involved do make the work read a bit jarringly, but it's an exciting adventure that uses Batman and Midnighter in really cool ways. Read Full Review
This special proved another worthwhile glimpse at Supermans new team. With Warworld dead ahead, that arc is set to begin, but Johnson raised the possibility of The Authority traveling to other earths on multiverse-spanning missions. That sounds like a great premise once the Warworld arc is over. Read Full Review
Nice little story settling the mini-feud between Batman and Superman. Nice seeing the Authority in action again. And wonderful art portraying the story. For a special, this worked very well. Read Full Review
Batman/Superman: The Authority Special shows that a creative team other than Grant Morrison and Mikel Janin can tell a compelling story with this cast characters, and I'm excited to see some of the character moments, such as Lightray going from being hero for fame to being in real action or Apollo and Midnighter working on the whole no-killing thing, expanded up on in future issues of Action Comics from Philip Kennedy Johnson. Paper-thin villain characterization aside, this book is a solid one-shot adventure with an eerie setting thanks to memorable art from Ben Templesmith plus loads of funny interactions between Batman and Midnighter. Read Full Review
As someone who loved the SUPERMAN AND THE AUTHORITY series by Morrison, I was expecting something rather similar. However, other than the team and characters involved, that's about all that remained from Morrison's take. In all reality, this was a DARK NIGHTS Multiversal tale with a dangling carrot for the future. If you loved those events and find the Dark Multiverse exciting, this issue of BATMAN/ SUPERMAN AUTHORITY SPECIAL #1 is for you. However, if you came for SUPERMAN AND THE AUTHORITY, you won't really find much of that here. Read Full Review
For some reason this special was in Action comics tpb vol 3, maybe I'll see the connection in the coming issues because this special was made during the Batman/Superman series from 2019-2021 so not sure how this relates to this current. 2023 run I'm reading now.
Nonetheless this was pretty EPIC. I mean a Dark multiverse where the Al-Ghuls actually take over everything and are all immortal through the Lazarus pit. The find a "Fugonaut" a multiverse guardian and Batman was warned by this guardian of their coming. The dark multiverse Al-Ghuls now want to conquer the Universe Earth 0 inhabits.
The art style dramatically changes when the panels enter the dark multiverse and really creates this beautiful dynamic intensity more
This was nothing like Morrison's series so I loved it. No politics, no lgmbiujfg+- pronouns and other bullcrap.
This was great and all bit how does it tie in to Morrison's run? Because there superman was much older and it was obviously different reality. Can someone clarify this for me? I feel like I missed an issue or something.
I am blessed to be reading comics during PKJ's time on Superman! To watch an epic for the man of steel being crafted before my eyes is not something many people can say they've seen; we haven't had a run this good since Moz's N52 Action Comics!
Keep going strong PKJ!
I really liked this issue, but felt that conclusion was a little rushed. Templesmith art is beautiful as ever.
Fun in its own right. I really enjoyed the Al Ghuls in this, their threatening aura toward the universe, and the stakes. I actually had a better time reading this than Grant Morrison’s Superman and the Authority. Very surprising, indeed.
Did they just tease the "Empire of Shadows" as the next potential DC company event? If so, I'm kind of down.
This issue feels more useful & entertaining than anything Morrison has done with Superman & The Authority. Since this is essentially a one shot, the story doesn't waste time & gets your from story beat to story beat. Superman & Batman have their classic interactions, the Authority has the usual characters that sticks out, & the story/premise is very straight forward. But where I think this one-shot shines is in three areas. Hairsine & Templesmith's artwork, an interesting story that connects to previous dc comic events, & lastly, Midnight & Batman's slight rivalry (more like a dick swinging contest that only midnighter pa more
Decent book, in the spirit of continuing the Batman/Superman comic I would have wanted Yang on this because he was pretty good, but PKJ does the job here too. It's not perfect, I have some qualms with it but it's definitely better than Morrison's cringy shit.
This was pretty good. I don't think it was necessary, but I didn't have a terrible time.
Solid special, fun story with fun art
Strong issue. I loved every interaction between The Authority. Still, they lost me with the last revelation. DC really needs to leave that concept, Snyder burned it with BWL.
A bit of a miss for me. Nice art, but the story is insubstantial, and PKJ seems ill at ease with Morrison's Authority — Midnighter has to be nerfed to make Batman look cool, Natasha is barely there and the only thing that qualifies as a character moment is Midnighter conceding that Batman is cooler than him. As a fan of Morrison's Authority and PKJ's Action Comics I was really hoping for more from this.
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