Trivia / Superman and the Authority

• Orphaned Reference: Superman having grey hair and knowing John F. Kennedy comes from the cancelled Generation Five reboot that would have had superheroes being a lot older due to becoming active the same years as their comics debuted in real life.
• Parody Retcon: Inverted. Morrison admitted that they abhorred Dan DiDio's ideas for this Superman so much that they planned to write the series as a complete farce. But Mikel Janin's art was so sincere and played Morrison's script so straight that Morrison relented and did the series also completely straight for Janin's sake.
• Recycled Script: It is very obvious that this series was meant to be part of the Generation Five initiative, and that it was hastily and lightly reworked to fit in with the Infinite Frontier initiative. The former would've seen Clark be active for decades and getting up in years, which would've allowed him to have met JFK and explain his grey temples. The new costume would've also lined up with Clark's outfit when a gladiator on Warworld, where he only wears his S-shield and little else. Noticeably, the events of this series that take place in the modern day are referred to by other series, while the JFK aspect isn't; similarly, Clark didn't have grey hair in any of the other Infinite Frontier titles (until he receives them in the first issue of the Warworld storyline proper, which takes place after this series) and still wears his classic Superman suit.
• Throw It In!: Morrison originally intended for Superman's powers to have considerably reduced due to age, one element being that he can no longer fly and can now only "leap tall buildings in a single bound." Some writer/artist miscommunication had led to Mikel Janin missing the memo and Janin had instead drawn Superman regularly levitating. In response Morrison tweaked things so Superman's levitation was now his way of exercising his flight in order to maintain it.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Grant Morrison revealed that Dan Didio's original plan for the title was to have Superman undergo a Face–Heel Turn and become a right-wing authoritarian that formed the Authority in order to Take Over the World. Morrison hated the idea so much they offered to write the series in exchange for being allowed to take "Superman joins the Authority" concept and do literally anything else with it.
  • The mini was originally part of the much larger Generation Five initiative, which would have tried to avert Comic-Book Time and build a coherent timeline for the entire DCU. After it fell through, Morrison added in a Hand Wave piece of dialogue to explain that Superman was lost in time when making his promise to JFK rather than being literally active since at least the end of World War II.
  • According to Morrison's Substack annotations, the original conclusion would have been much different: originally, Clark was going to be split in two, like Superman Red and Superman Blue, but instead into a left-wing libertarian Superman (who would have been the protagonist as in the actual story) and right-wing authoritarian Superman who had assembled his own Authority team consisting of the original Authority, with Jon Kent and Damian Wayne in place of Apollo and Midnighter. This would have seen both becoming increasingly more extremist in their thinking.
• Word of God: Morrison says that this version of Brainiac is actually an autonomous copy of the original.
• Writer Revolt: The basis for Morrison's involvement! As noted in What Could Have Been, the series was originally going to be about a more right-wing, authoritarian Superman, and Morrison wasn't involved. It was only when they heard Dan Didio talk about this direction at a dinner that they decided they needed to write this story, for fear of what that original direction would do to Superman as a character.

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