History ComicBook / TheAuthority

* DoppelgangerLink: The Engineer has a mental link to the duplicates of herself she creates using her {{Nanonmachines}}. She can create up to 82 duplicates, but going further will cause her personality to dissociate. The Engineer can also limit the mental connection between herself and her clones through concentration as seen by when she stopped herself and her other clones from experiencing an orgasm one clone had during sex with Jack.

* TragicVillain: Rush from the G7 Authority. She only accepted the job and the surgery to give her wings because her father pressured her into it. Then within the team she is bullied, and verbally abused by the Colonel. Yet, she is the one member of the team who actually tries to do good and improve other people's lives. Alas, it does not save her from being nailed to a wall by Midnighter. She may even qualify as [TheWoobie] of the team.

* HitlersTimeTravelExemptionAct: The first story arc of Midnighter's solo series.

* UtopiaJustifiesTheMeans: Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen.

Rather aggressively satirized in the Superman comic book ''ComicBook/WhatsSoFunnyAboutTruthJusticeAndTheAmericanWay'' and its AnimatedAdaptation ''WesternAnimation/SupermanVsTheElite'', in which their [[{{Expy}} Expies]] beat up Superman, who was concerned about both their violent methods and the pointlessness of killing them when they appear to be a symptom of the times rather than the cause of it.

** This was rather effectively inverted in ''Captain Atom:Armageddon''. The Midnighter saw Captain Atom as just another target for a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown. Instead, Captain Atom treated the Midnighter to a total CurbStompBattle, showing that sometimes AwesomeByAnalysis is no match for raw, unadulterated, world-shaking power.

** In ''Captain Atom:Armageddon'', it isn't Midnighter who is used this way to show how utterly ''outclassed'' everyone in the Wildstorm universe is when compared to Captain Atom, it's Apollo. Midnighter doesn't even count as a threat to Atom, and is casually (and entertainingly) dismissed offhand.

** Seth being [[DeepSouth a melting pot of every negative rural stereotype you can think of]] evidently includes being homophobic and racist, as he mocks Apollo and Midnighter for being gay and, when talking down to Jack Hawksmoor, belittles the Authority's methods of superheroics while stereotyping black people as "purse-snatchers" and referring to them using the N-word.

** Although best embodied by the villain Three-Willy Seth: a government conspiracy spent billions of dollars cramming every enhancement they could come up with into him. He has powers numbering in the ''quadruple digits.'' Some of them are hard to even conceive of--his mention of "nuclear poop vision" was ''probably'' a joke...
*** Not sure how the "nuclear poop vision" could be seen as just a joke, since he uses it to blast Jack Hawksmoor through a wall in the very next panel!

** In the "Godhead" arc of Robbie Morrison's run, the villain is John Clay, founder of a religious movement called the Church of Transcendence. His plan involves wiping out proponents of other religions and [[CureYourGays attempting to cure Midnighter and Apollo of their homosexuality].

* DeepSouth: Seth is possibly one of the most mean-spirited uses of this trope ever.

** The G7 version of The Authority gives us The Colonel. A repugnant, misogynistic, xenophobic asshole and damn proud of it. And then there's ''Last Call'' who may be the most vile depiction of a homophobic character to ever be featured in a mainstream comic book.

** During her fight with the Renegade Doctor, he travels back in time to when the Engineer was in high school to sexually assault her. He then returns with a PostRapeTaunt.
** The CorruptedCharacterCopy of Nick Fury from Millar's first arc proudly boasted about his racism while he attacked Paris.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: The villains of Creator/MarkMillar's first arc were this for the heroes of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse with their boss being a twisted version of Creator/JackKirby who was initially willing to kill a baby. The Americans, the stand-ins for the Franchise/TheAvengers were led by a DepravedBisexual rapist version of Franchise/CaptainAmerica and the Franchise/IronMan expy destroys the maternity ward of a hospital. The same arc also featured a bigoted version of Nick Fury.

* YaoiGuys: Apollo and Midnighter.

*** "Sociopathic" means "completely without empathy or remorse", not simply "brutally violent and willing to kill". If the Midnighter was truly sociopathic, he wouldn't bother to limit his violence to people who harm innocents or his family and friends. Nor would he be capable of truly loving Apollo and caring deeply about baby Jenny. [[note]]Sociopaths are capable of romantic obsession and sexual attraction, of course, but they can't ''care'' about other people's feelings and well-being, making them emotionally abusive partners and neglectful parents at best. Midnighter, for all his faults, is never that.[[/note]] And at least his later solo comics make clear that he really doesn't like the killing machine he's been turned into, and that he can't do anything better with it other than point it in the right direction (even though he clearly enjoys the fights while they happen), which does imply some capacity for remorse and ethical thinking.

* BadFuture: Midnighter was shown a future where The Authority ruled the world in The Authority: Revolution. He ended up becoming a brutal, brain damaged dictator.

* CorruptedCharacterCopy: The villains of Creator/MarkMillar's first arc were this for the heroes of the Franchise/MarvelUniverse with their boss being a twisted version of Creator/JackKirby who was initially willing to kill a baby. The Americans, the stand-ins for the Franchise/TheAvengers were led by a DepravedBisexual rapist version of Franchise/CaptainAmerica and the Franchise/IronMan expy destroy the maternity ward of a hospital. The same arc also featured a bigoted version of Nick Fury.

** The CorruptedCharacterCopy of Nick Fury from Millar's first arc proudly boasted his racism while attacked Paris.

If you’re looking for the WWE faction, look [[Wrestling/TheAuthority here.]]

** The Commander, an {{Expy}}[=/=]TakeThat against Captain America does this to a couple of nurses during a mission to find [[spoiler: the infant Jenny Quantum]] and then [[spoiler: Apollo after Thor expy Storm-God knocked him down and drains some of his solar charge via [[ShockAndAwe a lightning strike]]]]. This results in Midnighter being pissed and the aforementioned OhCrap example and it's implied that Midnighter's going to return the favor and [[spoiler: use the jackhammer to rape Commander back.]]

** The villains of the first arc of Mark Millar's run were Expies, mixed with TakeThat, of Marvel's ComicBook/TheAvengers and Jack Kirby. Reportedly, in an issue of ''Wizard Magazine'', Marvel ''wasn't'' happy about how these expies acted--[[PsychoForHire a bunch of baby-killing, raping, and depraved psychopaths]].

With the 2011 DC reboot, the Wildstorm characters were absorbed into the larger DC Universe, and the rebooted Authority characters became the core of a new Stormwatch. After their book ended in 2014, Midnighter went on to receive [[ComicBook/{{Midnighter}} his own solo title]], starting June 2015. The Wildstorm imprint would be revived with a brand new universe, with the first series, ''The Wild Storm'', featuring a new team akin to the Authority, though they don't call themselves by any particular name. In 2021, as part of the ''ComicBook/DCInfiniteFrontier'' initiative, the title will be revived as a four-issue mini-series called ''Superman and the Authority'', which has the Man of Steel create his own team to help him liberate the alien slave world Warworld.

With the 2011 DC reboot, the Wildstorm characters were absorbed into the larger DC Universe, and the rebooted Authority characters became the core of a new Stormwatch. After their book ended in 2014, Midnighter went on to receive [[ComicBook/{{Midnighter}} his own solo title]], starting June 2015. The Wildstorm imprint would be revived with a brand new universe, with the first series, ''The Wild Storm'', featuring a new team akin to the Authority, though they don't call themselves by any particular name.

[[caption-width-right:350: Don't piss them off[[note]]From left to right: Apollo, Swift, The Doctor, The Engineer with Jenny Quantum in her arms, Jenny Sparks, Jack Hawksmoor, Midnighter [[/note]]]]

Rather aggressively satirized in the Superman comic book ''What's So Funny About Truth, Justice and the American Way?'' and its AnimatedAdaptation ''WesternAnimation/SupermanVsTheElite'', in which their [[{{Expy}} Expies]] beat up Superman, who was concerned about both their violent methods and the pointlessness of killing them when they appear to be a symptom of the times rather than the cause of it.

* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: "The Elite" in ''Superman''; Nicola Zeitgeist, Nightfighter, etc in ''Franchise/XMan''.

* [[SociopathicHero Heroic Sociopath]]: Emphasizing the "Sociopath" more as time went on, see the Designated Hero entry above.
** ...but the emphasis on the "Sociopath" has ''always'' been true about the Midnighter. He's a killer all the way through, and he never pretends to be anything else.
*** "Sociopathic" means "completely without empathy or remorse", not simply "brutally violent and willing to kill". If the Midnighter was truly sociopathic, he wouldn't bother to limit his violence to people who harm innocents or his family and friends. Nor would he be capable of truly loving Apollo and caring deeply about baby Jenny. [[note]]Sociopaths are capable of romantic obsession and sexual attraction, of course, but they can't ''care'' about other people's feelings and well-being, making them emotionally abusive partners and neglectful parents at best. Midnighter, for all his faults, is never that.[[/note]] And at least his later solo comics make clear that he really doesn't like the killing machine he's been turned into, and that he can't do anything better with it other than point it in the right direction (even though he clearly enjoys the fights while they happen), which does imply some capacity for remorse and ethical thinking.
*** In his own series, he crosses the [[MoralEventHorizon Horizon]] with a particularly [[ToThePain cringe-worthy torture session]], showing himself to be a villain who happens to fight villains.

--> [[LawyerFriendlyCameo Legally-distinct-parody-of]] [[ComicBook/IncredibleHulk The Hulk]]: Comics are for retards.
--> Hawksmoor: (to UsefulNotes/BillClinton) We're not some comic book super-team who participate in pointless fights with pointless super-criminals every month to preserve the status quo.

--> Midnighter: You watching Friends? Is it ''the one where Phoebe really gets on your nerves" or "the one where you realized they're all thirty five and actually kind of creepy"?

* TrophyWife: When a group of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s kidnap and brainwash the Authority, this is the fate of Swift, who is creepily "given" to one of the men behind the scheme. [[WhatAnIdiot It turns out that keeping one of their victims nearby and alive in this way isn't such a good idea]] once the brainwashing is inevitably undone.

* WeAllLiveInAmerica: This pops up a number of times during Mark Millar's run. For instance, at one point the American Jack Hawksmoor tells Swift to put her "knickers" on. Another more egregious example occurs when a not-so-thinly-veiled Captain America, {{Expy}} inexplicably uses the term "filthy little native ''buggers''".

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech: When under the writing of Warren Ellis the series featured quite a few memorable examples of these.
--> '''The Engineer''': "I fight people. Go to war. I don't have experiments, I have things that need to be solved or people die. I don't drink gin and bitter lemon until I fall over, I don't have sex with my ex-boyfriend every Thursday, I don't eat clams on Mulberry Street. I'm not Angie any more. I'm the Engineer."
--> '''Jack Hawksmoor''': "So why do you do it?"
--> '''The Engineer''': "Because somebody needs to."
** Later on during Warren Ellis' final arc on the series Jenny Sparks delivers one to [[spoiler: ''god himself'']]
---> '''Jenny Sparks''': "I don't know if you can hear me out there. I don't even know if you even have a language. But here's the deal. It took me a long time to work out what I was here for, and here at the end of the century I finally sorted it out. I'm here to save the earth. I'm here to get us all through the century. You might think this planet behind us is yours to use, but here's the news: this earth is under new management. ''This world is'' '''mine.'''"

->''"'Think for yourself and question authority.'''\\
''And if you'' can ''think for yourself, what do you need'' authority ''for?"''
->'''[[CaptainErsatz The High]]''', ''Stormwatch #48''

->''To make a world worth living in.''\\
'''Jenny Sparks'''