The Authority began as Stormwatch, a comic book published by Wildstorm Studios under the banner of Image Comics. It was a lackluster title that sold mostly because of the wider high volume of comics sales and its assocation with the thennovel Image Comics. That is, until Warren Ellis took over the title. Ellis, then nearly unknown, introduced new characters, escalated the violence, offered more characterization, and introduced a political element. But the declining comics industry as a whole, as well as the negative association that the earlier Stormwatch issues had brought to the title, conspired to bring down the title. Ellis concluded with a spectacular threeissue storyline, Change or Die, that offered the view of one of Elliss original characters that of Jenny Sparks, spirit of the tumultous 20th Century that superheroes perpetuated the status quo, beating insane villains in tights and restoring the order that benefited the powersthatbe, while never using their powers to challenge those powers and their injustices.

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