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In Superman and the Authority, DC’s heroes got a bitter reminder about a colony the Justice League helped that they completely forgot about.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Superman and the Authority #4, on sale now from DC Comics.
The Authority’s opposition took some unique forms as a part of the Justice League of America’s past came back to haunt Superman. Steel ended up battling Siv, an alien activist for her forgotten community, Haven, in Superman and the Authority #4 by Grant Morrison, Mikel Janin, Jordie Bellaire and Tom Napolitano. But Siv appeared before many years ago during the time when Lex Luthor was President of the United States. Her ship crashed into California and was large enough to be legally declared a city. The resulting damage from their landing left them vulnerable to persecution and exploitation.
While the Justice League watched over them for a time, Superman admitted they forgot all about Haven and its problems, having their attention drawn elsewhere all this time.
Siv first appeared in 2002’s JLA/Haven: Arrival #1 by Ariel Olivetti as a part of a resistance group known as the Alliance. She came from the planet of Competalia, where the entire population had been subjugated by a being known as Anathema. She and Siv had developed a process that transformed the body, awakening superpowers by tapping into their species’ version of the metagene. But Anathema’s process slowly wiped away the individuality of the people who were transformed. Dissent quickly grew and Anathema set up a penal colony known as Haven to contain dissidents.
Two million people resisted the push to become mindless drones for Anathema’s empire. Seeing an opportunity, Anathema sent rebels, the elderly, sick and mentally ill to the colony to set up a purge of those who endanger her perfect empire. Putting all her enemies in one place was a mistake, however, as a resistance group was formed called the Alliance. Together they remade the gulag into a habitable city, eventually attempting to replicate Anathema’s empowerment process to fight back. But when that failed they converted the Haven into a starship and left their planet.
They ended up crash landing on Earth and accidentally destroyed the city of Lamont, California, which did not do them any favors with the citizens of Earth. However, the Justice League of America recognized their plight and agreed to help. Anathema was drawn back to Earth by a traitor in the Alliance’s midst, but with the assistance of the Justice League, Siv was able to reverse Anathema’s empowerment process, which killed her.
Things seemed to be going well for Haven from there. President Luthor officially recognized Haven as a city in the United States, ostensibly making them citizens. But in reality, it was all a ploy to steal technology from them without their knowing it. With no immediate threat, the Justice League moved on to the next problem, not stopping to consider what might happen to these refugees.
And as it turned out, leaving them all alone meant that that Haven quickly became forgotten and ignored. Luthor’s presidency would end and it can be speculated that Haven’s status as a city may have been revoked. And their crash did unintentionally destroy a town, even if the formal recognition of their protected status remained, this would do little to stop human hatred and discrimination.
And now it has come back to haunt them as Siv was among those standing in the way of Superman and his new Authority. He admitted they forgot about Haven, which was a mistake on their part. But he could not take the time to apologize to Siv, for she was fighting for Brainiac. But it goes to show that the Justice League is not perfect, even if they are the world’s greatest heroes.
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