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Superman is trusting heroes and villains alike in the Authority, and though that may seem new, the blueprints for this radical team were laid in the 90s.
Superman has shifted into a whole new status quo. Right now, the Man of Steel is facing a whole load of different issues, from slowly losing his powers to being kicked out of the Justice League, and all the while he’s taking on a new kind of mission – one that will see him actively attempt to right the various wrongs in the greater universe. Not only that, but he has a new kind of team to help him. Gone are the days of the Man of Tomorrow standing side by side with the Justice League. Now is the time of Superman and the Authority.
Though this new shift in focus may come as a surprise to some, especially considering his new team contains some old enemies, it was actually predicted by an epic 90s event. “Superman: Panic in the Sky” was an eight-part tale spread across multiple Superman titles. It even started in a similar way to the Man of Steel’s current mission – with an attack from War World.
In this instance though, it wasn’t Mongul who was targeting Superman, but Brainiac. The ultimate collector had decided to use the full might of War World to take down his nemesis once and for all, and even managed to brainwash Supergirl into helping him. Though he has faced Brainiac alone in the past, this time proved too much for him to handle solo. He needed a very specific team to combat this unique threat, much like he does now with the Authority.
Readers may have been shocked to see Manchester Black as the first recruit of the new Authority, but this, and the entire roster in general, was predicted by his first “Panic in the Sky” recruit – Deathstroke. Superman knew that he needed a tactical mind with proven experience leading a military force, a force just like the army he planned on building to take on Brainiac. Deathstroke, of course, was a no-brainer. Despite his history as a villain, he was exactly the sort of person the Man of Steel needed in this crisis.
Of course, Superman also recruited a number of his other Justice League friends to join the fight, such as Wonder Woman and Aquaman, but the Authority has its fair share of trustworthy heroes too. For example, there’s Natasha Irons’s Steel and Lia Nelson’s Lightray. In “Panic in the Sky,” Superman even briefly trusted Lex Luthor to help him push back Brainiac’s assault.
Though Deathstroke did briefly betray the Man of Steel during the course of the story, it was not a conscious betrayal. Brainiac mind-controlled the villain, along with other members of his team and even Supergirl, to turn against Superman. Despite this, the alliance between hero and villain endured to the end and, though Deathstroke had plenty of opportunities to betray the Man of Steel, he chose to stick with him to the end.
“Panic in the Sky” acts as a sort of blueprint for Superman’s new role with the Authority then. Firstly, there are the recruits. Choosing Manchester Black parallels his previous choice of Deathstroke in a number of ways. Both are villains, true, but both serve an invaluable purpose on their respective teams and stick by Superman’s side even when the odds are against them. Then of course there’s the premise. Both then and now, Superman assembles an unlikely team to take on the combined might of War World – a mission the Justice League can’t handle. Not only that, he goes on the offensive in both cases too, heading to space instead of playing the reactionary role he has in the past.
That original team up with Deathstroke the Terminator set up a lot of what’s going on in Superman’s world today. Siding with more dangerous and deadly allies to get the job done is essentially his whole journey going forward.
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