When James Gunn and Peter Saffran, the co-heads of DC Studios, announced a long-term plan for the upcoming DCU, people were pretty excited. The men announced a slate of projects coming up that delved into the familiar (new Superman) and the more obscure: The Authority.
The latter has quite a few heads scratching as it’s by no means a well-known entity outside of the comic book world. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing — Gunn is well-known for taking obscure superhero teams (The Guardians of the Galaxy, for example) and making them commercially viable.
But The Authority? Well, there’s some baggage that goes along with this one — in terms of a sexual misconduct scandal. Before we get into that, however, let’s figure out just who they are.
Who are ‘The Authority’?
The lazy way to describe The Authority is a sort of black market/ mirror image Justice League. They’re raunchy, foul-mouthed and pretty perfect for the modern age of the “blurring the line” superhero. Are they good? Bad? Both? Here’s how Gunn described them recently:
“One of the things of the DCU is that it’s not just a story of heroes and villains,” said Gunn. “Not every film and TV show is going to be about good guy vs. bad guy, giant things from the sky comes and good guy wins. There are white hats, black hats and grey hats.” Added Safran: “They are kinda like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. They know that you want them on the wall. Or at least they believe that.”
Well that didn’t help too much. But that’s fine, because no one is really that familiar with them anyway. DC calls them “cynical, brutally pragmatic superheroes.”
They were created by Warren Ellis (more on him in a second) and artist Bryan Hitch when Ellis was writing on Stormwatch, which is basically a prequel to The Authority. If you like the irreverent, gory humor of The Boys, then this will be right up your alley.
Another thing: members Apollo and Midnighter are basically Superman and Batman, but they’re also a committed gay couple, which was pretty edgy when it was created in the ’90s. Swift is a winged superhero that serves as a counterpart to Hawkgirl. The Engineer is a metal-suited Iron Man type and the team’s leader is Jenny Sparks, an edgier Captain Britain.
There’s also Jack Hawksmoor, who actually has a unique power: he pulls his energy from nearby cities. Alright, now we’re all caught up, let’s get to the difficult stuff: Ellis’ sexual misconduct allegations.
Who is Warren Ellis?
Before we dive in, here’s a quick bio. Ellis is responsible for some of the more esoteric but still widely regarded releases of the past 20 years. He wrote Transmetropolitan, Planetary, The Authority, and the graphic novel Red, which had two movies.
He was the producer of the popular Castlevania series on Netflix, for which he was removed after the allegations, but his scripts were still used. He was also taken off some DC Comics projects, and Image Comics said they didn’t want to work with him either (he worked on a title called Fell with them), according to IGN.
In a statement, Image directed people to SoManyOfUs.com (more on that in a second as well):
“This week’s FELL announcement was neither planned, nor vetted, and was in fact, premature. While finishing Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith’s FELL is something we’ve been looking forward to for years, Image Comics will not be working with Warren on anything further until he has made amends to the satisfaction of all involved. It is our sincere hope that the conversations that are beginning now will result in positive changes for everyone. Please visit SoManyOfUs.com.”
His resume is very thick and prolific, and it makes sense that women would look up to him after all he’s accomplished within his career.
Warren Ellis Sexual Misconduct Allegations
Ellis has been accused of sexual impropriety by more than 60 women and people who identify as non binary. There’s a website that was first published in June 2020 called SoManyofUs that details the whole heft of what he’s been accused of doing:
“From our accounts, and the others who have come forward, there is clear evidence of Warren Ellis using his celebrity status and vast public platform as catalyst and shield to manipulate and groom targets under false pretenses, and to coerce private pornography and sexual exchanges. Over twenty years, femme-presenting people, often between the ages of 19 to 26, were impacted by this pathological behavior. We were all under an elaborate illusion, believing we had a friend, a mentor, a partner in this man.”
The website claims that Ellis pretends to be a mentor or a friend and then “insinuates himself into his targets’ daily lives, building trust and forming patterns of attachment.” He takes that as far as he can and then bails when he loses interest.
The website claims there are almost 100 people who’ve been affected by Ellis’ grooming over the two decades he’s been in his position. There are 36 personal stories on the site as well, that go into his actions with varying levels of detail. The website started on Twitter when women started realizing they all had the same story.
He’s accused of keeping a carousel of relationships going all while being with a long-term partner that he lied to constantly.
“Once the target thinks of him as their best friend or trusted confidant, he escalates the relationship into sexual territory, usually conducted online and through intense periods of communication, but sometimes in person.”
One woman who goes by Sarah, said that she met Ellis in 2013 when she was 24:
“He manipulated me into thinking I needed his expertise to make my thesis worth a damn, and that I had to pay for that through nude photos, videos, phone calls, and Skype calls,” Sarah wrote. “This went on for roughly 2-3 months before he cut me off.”
A different anonymous testimony says that Ellis found her on Twitter in 2009, and that he groomed her:
“He told me I was a ‘surreal beauty’ and ‘trouble’ and ‘the first woman to make him want’ to be sexual again. He also told me very early on that he hadn’t had sex with anyone in many years. This turned out to be a lie. When I got a writing gig (with no help from him) he suddenly unfollowed me. He claimed that he couldn’t be seen to associate with me online, because it was too risky. What I thought was a friendship turned out to be falsified on his part, in order to get what he wanted from me. His status made him very intimidating, as I was still in the early stages of my career in the comics industry.”
Here’s another account from someone who said they met Ellis when they were a teenager:
“I was just barely 16 when I reached out to tell him I loved his work. As a huge fan, it was beyond thrilling when he replied. We began chatting. A lot. When things got flirty and sexualized, I was young enough to think that meant I had the power in the situation. To my teenage brain I had a famous, grown-up man claiming to be at the mercy of what he called my “incredible eyes and perfect mouth. No woman who interacted with him will be surprised to learn that he made specific, dirty photo requests, and thinking I had him under my spell, I obliged.”
Most of the women have similar stories to that. He found a young impressionable woman eager to break into the comics industry, and once he gained their confidence, he took it as far as he could.
Warren has responded to the allegations on his Twitter account, according to The Hollywood Reporter:
“While I’ve made many bad choices in my past, and I’ve said a lot of wrong things, let me be clear, I have never consciously coerced, manipulated, or abused anyone, nor have I ever assaulted anybody. But I was ignorant of where I was operating from at a time I should have been clear and for that I accept 100 percent responsibility. I have always tried to aid and support women in their lives and careers, but I have hurt many people that I had no intention of hurting. I am culpable. I take responsibility for my mistakes. I will do better and for that, I apologize.”
He also released a different statement about how he didn’t consider himself “famous”:
“I have never considered myself famous or powerful, to the point where I’ve made a lot of bad jokes about it for twenty-odd years. It had never really occurred to me that other people didn’t see it the same way — that I was not engaging as an equal when gifted with attention, but acting from a position of power and privilege. I did not take that into account in a number of my personal interactions and this was a mistake and I own it.”
DC declined to comment at the time. As did Netflix, which airs Castlevania.
The issue is, of course, coming back to light now that The Authority is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Time will tell if it ends up derailing the project.
