On the finish of the story, the heroes discover the foundation of the issue. Onto the web page walks the Author, a bald individual in a go well with, who explains to Batman and Deadpool that all of them serve the phrase processor in his fingers and, extra importantly, the expectations of the viewers. Even when the story’s ostensible large dangerous Cassandra Nova, whom Morrison created as a part of their X-Males run, tries to manage the Author’s thoughts, the Author merely explains that this too was decided by the script.
Such has at all times been the Author’s modus operandi. The character first appeared on the finish of a very nasty storyline in Animal Man, wherein the foolish D-lister Buddy Baker had his life torn aside when his household was brutally murdered. Buddy will get darkish and gritty in his seek for revenge, solely to satisfy the Author on the finish of all of it. The Author explains that ’80s comedian e book followers reject goofy heroes and wish one thing darkish, which is why Buddy’s household needed to die. However selecting their very own inventive impulses over the calls for of followers, the Author finally decides to revive Buddy’s household and established order.
In 1990, the Animal Man arc felt revolutionary. Like Alan Moore and Frank Miller, Morrison was all for deconstructing superhero comics and inspecting their primary building. However not solely did Morrison keep away from the darkness of these two creatives’ work on the time, decreasing the demise of Buddy’s household to an already apparent and drained trope, however they did so by way of the angle of the character. The scene wherein Buddy turns round, faces the viewers, and shouts, “I can see you!” stays highly effective, even after infinite homages (together with one by Morrison themselves in Batman/Deadpool).
Morrison went on to do extra great metatextual work, within the not-crossover Seven Troopers, the pseudo-gospel All-Star Superman, and the all-encompassing epic The Multiversity. However even they acknowledged the restrictions of the Author as a personality and didn’t gripe when the character died as a member of the Suicide Squad only one 12 months after their debut. After all, neither did Morrison chorus from stepping from behind the phrase processor and onto the display screen to painting the Author in dwell motion, within the aforementioned episode of Titans.
However that simply makes Morrison’s clarification in regards to the Author’s id in Batman/Deadpool all of the extra fascinating. By insisting that they don’t seem to be the Author and reminding us that Geoff Johns wrote the script for that Titans episode, Morrison makes the Author larger than themselves. Now not is the Author a stand in for only one Scottish magic practitioner and writer of comics. Relatively, the Author is anybody who tells a narrative, even when that story is about Beast Boy crossing the multiverse in dwell motion or a humorless Deadpool making an attempt to kill the New Mutants.
