Random Happenstance

Somebody or other brought this up on Blue Sky the other day (and if you need an invite, lemme know!) and if I didn't randomly find it in my garage foraging the other day! From 2004, the Authority vs. Lobo #1, "Jingle Hell!" Plot by Keith Giffen, script by Alan Grant, art by Simon Bisley.

Al Kennedy recounts Alan Grant's research for this one: calling Warren Ellis to ask who the #### the Authority was. Although, I'm pretty sure their star was on the rise by that point, while Lobo's maybe wasn't. That said, I distinctly recall a Stan Lee interview where he said Lobo was the main DC title he liked, so...there's that, I guess. This was the post-millennial Authority, with the newly-reincarnated Jenny Quantum, who was currently three years old, and the rest of the team was spectacularly not well suited to the task of parenting the semi-precocious little waif. Wandering off to an unexplored area of their massive extra-dimensional Carrier, she stumbles across a copy of the Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special from a few years prior, where the Main Man snuffs Kris Kringle. Distraght, Jenny wants her team to find Lobo, and make him pay.

Said Main Man, was currently pissing away a bounty by gambling away his internal organs, and after losing is approached by some tapeworm-looking aliens for a job: they want the Authority dead, for killing their god/host. In return, they offer Lobo the massive biomass of said host, a colossal chunk of meat and whatnot. Sold American! Meanwhile, the adult members of the Authority were discussing whether or not they should hunt down Lobo, or tell Jenny Santa wasn't real. Hunting down Lobo seems easier? Midnighter is grudgingly forced to bite the proverbial bullet, and take Jenny to the North Pole...which is, surprisingly, full of reindeer corpses, dead elves, and the remnants of Santa's workshop! The rest of the Authority is doubtful, until Jack Hawksmoor takes a Door to Times Square; and they remember in the comic, "bombs dropped down every chimney." NYC is a post-apocalyptic nightmare, a city of the dead and dying.

The team quickly realizes, maybe this wasn't all Lobo's doing, but Jenny's: she altered reality without realizing it. While the Authority questions survivors of the massacre, the Sugarplum Fairy and Frosty; Lobo tracks down the Ship in the Bleed, and fight time! Eventually, Jenny throws Lobo through a Door to the wreckage of Santa's workshop, and confronts him with his comic; which Lobo is surprisingly thrilled to see: it was a collector's item! But also fiction, part of a licensing deal he did years back. Lobo confronts Jenny with the knowledge that by making it real, she killed Santa! She explodes with power, resetting everything, and knocking out Lobo. But what to do with him: they weren't even sure Lobo was killable. They have to settle for taking pictures of Lobo, beat by a three-year-old, which would kill his rep if they got out. Also, the alien meat-corpse's orbit decayed and burned up, so there wasn't any payout coming for him to keep fighting. Still, Lobo doesn't seem to mind; as Jenny seemed to impress him...and he makes a deeply creepy comment as he leaves. 

The Authority has a right merry Christmas, maybe not noticing that Jenny had lost some of her innocence. I don't think I loved this one at the time, but I'm not a big Lobo fan anyway, and can't remember the last time I read an Authority story. I think I stuck with them through maybe Ed Brubaker's run, then was done with them.