Why The Authority? Well, it's like this.  Any book that has as its credo: "Pay allegiance or get your head kicked in" has to be taken very seriously.  I thought I had seen everything when Grant Morrison took over the Justice League, but this sucker turned the volume up to eleven thanks to Warren Ellis, who writes the title.  Mass destruction balanced with great characters, people's brains getting knocked out hand in hand with incredible story arcs.  It's a damn dream come true.

What's the scoop?  It's like this.  Somebody has to be left to save the world.  All of the group's predecessors have disbanded or been destroyed.  There's no one around to handle the earth shattering (sometimes literally) events that occur when you live in a metahuman-enhanced universe.  So seven people step up to the plate.  They're the only ones who can handle the scope of the assignment.  They don't necessarily want the assignment, but they're stuck with it.  So they make the most of it and kick ass.  Which is a good thing, since an old foe, Kaizen Gamorra, has returned with an army of flying metahumans who really seem to get a kick out of leveling cities.  Call in the guys who spout lines like this:  "Welcome to Los Angeles."  "We're here to hit you."  The final defense--The Authority.

Directed by The Brothers Wachowski.  That's right, Andy and Larry Wachowski.  We've linked to one of them, since their filmographies are the same.  Why?  Well, let's see.  They have a vision that includes and is not limited to The Matrix.  So they're used to dealing with things on a large scale.  And they even created a movie so cool that not even Keanu Reeves could ruin it--so imagine what they could do with kick ass characters!

Written by Warren Ellis.  He is the man behind it all.  He made The Authority what it is today--the biggest most asskicking comic on the planet, in which characters reshape continents for God's sake.  Now that he's smacking the Transmetropolitan script into existence--we would simply have to enlist his efforts for this bad boy.

Cate Blanchett as Jenny Sparks:  The hardest part out of all of the group to cast.  Why? Here's why--Jenny stopped aging when she was 19 and she's 100 years old.  She's certainly not drawn like she's 19, at least not in our opinion, and there are few 19-year-old actresses who could lead a group like this effectively and believably.  So we decided to cast someone who could pull off the character and still look like artist Paul Neary draws her.  CCB originally said Nicole Kidman, and while we thought this over we came to the conclusion that although Nick can be severe, we wanted someone who could be severe and yet vulnerable.  We thought of Blanchett because of Elizabeth, where she got to be a monarch, for crying out loud, with the entire gambit of emotions.  Put some color into her cheeks and let's go.

Elias Koteas as Jack Hawksmoor:  Here's what we needed to fit in order to find our Jack.  Actor had to be able to wear a suit with no shoes and be able to look believable while punching someone's brains out.  No problem.  Somewhere between the maniac in Fallen and the priest-turned-cop in The Prophecy , Koteas is our god of the cities.

China Chow as Swift:  She seemed to us to be a relatively young member of the group and we wanted somebody beautiful who could also believably tear apart attacking craft with her talons.  Ahem.  Nobody said it would be easy.  But anyway, although we haven't seen much of her so far, we think if you give her the haircut and the wings, she'll do us proud.

Vladimir Kulich as Apollo:   Here's the criteria for being Apollo:  You have to not only be able to wipe out your opponents using eyebeams and brute strength, but you have to look impressive with long white hair.  This is not an easy combination of things to find, let us tell you.  We were thinking perhaps Thomas Ian Griffith, but it just wasn't working out.  So then Doc Ezra went and saw 13th Warrior and told us, "I found Apollo."  Sure enough, there was Kulich--big, long hair, and he was wearing a damn sun on the chest of his armor--it was fate speaking to us.  So we cast him.

Russell Crowe as The Midnighter:   This was the first part to be cast.  Yes, he has an immense amount of range, but we want to see a little bit of our violent friend Bud White from L.A. Confidential.  Then you can believe Crowe when he says that he's what soldiers dream of growing up to be.  The ultimate badass who never takes off his mask.  Awww yeah.

Vanessa Marcil as The Engineer:  Here's what we had in mind for The Engineer's character note--she had to be beautiful and yet believable when her skin morphs into metal.  Even more believable when she morphs her arm into an automatic weapon.  At first, we were thinking Jennifer Esposito, but then we remembered Marcil.  The thought struck me--"pigtails."  With that, it was all said and done--and upon checking we found out she was at one point up for playing Witchblade in the upcoming TV series, so comic book adaptations will be a piece of cake.  As for Esposito, we're sure we can get her a role in an upcoming DreamCast, so fear not.

Ewan McGregor as The Doctor:  We don't know a lot about this character thus far,  except that he is a shaman that is there to protect the global village.  He also can appear to manipulate matter and/or reality--a scene where he's turning his enemies into ravens is especially cool.  Give Ewan his red hair again, cut it short, and then put those Lennon sunglasses/jeweler's eyepiece hybrid things on him--and we think he would work wonderfully.

James Hong as Kaizen Gamorra:  Oh please.  Like there's any room for discussion.  Go watch Big Trouble in Little China.  Hong is the man to have a little fun.

Vondie Curtis-Hall as Jackson King/Battalion
Rebecca DeMornay as Christine Trelane/Synergy:  How much of a role these two would play in the film version is up for discussion.  If somebody didn't go back and look up the Stormwatch history, they'd probably never know the backstory, that these two were metahumans, that they kicked ass in their day.  We figure it would be enough to have pretty much that they used to be in the game, now they're on the sidelines.  No need for any  more than that.  Unofficial Authority liasons to the United Nations.