2) The Authority
The Authority is one of those milestone comics that comes along every so often and changes the entire superhero genre. Warren Ellis may have created the series as a pastiche of DC’s premier super team, the Justice League of America, but The Authority became incredibly successful in their own right with storylines that covered a huge range of metaphysical themes, ranging from the existence of God to humanity’s place in the universe.
Like the aforementioned Doom Patrol, the central members of the Authority aren’t your everyday vigilantes. Jack Hawksmoor possesses a psychic bond with cityscapes, leader Jenny Sparks embodies the spirit of the 20th century and power couple Apollo and Midnighter are among the first openly gay heroes to marry in a comic book.
Discussion of the superhero genre’s lifespan is worrying for studios like Marvel and DC who are banking on the continued success of their comic book properties, so producers need to take a chance on a team like The Authority. Sure, the intellectually mature themes explored within the Authority won’t be accessible to younger demographics and there will still be (unwarranted) reservations about depicting a homosexual relationship between heroes on screen, but there is a huge audience out there who craves movies of this ilk.