Update: DC has provided Newsarama readers with a few preview images from July's debut of Grant Morrison's four-issue Superman and The Authority, including a character sketch of the full team (partially seen above, fully seen below) by series artist Mikel Janín.
The images originally appeared in DC's in-house solicitation catalog DC Connect.
Check out the images in our gallery and look for more information on the new series below.
Original story follows
Grant Morrison is returning to Superman.
This is not a drill.
Morrison, the writer of the contemporary instant-classic All Star Superman is returning to pen new stories about the Man of Steel in the new four-issue Superman and The Authority.
The limited series - with art by Mikel Janín - launches in July as part of a minor rejiggering of the core in-continuity Superman titles that month that includes the launch of the Supergirl: World of Tomorrow limited series.
Morrison and Janín's story picks up on the recent goings-on in writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson's Action Comics.
"If Superman is to free the prisoners of Warworld, he’s going to need help, the kind of help that doesn't scream 'Justice League,'" reads DC's description.
According to the publisher, the multi-Eisner Award-winning writer and fan-favorite artist have the solution in the form of a new iteration of the Authority led by Manchester Black, along with original Authority members Midnighter and Apollo, new members culled from the DCU proper Enchantress and Natasha Irons, as well as new versions of Lightray (of the New Gods) and O.M.A.C.
"This new team will have to learn to work together, and fast, as the Ultra-Humanite has formed his own team of villains to take out the Man of Steel," continues DC's description.
The publisher also says the new limited series will help launch an "all-new status quo" for Superman, setting up story elements that will impact both Action Comics and Superman: Son of Kal-El (the retitled Superman title that gets a new writer and a new focus starting in July) for the foreseeable future.
Superman and The Authority is something of a multiple homecoming for Morrison. In addition to their revered, Eisner Award-winning 2005 All-Star Superman series, considered by many (including Newsarama) as one of the greatest Superman stories ever written, Morrison was the writer of the relaunched Action Comics with artist Rags Morales as part of DC's 2011 line-wide 'The New 52 ' reboot.
Morrison of course also wrote Superman as part of their equally-revered late '90s JLA run.
Morrison's history with The Authority is a little more truncated. In late 2006 Morrison launched volume 3 of the series with artist Gene Ha in what was intended to be a significant relaunch for it and original Wildstorm title WildC.A.T.S., which Morrison also wrote for artist Jim Lee.
Only one issue of the relaunched WildC.A.T.S. and two issues of The Authority were ever released, with Morrison later explaining at 2008's New York Comic-Con "Authority was just a disaster."
After the series began running late and Morrison became heavily involved with the DC year-along weekly series 52, when they saw the less-than-rave reviews to the first issue of The Authority, "I said f*** it."
Morrison's planned storyline was later scripted by Keith Giffen for 2008's The Authority: The Lost Year.
Superman and The Authority #1 (of 4) goes on sale July 20.
Grant Morrison recently looked back with Newsarama at their iconic New X-Men era at Marvel.
