neo-deconstructionist mysticism
Wash your mouth, son.
I see it as a signal that the mythos is about mined out. There's only so many ways you can tell the same story. At least Ellis openly admits that it is archaeology.
G-man, you forgot Squadron Supreme. Basically a retelling of the 1980s JLA, eliminating crime through thought control, and ideology /power consuming them all.
I was thinking about this from the perspective of Millar's Authority. Superheroes (Superman archetype, Batman archetype, Dr Who archetype, Metal Men archetype and whatever Jack Hawksmoor was supposed to be) depose Indonesia's government post-East Timor genocide. Then they smash Avengers archetypes. Grise eminence despatches Three Willy Seth who stomps them all, and they are replaced with a more pliable version of themselves. Only through a combination of luck and arrogance were they not all killed. The ending to that, really, should have been Seth murdering the lot of them: would have been more Orwellian that way, less superhero happy ending. Up until then, it was pretty new despite the superabundance of altruistic archetypes.
