I actually agree that it has over-the-top violence in it, which is to be frank one of the reasons I liked it.
Dave, the titles you cite really weren't comparable. GL/GA just addressed left-wing social issues in the 1970s, for example. It wasn't as if GL used his power ring to foil the oil shock or delivered Nixon to justice.
The Authority actively condemned and did something about the things we all talk about as being horrible when we read about them in the papers. In one scene the load thousands of East Timorese refugees on board their 50 mile long Carrier and negotiate with Tony Blair to take more of them into political asylum.
This sort of thing makes the JLA look pathetic. While they're busy fighting robots, people are gettting tortured in far away countries. One piece of dialogue has Jack Hawksmoor rebuking Bill Clinton, saying that if they're going to save the world from alien invasions, its got to be a world worth saving.
I agree with Pro - its a very positive message, asking why we or anyone should tolerate systemic abuses of human rights under the guise of sovereignty (a pro-invade Iraq argument, by the way).
And, yes no mainstream titles have really dared to address it properly.
