Planetary (comics)
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Planetary is an American comic book series created by Warren Ellis (writer) and John Cassaday (artist), published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics. Planetary also refers to the group portrayed in the series.
Planetary was previewed in the September 1998 issues of Gen¹³ (#33) and C-23 (#6), and issue #1 was cover-dated April 1999. It was originally intended to be a 24-issue bi-monthly series. However due to illness (Ellis) and other commitments (Cassaday), the series was put on hiatus between 2001 and 2003; it has since restarted and Ellis has announced that it will conclude with issue #27.
Laura Martin has colored almost every issue of the series.
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[edit] The premise
Planetary are an organization billing themselves as "Archaeologists of the Impossible", tracking down the world's secret history. Funded by the mysterious Fourth Man, who it is said could be anyone from Bill Gates to Adolf Hitler, the field team consists of three superhumans: Jakita Wagner, who is strong, fast and nearly invulnerable; The Drummer, who can detect and manipulate nearby information streams; and the new recruit Elijah Snow, who can deep-freeze nearby substances at will.
The series is set in the Wildstorm Universe, along with other titles such as Stormwatch, The Authority, DV8 and Gen¹³. For instance, Snow was born on January 1, 1900, as was Jenny Sparks of The Authority, and the two know each other. Despite this, Planetary rarely crosses over with other Wildstorm series, although references are made to characters in other series, such as Henry Bendix from StormWatch.
Planetary's field team travels the world investigating strange phenomena: monsters and other beings, unusual relics, other superhumans, and powerful secrets which certain individuals are trying to keep hidden from the rest of the world. Their purpose in doing this is partly curiosity, and partly to use what they learn for the betterment of mankind. There are, however, groups who oppose their goals, and the organization has a substantial history which is gradually revealed during the series.
[edit] The series
Ellis has always intended the focus of the book to be the genre of superhero comics, rather than the superheroes themselves. "I wanted to do something that actually went deeper into the sub-genre, exposed its roots and showed its branches."[1] One of the series' main hooks is that it portrays alternate versions of many well-known (and obscure) figures from popular culture. At various times we are shown versions, and in some instances multiple versions of major company characters such as; John Constantine[2]; Superman; Captain Marvel[3]; Wonder Woman; Green Lantern; Nick Fury; the Justice League; the Fantastic Four[4]; and the Hulk. Ellis has also reached beyond the genre, noting it is "about the superhero sub-genre, and its antecedents"[1], and as such has also created pastiche characters based upon Godzilla, Sherlock Holmes[5], Doc Savage[6] Ellis also references the modern League of Extraordinary Gentlemen[7], Japanese monster movies[8], 1950s horror/science fiction movies[9], Hong Kong action movies[10] and more. This provides a rich backdrop for the ongoing story, and is similar to Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family.
Typically, the public domain characters such as Holmes appear as themselves, while those still under copyright appear in altered but recognizably similar form. In some regards the series is thus similar to the series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
The idea of the series is to create a concise world in which archetypes of superheroes, pulp fiction heroes, science fiction heroes, and characters from just about every possible mass media format, live in one large universe while the Planetary team investigates them and ties together the ends. As Warren Ellis wrote in his proposal for the comic series: "[W]hat if you had a hundred years of superhero history just slowly leaking out into this young and modern superhero world of the Wildstorm Universe? What if you could take everything old and make it new again?"[11]
The comic relies heavily on Cassaday's distinctive artwork, featuring a variety of styles of covers (with no consistent logo or layout) and interior art, often paying homage to the respective sources from which each issue's characters and concepts are drawn from. Rich Kreiner has described Cassaday's artwork in The Comics Journal as being "close to the gold standard for fabulous realism in mainstream comics"[12], and Cassaday's ability to interpret Ellis' scripts adds to the books appeal, his command of the visual language helping drive the narrative. The book is colored by Laura Dupuy, Tom Underhill noting her contribution as "every bit as compelling" as Cassaday's in his review for The Comics Journal[13]. The mysteries Ellis sets up are what ultimately drive the book, as the characters' relationships, their histories, and the identity of the Fourth Man[14] are gradually revealed. .
Ellis has also drawn on scientific sources for inspiration within the series. Ellis introduced the concept of a Multiverse to the shared universe in which the characters appear, drawing upon the mathematical concept known as the Monster group for inspiration[15]. Hark describes the multiverse as "a theoretical snowflake existing in 196,833 dimensional space." [16], a reference to the visualisation method used by some mathematicians when describing the Monster group[17]
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Series
- Gen¹³ #33 and C-23 #6 (preview - same story included in each issue)
- Planetary #1-27 (issue #27 is due sometime in 2007 and is 'part-written' according to a recent email (23rd February 2007) from Ellis to his Bad Signal mailing list)
[edit] One-shots
- Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World: Standalone story featuring the two Wildstorm teams in a plot tangentially related to an element in the first issue of Planetary. Includes references to the stories of H. P. Lovecraft, and features Lovecraft himself as a character. Art by Phil Jimenez
- Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth: Standalone story featuring alternate renditions of Batman in what is otherwise a straightforward Planetary tale. Art by John Cassaday
- Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta: Standalone Elseworlds story featuring an alternate version of the JLA - Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman - facing an alternate incarnation of Planetary that acts in much the same way the Four do in the regular Planetary series. Completely detached from the main Planetary storyline. Art by Jerry Ordway
[edit] Collections
- All Over the World and Other Stories (collects preview & #1-6; hardcover and softcover ISBN 1-56389-648-6)
- The Fourth Man (collects #7-12; hardcover and softcover ISBN 1-56389-764-4)
- Leaving the Twentieth Century (collects #13-18; hardcover ISBN 1-4012-0293-4 and softcover ISBN 1-4012-0294-2)
- Planetary: Crossing Worlds (collects the three crossover one-shots above; softcover only ISBN 1-4012-0279-9)
- Absolute Planetary (collects preview & #1-12, also script to #1; Slipcased hardcover ISBN 1-4012-0327-2)
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ a b Christopher Butcher (2000-10-31). PROFILE: Warren Ellis Interview (part one) (html). popimage.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassady (p,i). "To Be In England in the Summertime" Planetary #7 January 2000 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassady (p,i). "Strange Harbours" Planetary #4 July 1999 DC Comics.
- ^ Critics have noted that Ellis based the villains of the series on the Fantastic Four. They were first introduced in issue five. Warren Ellis (w), John Cassady (p,i). "The Good Doctor" Planetary #5 September 1999 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Century" Planetary #13 February 2001 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "The Good Doctor" Planetary #5 September 1999 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Century" Planetary #13 February 2001 DC Comics.
- ^ In issue 2, the Planetary group visit Island Zero, which is based on Monster Island, where various giant monsters lived in the later Godzilla movies. ( Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Island" Planetary #2 May 1999 DC Comics. )
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Cold World" Planetary #11 2000 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Dead Gunfighters" Planetary #3 June 1999 DC Comics.
- ^ Ellis, Warren (written November 1997, posted to web in 2000). Planetary Proposal (html). warrenellis.com. Archived from the original on 2000-07-11. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ Kreiner, Rich (February 2004). "Firing Line:Planetary/Batman". The Comics Journal 1 (258): 50-51. ISSN 0194-7869.
- ^ Underhill, Tom (February 2006). "Warren, Just Admit It". The Comics Journal 1 (274): 62-64. ISSN 0194-7869.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). "Memory Cloud" Planetary #12 January 2001 DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (2005-03-27). [Mar. 27th, 2005 (html). Warren Ellis' Live Journal. Retrieved on 2006-11-10.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (p,i). Planetary #2 April, 1999 DC Comics.
- ^ Mathematicians have described the concept as best visualised as a highly symmetrical shape, a snowflake for example, existing in 196,883-dimensional space. Each symmetry of the group would correspond to a rotation of the object in this space, and the number of possible rotations is approximately equal to the number of atoms in the earth. This fact is also referred to by Hark in issue one.
