A story told from start to finish with an engaging world, smart humor and a touch of elegance.
What They Say:
Collecting the adventures of Elijah Snow, a powerful, hundred year old man, Jakita Wagner, an extremely powerful but bored woman, and The Drummer, a man with the ability to communicate with machines. Infatuated with tracking down evidence of super-human activity, these mystery archaeologists of the late 20th Century uncover unknown paranormal secrets and histories, such as a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a ghostly spirit of vengeance, and a lost island of dying monsters.
The Review:
While my experiences with Warren Ellis are fairly slim as I started to become aware of his mainstream comics work at a time when I was exiting collecting comics, he’s someone that I’ve definitely enjoyed and have been curious about what he does. Since my return to comics, I’ve been eying the Planetary graphic novels for purchase since it looked very much up my alley and an interesting part of the Wildstorm universe. With this collection, a special sale item via Comixology, I ended up grabbing it a few minutes before leaving for a week long vacation figuring it would make for good reading here and there over it. Unsurprisingly to fans of the series, I finished it in the space of a couple of days and have been raving about it ever since.
At its core, Planetary is a simple series about three characters who are part of a much larger world, but it’s teased out over the course of it and nothing is wasted during the run. We’re introduced to a man named Elijah Snow as he’s sought out by Jakita Wagner, an attractive young woman who works for the Planetary foundation doing all sorts of interesting work. She’s the type who does it because life doesn’t excite her otherwise, but this job allows her to see the secret and hidden wonders of the world. She works alongside an information genius who only goes by the name of Drummer. He’s able to see how information flows and works in real time and can even view magical occurrences in a mathematical form because it is simply another form of information. He’s a little off kilter because of how he views the world, but that just adds to his charm.
The series is largely told from the point of view of the newest recruit, Snow. He’s a curious character from the start as he’s a much older man and has a very world weary feel about him that involves him spending the last ten years basically taking it off and holing up in a little corner of the desert. Jakita’s bringing him into Planetary has him coming into contact with the strange wonders of the world, and revealing the wonders about him as well. It’s a difficult series to go into detail about because it’s one very large mystery with numerous moving parts, but snow is one of a rare breed, a man born at the turn of the nineteenth century that is gifted with long life and a sense of purpose. We see through the course of the series the various events he’s interacted with over the years that have shaped humanity’s course and the new exposures to it in the present day has it all coming back to the surface for him, re-awakening what large plans he had set in motion man years ago that have been buried in his mind.
Because of the mystery that’s here, the small parts are very important parts. Organizations formed fifty plus years prior to deal with evolved humans, aliens and other supernatural mysteries play heavily into things and introduces a variety of fascinating characters that could easily support their own series. The view of the universe early on is almost a strange and amusing throwaway as it’s very mathematical and beautiful, but it ends up becoming a key part to the series when the larger threats being faced are realized. And the threat of the series takes shape twice, which works surprisingly well. The human threat that’s faced comes in the form of a group of four astronauts in the late 50’s who went through a secret program and ended up gifted with amazing powers. Their story is spread over the series as the Planetary group has to face off against them as they’re not exactly evil in a way, but rather view themselves above humanity and operate with different goals in mind, treating mankind as ants they don’t need to take into consideration.
Planetary doesn’t pull punches with what it does. People die, there are disfigurements and a sense of frankness about much of it. Ellis’ dialogue is spot on as each of the characters is very distinct and fun in their ownw ay and each of them has wonderful reveals about their pasts as it progresses. There’s a huge supporting cast to it as well as they run into so many fascinating mysteries and they’re all well detailed, though many pay homage to other characters from across the comics universe through the decades. This works well with the multiverse aspect that’s brought into play and allows it to make sense without feeling like it’s a crutch to ape off of works that others have done. It’s taking it and looking at it askew, a massive “What If?” in essence.
While the series had a slow release schedule and took some ten years to complete just over two years worth of issues, the end result is one that is beautiful to behold and consistent as John Cassaday stuck it out as the artist and really brings something magical about it. It’s detailed and atmospheric where it needs to be, but there’s also a simpleness about it that allows it to be majestic without being ostentatious. With really good character designs across the board and such an immense variety to what needed to be drawn, he really helped to make the scripts even more amazing and brought it all together in a way that can’t be understated.
Digital Notes:
This special digital edition of Planetary contains all twenty-seven issues as well as the eight page prologue in one collection. There are no extras with it but it retains all the front covers as seen with the original release.
In Summary:
Planetary had been on my radar for awhile but was the kind of book that I don’t think I would have gotten into as thoroughly if I had to go with separate trades bought over a period of time. Reading it in a couple of marathon sessions over a weekend really drove home just how beautifully interconnected it is and is highly reminiscent of what Alan Moore did with Watchmen, except that this was written over a ten year period and only just over over twice the issues. This is a wonderful work, one that has a lot of great value because it can be re-read easily with new discoveries and connections each time. Ellis and Cassaday have put together a work here that should stand the test of time well and deserves more readers and should be the kind of book you give to the non-comics readers as an example of what good comics are. Very highly recommended in every form.
Grade: A
