Planetary: All Over The World and Other Stories

Comic books, especially, seem to be obsessed with retelling the same stories. Planetary just happens to do this particularly well.

Much like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Planetary postulates a world where the characters and ideas of popular fiction are actually real, coexisting in a wild potpourri that somehow manages to cohere. But while Moore seems to revel in merely the existence of such a world, Ellis shifts his focus to the idea that such a world would have to be concealed from the masses. He sacrifices the teeming exuberance of Moore's ever-larger world for a tightly constrained and controlled conspiracy.

So, Ellis isn't just interested in encountering Doc Savage; he's interested in the fact that Doc Savage has been trapped in show more an underground complex for decades. Similarly, the existence of an island of Japanese movie monsters, or the Spectre showing up as the ghost of a John Woo character, is subordinate to the effort being put forth to keep the world from finding out about them.

This volume ends with the introduction of Ellis' best idea: the Fantastic Four are the evil masterminds behind the conspiracy. Their homespun wholesomeness has always concealed just how terrifying they actually are, wielding enormous power and led by a supergenius inventor. Having them turn out to be the ones collecting and concealing the existence of alien technologies and superpowers is kind of silly, but weirdly fitting, as well. Elijah Snow looks at this in terms of technology and scientific advancements being withheld from humanity, but for the reader, it is narrative itself which must be unearthed. show less

Warren Ellis is a freaking genius. I loved Transmetropolitan to bits. Trees was amazing as hell. And now I finally got around to reading his best work ever - Planetary. And I am absolutely blown away by it.

Planetary begins a bit slow and takes the amnesiac route to familiarize the reader with the protagonist’s universe. What a wonderful, weird, glorious universe it is. Ellis uses some truly fantastic ideas here: a machine that creates realities out of fictional narratives and lets those characters cross over, a brilliant post-Gojira tribute, World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, and so on.

It’s also a stupendously awesome and different take on superheroes. I won’t spoil it for you here; I highly suggest you show more read and find out yourself. The characters aren’t immediately likeable, but that’s how they’re designed: with flaws and everything. Once you break the surface, though, you’re in for a wild cast of characters that you’ll learn to love and hate.

The writing is sharp and superb. No moments are wasted. The art complements the writing, drawing the characters in a realistic fashion while maintaining the standard comic book feel. It’s a brilliant package that must be enjoyed first-hand.

If I had the chance to wipe my memory and read this again, I’d do so in a heartbeat. show less

Uncle. I'm Hooked.

Picked this up volume after perusing information about it on the Internets that got my spider-sense tingling. Good ol' spider-sense.

What do we have here? Pulp heroes. The Justice League of America (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). Giant Japanese monsters. The Fantastic Four (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). The Secret History Of The Twentieth Century. What's not to love? (Assuming you're not one of WildStorm's lawyers; they were probably kept rather busy with this one.)

Yes, this sort of thing has been done before (Phil Farmer's Wold Newton tales being the most obvious antecedent). Yes, it could be hopelessly cornball and banal (and could certainly turn out to be - I've only just read Vol. 1, y'know). But it show more really seems that Messrs. Ellis and Cassaday are doing their own thing with this one, and I certainly plan on tuning in for future installments.

PS Did I mention the artwork's really great? No? Oh. The artwork's really great. Thought you might want to know. show less

Issue #27 finally came out, & I dug up my back issues & read the series from start to finish because I wanted to get a sense of the narrative arc since this tale was 10 YEARS in the making.

The Verdict: this is one of the most brilliant extended storylines I've ever encounters. It will stand the test of time, up there with Watchmen and others of the 'hero' genre.

PLANETARY is ultimately a holographic version of the Arabian Nights; it can be read as hero-noir, pastiche/tribute to the history of comic books & pulp & pop culture, delightful space-time science theoretical exploration, or a personal story of redemption and revenge.

I was amazed that Ellis found a way to keep his narrative tone & pacing in tune over the course of 27 issues & 10 show more years-- that in itself is to be lauded. show less

A collection of comics about a trio of super-powered "mystery archeologists" who travel the world on behalf of a shadowy organization, seeking to map out "the secret history of the world." Apparently the secret history of the world is very pulp fiction-y: we've got a Japanese island full of (now-dead) monsters, a ghost cop bent on vengeance, a team of astronauts who came back from a secret journey to the moon as something not-quite-human... That sort of thing. It's a terrifically fun concept. And the artwork is excellent, the characters at least potentially interesting... And yet, it just really didn't feel very satisfying to me, mainly because the stories themselves are so very, very slight. Mostly the team shows up, sees something show more interesting, goes, "Hey, that was interesting!" and leaves again without ever doing much. (Author Warren Ellis is clearly aware of this flaw, too, as he has one of the characters constantly complaining about it.)

So now I'm debating about whether to continue on with this series. This volume didn't leave me with a burning desire to read the rest of it, but it is only three more collections, and there are at least hints here that things might get a bit more involved, so maybe I'll give it another chance. show less

Planetary is good on many layers, like a Gobstopper. First of all, it's beautiful. Cassaday's art is consistently lovely, and brings to the page the actual wonder that the story demands. Planetary is also a great story; it's intriguing, well-plotted, and has interesting characters. On another level, it's also about stories, especially comic books, but other popular media as well; about what those stories tell us about ourselves, and the way we use those bright myths to lie about our world.

It's fun to geek out over the references, the in-jokes and allusions in Planetary, but they are actually serving a greater narrative purpose. Planetary is about a world more wonderful than ours, but just as dark. It's using those shining visions to show more show us how disappointing and flawed humanity can be. Along with an adventure or two, beautiful vistas, and more than a soupçon of hope. show less

Sadly not my thing and the first issue was so promising. The premise was so promising. But I couldn’t get sucked in and I didn’t like any of the characters and the world seemed too sketched out, too reliant on “this is what a superpowered world looks like”. And things didn’t move fast enough for me in terms of plot, either. This volume’s very episodic—it bounces from supercomputers to kaiju to megacorporations with only the barest link between anything. It felt like all the pieces were moving into place in this volume so that volume two could really kick off, and maybe that’s the case, but I wasn’t wowed enough by the writing to want to go there. (Sorry, Warren Ellis fans! I guess he’s not for me!)

5/10