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Planetary (comics)
View on Wikipedia| Planetary | |
|---|---|
![]() The Planetary team (back to front): The Drummer, Jakita Wagner and Elijah Snow by John Cassaday and Laura Martin. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Wildstorm (DC Comics) |
| Schedule | Erratic |
| Genre |
|
| Publication date | September 1998 – October 2009 |
| No. of issues | 27 |
| Main character(s) | Jakita Wagner The Drummer Elijah Snow |
| Creative team | |
| Created by | Warren Ellis John Cassaday |
| Written by | Warren Ellis |
| Artist | John Cassaday |
| Colorist | Laura Martin |
| Collected editions | |
| All Over the World and Other Stories | ISBN 1-56389-648-6 |
Planetary is an American comic book series created by writer Warren Ellis and artist John Cassaday, and published by the Wildstorm imprint of DC Comics. After an initial preview issue in September 1998, the series ran for 27 issues from April 1999 to October 2009.
Publication history
[edit]Planetary was previewed in issue #33 of Gen13 and issue #6 of C-23, both dated September 1998. The first issue of the series was cover-dated April 1999. Originally intended to be a 24-issue bi-monthly series, the series was on hold from 2001 to 2003 due to illness of writer Warren Ellis and other commitments by Cassaday. Laura Martin (also credited as Laura DePuy) colored almost every issue of the series. The main story concluded with issue #26 in October 2006; the concluding issue #27 released three years later in October 2009.
Ellis intended the focus of the book to be the superhero genre, rather than the superheroes themselves: "I wanted to do something that actually went deeper into the subgenre, exposed its roots and showed its branches"[1] and stated in his proposal for the comic series: "[...] What 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?"[2]
Rich Kreiner described John Cassaday's artwork in The Comics Journal as being "close to the gold standard for fabulous realism in mainstream comics".[3] Tom Underhill noted colorist Laura Martin's contribution as "every bit as compelling" as Cassaday's in his review for The Comics Journal.[4]
One of the main features of the series is the portrayal of alternate versions of many figures from popular culture, such as Godzilla, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes,[5] and Doc Savage.[6] This extends to comic book characters from both DC Comics (e.g. Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman) and Marvel Comics (e.g. the Fantastic Four,[7] the Hulk, and Thor).
Ellis also introduced the concept of a multiverse to the series, drawing upon the mathematical concept known as the Monster group for inspiration.[8] The multiverse is described as "a theoretical snowflake existing in 196,833 dimensional space",[9] a reference to the visualization method used by some mathematicians when describing the Monster group.
Plot
[edit]In 1999, Elijah Snow, a reclusive centenarian and former adventurer with cryokinesis powers, reluctantly accepts recruitment by the field team of Planetary, an organization that investigates the "secret history" of the twentieth century. The field team, also made up of superhuman Jakita Wagner and a technopath called only the Drummer, is supported by a network of global offices, specialists, and equipment, and unconditionally funded by an unidentified, unseen patron called the "Fourth Man." On their missions, the field team encounter concepts from speculative fiction in the flesh, such as pulp magazine heroes, superheroes, kaiju, wuxia and gun fu, a superspy, B movie monsters, Jules Verne's imaginary technology, and interstellar starships. The team embraces the fantastical nature of their findings, embodied by the mantra: "It's a strange world; let's keep it that way."
Restless after several missions spent passively observing, Snow grows proactive, committing Planetary support to crew a stranded interdimensional "shiftship." He is also briefed on Planetary's conflict against the Four—Randall Dowling, Kim Süskind, William Leather, and Jacob Greene—a superpowered rival group who have hunted and hoarded hidden wonders as trophies through decades of covert black operations. Learning the extent of the Four's wanton atrocities, Snow becomes invested in missions to liberate life-saving technology from the Four and to recover and assist victims of Science City Zero, a concentration camp used by the Four for human experimentation. However, Snow is disquieted by gaps in his own knowledge which disadvantage him against the Four as well as his teammates.
Aided by secret agent John Stone, Snow regains many lost memories, including various secret adventures he documented in a publication called the Planetary Guide. He remembers that he himself is the Fourth Man and the field team his trusted colleagues, but, after a failed operation against the Four, he submitted to memory blocks and exile by Dowling in exchange for the team's lives. Fearing the Four's reprisal should Snow regain his memory, the team had sought to return him to the field while treating him as a stranger. Snow also remembers former team member Ambrose Chase, able to alter the laws of physics inside a limited field, who was seemingly fatally shot by a Dowling operative but inexplicably vanished, leaving no body.
Re-assuming leadership, Snow actively opposes the Four, thwarting their plans and turning their allies before targeting their members outright: he captures and tortures Leather, and sacrifices the observation of a unique extraterrestrial object to permanently strand Greene off-planet. Wagner is alienated by Snow's seemingly vindictive turn, but the Drummer, who was rescued by Snow from the Four, and who knows that Snow saved Wagner as a baby, trusts that his goal is to save lives above all.
After the field team evades an orbital death ray attack by the Four, they subdue Stone, who was outed by Leather as the Four's informant. Stone reveals the Four's true goal: to subjugate Earth ahead of a planned invasion by a hostile parallel Earth, as repayment for granting the Four's superpowers. Snow contacts Dowling and demands the Four's entire database of knowledge, and their capitulation, in exchange for sparing their lives, despite seemingly possessing no weapon as leverage.
Bemused, Dowling and Süskind meet Snow at his chosen location, delivering their database but not their surrender. Snow launches the now-crewed shiftship, long buried underground, opening a vast chasm and dropping Dowling and Süskind to their deaths. Snow visits the hostile Earth by shiftship and, to deter their invasion, issues an ultimatum threatening their annihilation.
Planetary deploys the recovered technology worldwide non-commercially, greatly advancing scientific and humanitarian progress. Meanwhile, theorizing that Chase is alive but suspended in a field of stopped time, Snow orders the construction of a time machine to collapse the field by a frame-dragging effect,[10] overruling the Drummer's fear that, according to quantum mechanics, the advent of time travel would predetermine the entire future timeline by wave function collapse. However, Snow personally turns on the time machine, and his intent to keep the world strange, exerted by the observer effect, manifests many timelines instead of one: while Chase is retrieved and successfully triaged, numerous versions of the field team all arrive from different futures, promising yet more adventures to come.
Characters
[edit]Outsiders
[edit]The 2023-24 DC Comics series Outsiders, written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, revived the premise of Planetary in the DC Universe: the DC characters Luke Fox and Batwoman, teaming with a woman identifying as the Drummer, embark on missions to investigate the DC Universe's secret history, embodied by its many continuity reboots.[11] The new Drummer reveals herself to be Jakita Wagner, the sole survivor of the Planetary continuity becoming erased in one such reboot.
Collected editions
[edit]
The series, and spin-offs, have been collected into a number of volumes:
- Planetary:
- Volume 1: All Over the World and Other Stories (collects Preview & #1–6; hardcover and softcover ISBN 1-56389-648-6)
- Volume 2: The Fourth Man (collects #7–12; hardcover and softcover ISBN 1-56389-764-4)
- Volume 3: Leaving the 20th Century (collects #13–18; hardcover ISBN 1-4012-0293-4 and softcover ISBN 1-4012-0294-2)
- Volume 4: Spacetime Archaeology (collects #19–27; hardcover ISBN 1-4012-0996-3 and softcover ISBN 1-4012-2345-1)
- Planetary: Crossing Worlds (collects the three crossover one-shots above; softcover only ISBN 1-4012-0279-9)
- Planetary Book One (collects #1–14, Planetary Sneak Peek, and Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World; also script to #1, character design sketches) ISBN 1-4012-7166-9) (July 2017) (softcover)
- Planetary Book Two (collects #15–27, Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta, and Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth) ISBN 1-4012-7799-3) (March 2018) (softcover)
- Absolute Planetary volume 1 (collects Preview & #1–12, also script to #1; slipcased hardcover ISBN 1-4012-0327-2)
- Absolute Planetary volume 2 (collects #13–27; slipcased hardcover ISBN 1-4012-2701-5)
- The Planetary Omnibus (collects Preview, #1–27, plus the three crossover one-shots above, also script to #1, character design sketches, and cover art for both Absolute Editions and the four trade paperbacks); hardcover only ISBN 1-4012-4238-3)
Awards
[edit]- 2000:
- Nominated for "Best Continuing Series" Eisner Award
- Nominated for "Best New Series" Eisner Award
- 2002: Nominated for "Best Continuing Series" Eisner Award
- 2005: Nominated for "Best Serialized Story" Eisner Award, for Planetary #19–20 ("Mystery in Space/Rendezvous")
References
[edit]- ^ Christopher Butcher (2000-10-31). "PROFILE: Warren Ellis Interview (part one)". popimage.com. Archived from the original on 2008-07-24. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
- ^ Ellis, Warren (November 1997). "Planetary Proposal". warrenellis.com. Archived from the original on 2000-07-11. Retrieved 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 (a). "Century" Planetary, no. 13 (February 2001). DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (a). "The Good Doctor" Planetary, no. 5 (September 1999). DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassady (a). "The Good Doctor" Planetary, no. 5 (September 1999). DC Comics.
- ^ Warren Ellis (2005-03-27). "Mar. 27th, 2005". Warren Ellis' Live Journal. Retrieved 2006-11-10.
- ^ Warren Ellis (w), John Cassaday (a). Planetary, no. 2 (April 1999). DC Comics.
- ^ The story assumes that time machines cannot travel backward in time past the inception of time travel, so that Chase cannot be rescued in the past.
- ^ Donohoo, Timothy Blake (August 5, 2023). "DC's Newest Outsiders Comic Homages a Classic Wildstorm Book". Comic Book Resources.
External links
[edit]- Planetary at the Grand Comics Database
- Planetary (team) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
- Planetary (title) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
- Planetary Comic Appreciation Page
- Planetary Timeline
- World of Black Heroes: Jakita Wagner Biography
Planetary (comics)
View on GrokipediaPublication and development
Concept and creation
Warren Ellis conceived Planetary as a series delving into the hidden roots of the superhero genre and 20th-century popular culture, reimagining archetypes from pulp fiction, science fiction, and adventure stories as elements of a concealed global history.[8] He envisioned the protagonists not as traditional heroes but as "superhero archaeologists" or "archaeologists of the impossible," tasked with excavating buried wonders and blending mystery, archaeology, and metafiction to uncover the fantastic underpinnings of the modern world.[9] This approach allowed Ellis to pitch the book as a metafictional exploration of how superheroes and pulp icons evolved, drawing directly from 1930s-1940s influences like Doc Savage and The Shadow to critique and celebrate genre origins.[9] John Cassaday joined as the artist, bringing a detailed, cinematic style that framed panels like film shots, enhancing the series' atmospheric depth and sense of discovery.[10] His work was influenced by classic illustrators such as N.C. Wyeth and the visual culture of pulp magazines, which informed his precise, evocative depictions of period settings and archetypal figures.[11] Cassaday's contributions emphasized grandeur and subtlety, aligning with Ellis's intent to evoke the wonder of early 20th-century adventure narratives while grounding them in a sophisticated visual language.[8] The series received its first previews in Gen13 #33 and C-23 #6, both dated September 1998, featuring zero-issue content that introduced Elijah Snow and offered initial glimpses of the Planetary team in action.[12] These short stories, written by Ellis and illustrated by Cassaday, established the core premise of investigating anomalous phenomena and set the tone for the full launch under WildStorm in 1999.[9]Serialization and production
Planetary was serialized as a 27-issue limited series by WildStorm, an imprint of DC Comics, running from April 1999 to October 2009.[13] Originally planned as a 24-issue bimonthly title, the schedule became erratic due to various production challenges.[13] The series went on hiatus after issue #15 in October 2001, resuming with issue #16 in October 2003, primarily because writer Warren Ellis suffered from a severe illness that impaired his ability to write, while artist John Cassaday took on high-profile commitments such as his run on Marvel's Captain America starting in 2002.[13][14] Ellis, who scripted the series in full detail ahead of time to allow Cassaday flexibility in artwork, paused writing after delivering the script for issue #18 in May 2003 to enable Cassaday to catch up on the backlog.[13] Post-resumption, the irregular pacing continued, with issues released sporadically; for instance, issue #24 appeared in July 2005, #25 in April 2006, #26 in October 2006, and #27 in October 2009.[13][15] Later delays, particularly for the concluding issue #27, were attributed to Cassaday's perfectionism and reluctance to end the project, as he did not begin drawing the script—delivered by Ellis in June 2007—until June 2008, completing it by March 2009.[13][16] This extended timeline reflected the duo's commitment to quality over speed, with Cassaday's detailed, style-shifting artwork demanding significant time.[13]Collected editions
The collected editions of Planetary have been released in various formats by DC Comics under its WildStorm imprint, including trade paperbacks, oversized Absolute editions, and an omnibus, allowing readers to access the complete 27-issue series along with crossover stories and extras. These compilations repackage the original serialization, which concluded in 2009, into accessible volumes that highlight the series' exploration of hidden histories and superhuman artifacts.[17] The primary trade paperback editions divide the series into two books:- Planetary Book One (2017, trade paperback, collects issues #1–14, Planetary Sneak Peek, and Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World #1; 432 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-7166-4). This volume introduces the core team and their initial investigations into paranormal mysteries.[4][18]
- Planetary Book Two (2018, trade paperback, collects issues #15–27, Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta #1, and Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth #1; 440 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-7799-3). It concludes the narrative arc, focusing on confrontations with the antagonistic Four and revelations about the team's benefactor.[19][20]
- Absolute Planetary Vol. 1 (2004, hardcover with slipcase, collects preview and issues #1–12 plus the full script for #1; 320 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-0327-6). This edition emphasizes the early pulp-inspired adventures and includes bonus material for archival appeal.[21]
- Absolute Planetary Vol. 2 (2010, hardcover with slipcase, collects issues #13–27; 384 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-2701-2). It wraps up the series' epic scope, featuring high-fidelity art and additional sketches.[22][23]
- Planetary Omnibus (2014, hardcover, collects all 27 issues plus crossovers Planetary/Batman #1, Planetary/JLA #1, and Planetary/Authority #1, along with sketches and extras; 864 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-4238-1). This format is designed for collectors seeking the entire saga in one binding.[5][24]
- Planetary: Crossing Worlds (2004, trade paperback, collects Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World #1, Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta #1, and Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth #1; 160 pages; ISBN 978-1-4012-0279-8). These one-shots integrate Planetary's team with DC Universe characters, exploring multiversal encounters.[7][25]

