Ha! Just last night I pulled my volumes of Planetary out to reread once I finish with Lazarus. I need to finish Lazarus quickly so I can follow along in time.

-M

Nice! I can weave reading Planetary in and out of continuing my read through Iron Man, like a little palate cleanser every so often, so I can participate.

Planetary was one of the last books I purchased from a comic book shop. The first issue was released in February of '99 while I was in my last year of law school. I moved from Moscow (Idaho) right after I took the bar exam to my current town where there is not and never has been a comic shop. So I probably picked up the first four or five issues before I left. At that point I had to follow the book in trades.

My wife got me the first TPB of Planetary for my first birthday together while we were dating.  We'd just started dating two months earlier, but she knew enough about me to know I liked comics and that I shopped at a particular LCS.  She went there after work one day and asked the owner if he could recommend something for her to get me as a gift, and he said that he had always been surprised that I hadn't picked up Planetary yet.  After that, I got all of the rest of them as floppies (including buying the first six that were in that TPB, for $1 each). 

She was a keeper from the first date.  20 years as a couple and 18 years married this upcoming June.

Planetary #1 by Ellis and Cassaday



The first issue is a tale of two parts. The first half sets up the current team of Planetary as Jakita Wagner recruits Elijah Snow into the team. We find that Snow has been living in the desert as a hermit for a decade (drinking coffee that tastes like dog piss) and is 100 years old (he doesn’t look it). That Planetary consists of three team members (we don’t know what happened to the individual Snow is replacing) and The Fourth Man, a mystery man who funds the team and appears to have unlimited money. The mystery of Who is The Fourth Man will largely inform the first year of the book. The team, as we found out in the preview, are mystery archeologists who look in to the weird events of the 20th Century.



The first assignment for this iteration of the team is to look into a man-made cave complex in the Adirondack Mountains, the entrance to which is concealed by a hologram. We also find out that Jakita and Drummer have been with the team at least two years and were involved in heisting diaries from a KGB vault. Snow and Jakita enter and go through a trophy room that contains the skeleton of “The Vulcanis Raven God” (a Lovecraftian critter?), “The Hull of the Charnel Ship” (we’ll find out more in issue #4), “Vestiments of the Black Crow King,“ and “The Murder Colonels” (this sounds like a great pulp novel title). This is a great call-back to the pulp and comic book trope of the trophy room. The main discovery, however, is Dr. Axel Brass, who has been alive and wounded since 1945. Brass is a clear Doc Savage analog and his story tells us how he got to be sitting there alone with shattered legs for over fifty years. Brass introduces us through flashback to a group of heroes (not his associates who would be analogs to Doc Savage’s pals). The group are built around Pulp archetypes including Hark (Fu Manchu), Jimmy (Operator 5), The Aviator (G-8), Edison (Tom Swift), Lord Blackstoke (Tarzan), Brett Leather (The Spider/Shadow). Of course, there were others who followed the archetypes, including a list of Edisonades, Ka-Zar and a host of Tarzan imitators, etc.



The gathering was to start a quantum computer that would sift through all realities to come to the ultimate answer of how to stop the War. The computer generates the Snowflake (first appearance) the visualization of the multi-verse. As the answer to the question involved universes coming into and out of existence a group from one of those universes reached across in an attempt to either save their world or to transfer it to that occupied by Brass and friends. The group, also numbering seven, are direct analogs of the original JLA, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Flash and Green Lantern. Of course, there’s a fight…and Axel and company win, with only Brass surviving. In the end we see Planetary transferring him to a place for medical help and taking possession of the quantum computer.




It’s pretty clear that Ellis is showing us the usurpation of pulp heroes by their comic book doppelgangers. And while Brass is happy about the victory, the need for the fight and ultimately the victory was put into place because of they operated the computer and visualized The Snowflake. Brass and Company essentially started a Crisis in the Snowflake Multiverse and those “heroes” went to, unsuccessfully, fight the cause of their world’s demise.

If Ellis had been trying to hook me on a book he couldn’t have done a better job. If there’s anything I love almost as much as comics it’s pulps. I spent a lot of time in my youth reading and collecting the adventures of Doc Savage, Tarzan, Fu Manchu and the like. Ellis and Cassaday had me absolutely hooked from the start.



“It’s a strange world.” “Let’s keep it that way.”

Looking a bit forward to issue two, Jakita's powers seem to track closely to the early Superman.  Enhanced strength and speed.  Some level of invulnerability.  Can see better than Snow.  But clearly not the levels that Superman would later attain, thankfully. 

So noted!  Btw, one of the classic 'Edisonades' was a character literally named Thomas Edison Jr, and I've always assumed the Edison here was that dude.

So noted as well.  That's also the problem writing someone like the Barry Allen Flash, who ought to have solved all his cases in three pages.  Elijah Snow's power is completely devastating but he doesn't seem to use it half the time.