This one captures a lot of things. there is a very strong conservative element in Japanese society, which Aum Shinrikyo was an extreme form Mishima was the same, calling for a return to the samurai values, which was also a propaganda tool of the right Wing militarists who controlled Japan during the build up and fighting of WW2. It fits perfectly as those Right Wing forces want the 1947 constitution abolished and the re-establishment of a full-scale military, including weapons of mass destruction. Kaiju are metaphors for nuclear weapons and the havoc they wreak is meant to invoke the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That all blends well together here.

The monsters and skeletons are close enough to invoke the Toho stars, without getting sued. I especially enjoyed this as an example of their archeological work, while also showing them as superheroes, which was the real hook to this series. Each issue explores some tangent or ancestor to comic books, letting the characters play within that world. It's almost like a blog within a comic book story.

Planetary #3 by Ellis and Cassaday

In issue number three Ellis and Cassaday give us another homage to another area of popular culture, in this case Hong Kong/Chinese action films. In this case in particular revenge films. This is an area I’m personally even less versed in than the Kaiju we saw in issue number two. But that didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story, which is probably a testament to the quality of the work.

The book opens (along with the cover) with a ten-page widescreen cinematic tour de force by Cassaday that absolutely feels like at least the storyboard for an action film. The story again is simple. The Planetary team is investigating the ghost of a betrayed Hong Kong cop who haunts the area he was betrayed and takes vengeance on evil-doers.



Along the way we find out that the Hong Kong field office has been in place for six years, far longer than Jakita thought that Planetary had existed as an entity. The team, using Drummer and Jakita’s abilities bring up an actual archeological mystery device, that Drummer describes as a “big stack of hard drives,” that appears to be the souls of the betrayed and that our Ghost Cop describes simply as “God.” (It appears that it is actually an aspect of The Snowflake).



The team is able to talk to and get the story of the Ghost Cop from his lips and a message for his loved ones to enjoy life because there is nothing beyond this one.

Because of the cinematic nature of the issue it’s a super-fast read. Even with the expository nature of the third act. But it’s still completely satisfying.



“You people came looking for a mystery. But there is none. There’s just us.”

Started my Planetary reread this morning and devoured the first volume of the trades-All Around the World and Other Stories that contains #1-6 plus the preview story.

-M

Planetary #4 by Ellis and Cassaday

With the fourth issue Ellis and Cassaday start doing some real world-building for the Planetary team. Not that we hadn’t been getting hints and glimpses of the world as we have gone along. But the creators forgo the homages that we saw in the first three issues and the preview to give us a better look at the world that Planetary will inhabit and explore. This is actually a difficult book to review retrospectively because there is a lot happening under the surface that we aren’t going to fully understand until later in the series. So I’ll try to look at it with the same kind of eyes that saw it when it was first published.

The cover is interesting in that it feels old but not really like a pulp cover nor an old comic book cover. After a bit of digging what it reminds me of most is the cover of a copy of Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang. Given what we will see later that may be intentional. The story itself starts with Jim Wilder, the personal investigator for Anna Hark of Hark industries (same last name as the far east genius who was allied with Doc Brass) beginning an investigation of the destruction of an office building. Wilder is sidetracked in his work as he helps a gentleman who is being mugged and follows the mugger into the blast site where the Planetary crew are investigating a piece of machinery that is sticking out of the ground. Wilder steps on the machinery as he pursues the mugger…and disappears.

Wilder reappears with a lightning-like scar on his chest and is taken to a hospital that appears to be run by Planetary where Doc Brass is also a patient. The item that Wilder stepped on transported him to a shift-ship. While interviewing Wilder the crew learns about what shift-ships are, how they travel “The Bleed” which are the channels between the universes that make up “The Snowflake.” The ships need humans to operate and Wilder has volunteered to be one of them and recruit others so that the ship can return home. Wilder transforms into a super-being and takes the gang on a tour of the ship. Cassaday and colorist Laura Depuy turn in a tour-de-force in the design of the interior of the ship…simply beautiful comic art. Ultimately Snow volunteers Planetary resources to help Wilder find others to assist in his voluntary mission to help the ship, even though Snow has no apparent authority to do so.



This is an interesting change up and there’s a lot going on here. There’s a ton of exposition, but it’s so well done that it’s not really noticeable. And we learn far more in this issue about the world surrounding Planetary than we have in the previous 3 ½ issues. Wilder is an interesting character. He’s young and naïve and inherently altruistic. He thinks nothing of helping out a stranger being mugged and of volunteering for what may well be a life-long pursuit to help out an alien ship. There is some superficial likenesses to the original Captain Marvel happening here and I’m glad that Ellis and Cassaday leave them as being less blatant than they might otherwise have.



“Because it’s the right thing to do.” - Jim Wilder

I finished my reread of the series last night/this morning. Damn! this series is so good. I find ore to like each time I reread it. Hoping to see Slam resume his reviews on it, as I am enjoying this thread immensely and curious as to others takes on some of these issues.

-M

Planetary #5 by Ellis and Cassaday

If issue #1 was about the battle for supremacy between the comics and the pulps, in the fourth issue Ellis and Cassaday give us a love letter to the pulps, one of the progenitors of comic books and the breeding ground for many (most?) of the genres we know and love. But it’s also more than that because this one builds up both Snow and Doc Brass, fills in some of their background and more intimately and explicitly ties Planetary in with the world that Ellis was building in The Authority. This is an extremely quiet issue even by the standards of the comic thus far. The book is a conversation between Snow and Brass interspersed with pulp-like pages showing Brass’ exploits and those of his contemporaries.



The cover is an homage to the Doc Savage covers from the 1970s that were predominantly done by James Bama. The torn shirt and the black background being an almost universal theme as well as Brass’ coloring and hair being based on Bama’s Savage. Again, the story itself is simply Snow and Brass having a conversation. We learn that both Snow and Brass, as well as Jenny Sparks are “Century Babies” long-lived beings of power who were born on January 1, 1900 and grew up with the century. We learn about John Cumberland, a clear Superman analogue though apparently less active than the Man of Steel. Interestingly Snow is seeking advice on the present and how he should proceed from a man who has been trapped in a cave for over fifty years.




Interspersed with the conversation are pages that look like they were ripped from pulps about Doc Brass. Cassaday hits the look (I’m not sure it the wash yellow effect is from colorist DePuy, but I’d guess so) and Ellis writes the prose and the captions in a way that reflect the feel of pulp writing. There are clear instances of both implicit and explicit racism, which Ellis also bring through to Brass’ discussion with Snow. Underlying all of this is the difference between Brass and Snow and also the difference between the pulp age and the (then) current age. At almost all points Brass exudes hope. Both in his conversation and in the pulp pages there’s a palpable sense that thing will be okay and that they will get better. Snow is clearly more cynical possibly due to the time and possibly because he chose not to associate with the world and the wonders around him.





“I was busy.” - Elijah Snow

Oh yeah, the Wold Newton references in Ellis’ Wildstorm work are readily apparent. He was obviously a fan. It’s been super long since I’ve read either Stormwatch or The Authority so my memory of either is pretty sparse.