Planetary #6 by Ellis and Cassaday

Ellis and Cassaday take us deeper into the hidden history of the 20th Century with a look at one of the groups controlling the second half of the century. This is both a sideways look at silver age Marvel Comics and at the kind of conspiracy theories that have seemingly come to the forefront in the last fifty or so years. The story is built around The Four who are obviously a Fantastic Four homage. We also have a number of conspiracy tropes, including alternate and more successful space flight (which was around before the more current fake moon landing conspiracy) and the shadow government that is keeping the world backward. Fantastic Four #1 was ground zero for the birth of the Marvel Age of comics and that story was rooted in the Space Race and the Cold War between the US and the USSR.



The story is told non-linearly. Part of the story is Drummer giving Snow and Wagner background on The Four, the Artemis Project (the shadow space program that was run by even better Nazi’s than the ones that ran our regular space program) and the space flight that changed the Four forever. The other part is Snow and Wagner infiltrating Four Voyagers Plaza and what (and who) they find there. The book sets The Four up as the main antagonists for the remainder of the series and while it doesn’t really address the question of “Who is the Fourth Man?” it poses an equally intriguing question “Who Knows the Secret History of Elijah Snow?” and who benefits from his lack of memory.



The book is a treasure trove of Easter eggs for Fantastic Four fans some coming through the exposition from Drummer and some from what Snow and Wagner find through their infiltration of the tower. The Tower is apparently a ringer for Four Freedoms Plaza, which apparently took the place of The Baxter Building after I stopped reading (or maybe just remembering and paying attention to) the FF. The Four’s origin parallels that of the FF and explicitly takes place in 1961. Four individuals, the science polymath flight commander, Randall Dowling; Jacob Greene, vaguely trollish looking pilot; William Leather, flight engineer; and Kim Suskind, physicist and Nazi baby. The flight launched and, rather than cosmic rays, ran into something waiting in The Snowflake, that changed The Four into something not quite human. Upon their return to Earth they took over Project Aremis…and changed the World.



Within the Plaza we see a display of “Subterrans” which are clearly an homage to Mole Man’s minions, a stairway that leads to what appears to be a picture of space, but that I want to be an entry to the Negative Zone, some Kirby machinery, and William Leather, who we see has powers that visually resemble The Human Torch, is strong enough to go toe to toe with Jakita Wagner and is immune to Snow’s heat manipulation. When we first see Leather, he has facial hair, which he burns away with a finger as Johnny Storm did to Namor in FF #4. Snow and Jakita’s encounter with Leather give us the largest amount of pure superhero action we’ve seen in the book thus far. It’s clear at this point we are moving into a new phase of the book where there will be a definite focus on finding and destroying The Four.



I’ve seen some people argue that this is a condemnation of Marvel Age comics. I don’t see it that way and don’t think it’s a reasonable view given that Ellis has professed much admiration for Jack Kirby in a number of interviews. I see it more as a condemnation of the general Cold War world-view, particularly that of the U.S., that put military build-ups and jumping at “Communist” shadows ahead of using its position as an economic and political super-power to benefit mankind.

“We are optimal humans. We are explorers, scientist gods, the secret heroes of a world that doesn’t deserve us.” - William Leather

I haven't re-read that far ahead and I've only read the later issues of Planetary a time or two (I've read the earlier issues much more often).  I think it may well be that Superman, Batman and Captain Marvel had already been deconstructed a number of times each, whereas at this point the F.F. had not.  At least not that I can think of.  Fantastic Four #1 is one of the most important comics ever.  The success of the FF led to more super-heroes at Marvel and eventually to the Marvel Universe and ultimately Marvel superseding DC as the top comic book company.  Thematically it's also a breaking point between two eras of super-hero comics with a group that was intimately tied to the Cold War (at least in their origin).  If you're not going to use one of the DC/Fawcett biggies, then the FF makes a lot of sense and give you some added flexibility as there are four distinct individuals as opposed to one big-bad. 

I'm in on your Planetary re-read. It's great to re-visit this series. 

Apart from the great points made already in this thread: I was struck by the costume coding of the three leads seen here on the cover. Black, white, and rainbow. Elijah Snow is the dapper science hero in three piece suit. The child of a more formal age like The Spirit. Jakita is Silver/Bronze age, skintight spandex. Drummer is the disheveled modern age, perpetually looking like he just rolled out of bed. He wears the three secondary colors (orange, green, and purple), uncommon on heroes prior to the 1990s. Good visual coding.



Although the focus in this issue is obviously on pulp heroes, the mountain cave hideout seems borrowed from Silver Age JLA. Unless that itself was a borrowing from the Golden Age?

The widescreen cover, with black bars at the top and bottom, tells us that we're in a cinema homage. But apart from John Woo, isn't this also a spoof of The Spectre?

The hideout goes back at least to Doc Savage’s Fortress of Solitude. That was obviously Arctic and was clearly swiped for Superman’s Fortress, but I took that as the predominant source.

Good thought on the costuming.

Captain Marvel came to my mind as the reference character here as well, though the layout and font of the cover seems intended to evoke some particular pulp magazine. The part about a prehistoric spaceship crash calls to mind ancient spaceship stories like the Celestials.



Having now read this:



I understand better what Grant Morrison was homaging in Final Crisis: Superman Beyond (2009) when Superman gets aboard a Bleed-travelling spaceship and takes a journey through the "Bleedstorm." Wildstorm was published by DC in 1999 while this series was underway.



Note how the worlds of the Bleed are described as growing crystals, just like in Planetary #1.