Planetary/The Authority by Ellis and Phil Jimenez.  

The Planetary team is in Judgment, Rhode Island as The Authority are fighting what appear to be extraterrestrial monsters (or maybe eldritch horrors) which were apparently unleashed when Drummer couldn't keep his grubby hands to himself.  We then flashback to a much earlier time with Elijah Snow meeting with a very thinly veiled H. P. Lovecraft in the same city.  This writer has conjured up the Snowflake when in a "shamanic state."  As he re-entered lucidity he found a box of eggs had come out of the Snowflake.  One is led to assume that these are the critters The Authority are fighting.  And they win.  



Jakita believes that Planetary should infiltrate The Authority's HQ to gain information on them.  At the same time The Authority is talking about Doc Brass' former headquarters and almost simultaneously a crazed Planetary employee is killing his coworkers and starting up the Quantum computer in Brass Mountain.  Because every now and then we have to have coincidences of Burroughsian proportions.  Planetary infiltrates and gets some info.  Nasty things come through the Bleed for the Authority to fight at Brass' HQ.  Planetary teleports into the Mountain and fights and defeats evil Authority analogues.  We find out that there are nasty things just the other side of The Bleed waiting to come in to the Planetary Universe.  And it ultimately doesn't seem to add up to much.  



Yeah...that's not a very exciting write-up for a 43 page story...but honestly not that much happened and I didn't like the book very much at all.  I suspect there was pressure to "team-up" Planetary and The Authority.  But they didn't actually team up and that's probably okay.  And I suspect that Cassaday was falling behind on the art (this book appeared between issues 10 and 11) because the book was running on pretty much a bi-monthly schedule at that point. 



I'm not sure why Ellis felt he needed to play coy about H. P. Lovecraft and set the early part in a made-up town instead of Providence.  Lovecraft is dead and he is pretty well acknowledged to have been a racist dirtbag even in a time of serious racists.  Honestly the most interesting portion of the book was the idea that Lovecraft was pulling some of his ideas out of The Bleed by using The Snowflake.  Which isn't really original, we saw something like this with Earth-1 and Earth-2, but I'm okay with him exploring that idea more fully.  And it makes sense for Planetary to want to know what's up with The Authority.  But the execution just wasn't interesting.  


"Mr. Snow, I believe these to be negro eggs."  

Nope. This was pretty clearly set in the main Planetary storyline. It just didn’t add up to much. And yes, Planetary was in its own little corner of the Wildstorm Universe.

Well the whole premise of Planetary was them exploring the seedy mysterious underbelly of the Wildstorm Universe. That's what Ellis was doing form the get go and how he pitched the series.

-M

Planetary #11 by Ellis & Cassaday

We close in on the reveal of the over-arching mystery that underlay the first twelve issues of Planetary, Who is the Fourth Man?  This issue is an homage to the spy genre, particularly as it was shown in movies and comics of the late 60s and early 70s.  The action starts in 1969 as The Bride kills what is very clearly a stand-in for Nick Fury.  



The Bride is battling S.T.O.R.M.  She isn't trying to change the world.  She just wants things to remain the way they are.  She likes the fun.  She has the drop on the S.T.O.R.M. troopers.  But the head of S.T.O.R.M. has a Blitzen suit and all kinds of other funky gadgets of the type dreamed up by Q.  



Ultimately The Bride is taken down by Elijah Snow who was hiding in her escape ship.  And Snow first meets the head of S.T.O.R.M. and the greatest spy on this particular Earth. 



Flash forward to the year 2000.  Snow and Stone meet in bar in Kazakhstan.  Snow is trying to figure out why he can't remember anything and who benefits from his memory loss. As he talks to Stone he slowly begins to regain his memories and piece things together.  We get a glimpse of Snow on various adventures over the years.  


And we get an idea of the training that Snow got to allow him to be an archeological detective. 



While not all the memories come back Snow realizes that it was The Four who stripped him of his memories.  And at least part of why.  




And ultimately he reveals to Stone that he knows who The Fourth Man is.  

This was a fun issue.  The obvious influences were Steranko's Nick Fury and the James Bond films.  The start of the issue is very cinematic in its layout.  The gadgets that Stone has are Bondian, as is the classic introduction.  He even has Bond's scar.  The cover and many of the panels in the first half are clearly a Steranko tribute.  The actions of both The Bride and Randall Dowling in saying "It's a game, Mr. Snow," are consistent with the spy genre, particularly in that time period.  Dowling's look and statement are almost a call-back to Goldfinger.  It's certainly appropriate that Snow regains his memory and finds the secret to the Fourth Man in an issue that is an homage to a genre about secrets.  

"Stone.  John Stone.  Agent of S.T.O.R.M."  

Planetary #12 by Ellis & Cassaday 

Ellis and Cassaday finish up the first year and and solve the initial mystery of who is the Fourth Man.  Having met with John Stone, Elijah calls a meeting with Jakita and Drummer.  And he's not in a good mood.  



He recounts the clues that have finally led him to the realization of who The Fourth Man is and the mystery of his memory loss.  He reveals that he knows about The Planetary Guides and that he's the author of them.  And starts to unravel why they didn't want him to remember that. 




And he reveals that he knows who The Fourth Man is.  As they leave the Planetary Building and head in to Central Park, Snow reveals to Jakita who John Stone is and that this all has the trappings of a classic black ops operation.  And we get the big reveal.  


Jakita and Drummer were not supposed to contact Snow, but they did anyway.  That contact began to jog Snow's memory.  In the park, Jakita mentions Ambrose Chase.  At first Snow doesn't remember him...but that is the last barrier that needs to fall and as it does Elijah Snow remembers everything.  Who took his memories and why. 



Snow and company had made life a little too difficult for The Four.  So they gave Snow a choice; lose his memories or they would kill his Planetary team.  But now Elijah Snow is back.  And he's having none of it.  So he sends a clear message to The Four.  



This is actually a pretty quiet issue.  It plays out just a little like the end of a cozy mystery where the suspects are gathered and the mystery revealed.  Which ties back to Snow learning his detection skills from Sherlock Holmes.  At this point it shouldn't have been surprising that Snow was The Fourth Man.  There really weren't any other viable candidates.  So if you were going to have the reveal at this point it was fairly obvious.  

This ends the first phase of the book and starts the open warfare between Planetary and The Four.  

"I'm back.  The game is afoot.  And I want them to know it."  -Elijah Snow.  

Planetary #13 by Ellis & Cassaday

1919.  Germany.  A 19 year old Elijah Snow is exploring a ruined castle.  He states that he learned about this from a "man who went to Mars."  We can't be sure if this is literal or metaphorical.  But what he finds certainly would be familiar to many of us.  



The pods in the upper left come crashing down and Snow has to battle what certainly appear to be artificially created life-forms.  He travels to the library where he finds "a secret map of the world" as created by The Conspiracy.  



Flash forward to 1920.  London, England.  Baker Street.  And Mr. Snow barges in on another familiar figure.  




Holmes enquires as to how Snow became apprised of the existence of The Baron's castle.  It involves another familiar figure. 



Snow indicates that he's aware of what The Conspiracy has been up too in the prior century.  And he believes that it's time their efforts were stopped.  We find out about a number of other participants, including Robur and Carnaki.  But Holmes...is not alone.  



But it's a new century.  With new rules.  And new guardians.  With new powers.  And the boogie men and the masters of the last century will have to give way. 



Having disposed of the monster, at least until he can do so more permanently, Snow discusses the role of the Conspiracy in the prior century and their designs.  



It's time for new rules.  But in order to do that, Snow has to be equipped to find the secrets, to ferret out the problems, to understand the mysteries of the world.  Holmes agrees to help set him on the path and teach him.  Despite his terrible American accent.  



This was a fast moving story.  But there's a lot of depth here.  The first overall arc of Planetary explored the 20th Century through what would be to us its popular culture.  It only makes sense that Ellis and Cassaday would look at what came before and that exploration would focus on the archetypes of the genres that grew out of 19th Century literature, science fiction (Frankenstein), the detective novel (Holmes) and horror (Dracula).  While those never went away, the 20th century saw different, but related cultural artifacts that had been previously explored in the series. 

There's also the sense that there is a change in viewpoint as the 19th Century fades in to the 20th.  The change isn't abrupt with the tick of the clock from 1899 to 1900.  But the changes came about, particularly in the wake of World War I.  Americans became less parochial and started seeing the world.  There was an explosion of American literature that, in many ways, supplanted what had been a focus on British and French literature in the 19th Century.  The axis of the world of culture slowing shifted.  In the world of Planetary this took place as the Century Babies began to supplant The Conspiracy. 


"Funny how I accepted invisible fellas and mad inventors bringing back the dead, but I never really believed in you." - Elijah Snow to Dracula.  

Planetary #14 by Ellis & Cassaday

We open in 1995 at Zeropoint, which is apparently a Planetary funded/operated lab.  Snow is there with a scientist who is studying what appears to be a long stick. 


It was found in vessel of The Four that was brought down by Ambrose Chase.  It is not, however, a simple walking stick.  Given a small amount of kinetic energy it transforms, rather spectacularly, in to a high-tech war hammer.  



Its presence on a vessel of The Four leads to them to surmise that The Four are behind the alien activity that has been experienced on Earth. 



The scientist is able to work out a pathway allowing Snow to go to where the weapon goes when it trades places with the stick.  It's an entire world that has been destroyed by The Four to maintain an arsenal of advanced weaponry that has been kept from the world.  



Cut scene to the Antarctic and another Planetary facility.  One that is getting its doors blown off.  



Kim Suskind of The Four is infiltrating the facility.  She finds that Planetary has what appear to be alien embryos that she calls "our children."  Presumably these were also on the "abduction vessel."  Ms. Suskind, however, was not unexpected because she is rather successfully attacked by Ambrose Chase.  




Jakita takes out William Leather who is coming to Suskind's rescue.  Unfortunately it's not enough.  The Four are very very powerful.  And have wonderful gadgets.  



Snow is captured.  The mental blocks are put on him.  For The Four this is a game.  One that they want to play...but only if it's rigged.  




Again a very fast moving story, but it gets a fair bit of backstory in to that rapid burn.  We find out more about the power of The Four and what they have been up to.  We also find out how close Planetary was to hurting their operations which led to Snow being psychically neutered for a while.  This a major call-back to issue 12.  

Ellis also does some playing with comic book tropes here.  The call-out to Thor's hammer is obvious.  And whereas the Fantastic Four are cosmic adventurers who explore worlds, The Four are happy to destroy entire worlds in order to use them as a closet.  Ellis also explores some aspects of Invisible Woman/Kim Suskind's powers that, to my knowledge hadn't been explored before.  The goggles allow for invisibility to make some scientific sense (though I'm not sure how the goggles aren't visible).  He also explores the potential power of her forcefield powers...which are potentially devastating. 



Again, we are setting up for the endgame...the showdown with The Four.