1572 ( )

Firstly i enjoy reading these, i got them as a gift but can't say i'd have payed for them. My enjoyment however is for the losest of low-brow reasons because make no mistake this is AWFUL!

Its really badly plotted and written. So many confusing elements. Characters not reacting to information leaving you unsure of whats important and whats not. The protagonists are mostly just tourists, they turn up, look about, then the issue ends usually without any resolution like the last few pages went missing.

The main gimmick is that it consists of various references to different genre fiction. This along with the art is the best bit. BUT its just references, its just 'hey look, heres a thing like something you've seen before'.
Ellis doesn't seem to have any opinion or point or commentary to make on any of this. Also his homages, while the artist does a good job, Ellis' attempts to impersonate pulp writing etc. is a complete failure.

So why do i still enjoy it? The only way i can describe it is that i like 'Dogs Playing Poker' and therefore quite enjoy 'Cats Playing Hungry Hungry Hippos' :P .

Extra Credit: Heres a couple of facts you won't find elsewhere. There's a Fu Manchu analogue in this, well Fu Manchu is actually a knockoff of an earlier character, Dr. Yen How from the apocalyptic novel [b:The Yellow Danger|6559410|The Yellow Danger (Sources of Science Fiction 7 Future War Novels of the 1890s)|Matthew Phipps Shiel|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|5149647] by [a:Matthew Phipps Shiel|4991672|Matthew Phipps Shiel|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1337643245p2/4991672.jpg] (1898).

At another point a character claims to have put together a super-team because he was inspired by a group operating during the French Revolution. This is an oblique reference to the book [b:The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel|31501|The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel|Emmuska Orczy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1566287442l/31501._SX50_.jpg|1946373] in which despite the name, a group is formed which calls itself 'The Avengers'! Presumably the first ever use of that group name.
Edit: Some might also recognise the Avengers as a group created in [b:The Mark of Zorro|898839|The Mark of Zorro (Zorro, #1)|Johnston McCulley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1312040592l/898839._SY75_.jpg|104836] but thats just because Zorro is a plagarized varsion of the Scarlet Pimpernel, going so far occasionally as to steal scene-by-scene or even word for word. ( )

Warren Ellis is a freaking genius. I loved Transmetropolitan to bits. Trees was amazing as hell. And now I finally got around to reading his best work ever - Planetary. And I am absolutely blown away by it.

Planetary begins a bit slow and takes the amnesiac route to familiarize the reader with the protagonist’s universe. What a wonderful, weird, glorious universe it is. Ellis uses some truly fantastic ideas here: a machine that creates realities out of fictional narratives and lets those characters cross over, a brilliant post-Gojira tribute, World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, and so on.

It’s also a stupendously awesome and different take on superheroes. I won’t spoil it for you here; I highly suggest you read and find out yourself. The characters aren’t immediately likeable, but that’s how they’re designed: with flaws and everything. Once you break the surface, though, you’re in for a wild cast of characters that you’ll learn to love and hate.

The writing is sharp and superb. No moments are wasted. The art complements the writing, drawing the characters in a realistic fashion while maintaining the standard comic book feel. It’s a brilliant package that must be enjoyed first-hand.

If I had the chance to wipe my memory and read this again, I’d do so in a heartbeat. ( )

Finally re-read the entire series - all four volumes. What a brilliant series - fantastic artwork, big ideas, twists and turns and the most self reflexive comic book series ever. ( )

Sadly not my thing and the first issue was so promising. The premise was so promising. But I couldn’t get sucked in and I didn’t like any of the characters and the world seemed too sketched out, too reliant on “this is what a superpowered world looks like”. And things didn’t move fast enough for me in terms of plot, either. This volume’s very episodic—it bounces from supercomputers to kaiju to megacorporations with only the barest link between anything. It felt like all the pieces were moving into place in this volume so that volume two could really kick off, and maybe that’s the case, but I wasn’t wowed enough by the writing to want to go there. (Sorry, Warren Ellis fans! I guess he’s not for me!)

5/10 ( )

I think I'll like it more if I ever read more. It was fine. Art ok, colors good. Kept me entertained. Intriguing enough. Not a personal wowzer. ( )

I've heard that this gets better, but volume 1 really didn't make me want to find out for myself. ( )

Issue #27 finally came out, & I dug up my back issues & read the series from start to finish because I wanted to get a sense of the narrative arc since this tale was 10 YEARS in the making.

The Verdict: this is one of the most brilliant extended storylines I've ever encounters. It will stand the test of time, up there with Watchmen and others of the 'hero' genre.

PLANETARY is ultimately a holographic version of the Arabian Nights; it can be read as hero-noir, pastiche/tribute to the history of comic books & pulp & pop culture, delightful space-time science theoretical exploration, or a personal story of redemption and revenge.

I was amazed that Ellis found a way to keep his narrative tone & pacing in tune over the course of 27 issues & 10 years-- that in itself is to be lauded. ( )

I love this series. Ellis always manages to see things just askew of the norm and break it open. ( )

Boring, run-of-the-mill superhero book. ( )

Uncle. I'm Hooked.

Picked this up volume after perusing information about it on the Internets that got my spider-sense tingling. Good ol' spider-sense.

What do we have here? Pulp heroes. The Justice League of America (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). Giant Japanese monsters. The Fantastic Four (or a reasonable facsimile thereof). The Secret History Of The Twentieth Century. What's not to love? (Assuming you're not one of WildStorm's lawyers; they were probably kept rather busy with this one.)

Yes, this sort of thing has been done before (Phil Farmer's Wold Newton tales being the most obvious antecedent). Yes, it could be hopelessly cornball and banal (and could certainly turn out to be - I've only just read Vol. 1, y'know). But it really seems that Messrs. Ellis and Cassaday are doing their own thing with this one, and I certainly plan on tuning in for future installments.

PS Did I mention the artwork's really great? No? Oh. The artwork's really great. Thought you might want to know. ( )

Planetary, an organization of "mystery archaeologists," seek out the truth behind the secret history of the world. A three-person team, along with a fourth invisible financial backer, travel the globe looking into the stories that might bring some form of revelation towards their mission. If that doesn't get you interested, how about the fact that Ellis blends some of the greatest pulp and comic characters of the past into the story as the reasons for this history being a big secret.

The Planetary investigative team is just as much a mystery, when we meet them, they don't know how long their organization has even been operational, much less the full purpose of it.

As they investigate, we see Ellis' world, based around the classic pulp heroes of the 30s, classic Japanese kaiju, Hong Kong action, and even Golden and Silver Age comic heroes, with a unique twist that makes this world absolutely fascinating to learn about just as the Planetary field team does. ( )

Reasonably interesting twist on Golden Age superhero stories, though it's a little too self-consciously hip for me to feel genuinely invested in it. ( )

Somewhere, in the middle of all the genre acrobatics and beautiful art, I may have fallen in love. ( )

Comic books, especially, seem to be obsessed with retelling the same stories. Planetary just happens to do this particularly well.

Much like League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Planetary postulates a world where the characters and ideas of popular fiction are actually real, coexisting in a wild potpourri that somehow manages to cohere. But while Moore seems to revel in merely the existence of such a world, Ellis shifts his focus to the idea that such a world would have to be concealed from the masses. He sacrifices the teeming exuberance of Moore's ever-larger world for a tightly constrained and controlled conspiracy.

So, Ellis isn't just interested in encountering Doc Savage; he's interested in the fact that Doc Savage has been trapped in an underground complex for decades. Similarly, the existence of an island of Japanese movie monsters, or the Spectre showing up as the ghost of a John Woo character, is subordinate to the effort being put forth to keep the world from finding out about them.

This volume ends with the introduction of Ellis' best idea: the Fantastic Four are the evil masterminds behind the conspiracy. Their homespun wholesomeness has always concealed just how terrifying they actually are, wielding enormous power and led by a supergenius inventor. Having them turn out to be the ones collecting and concealing the existence of alien technologies and superpowers is kind of silly, but weirdly fitting, as well. Elijah Snow looks at this in terms of technology and scientific advancements being withheld from humanity, but for the reader, it is narrative itself which must be unearthed. ( )

Planetary was praised by comics luminaries such as Alan Moore and Joss Whedon; I thought it would be better than it is. Probably it's one for the fans. It is like X-files meets superheroes. The Planetary organisation is super rich and staffed by a few cool superheroes: kickass Jakita Wagner (think of Molly from William Gibson's Neuromancer, or Trinity from The Matrix), data hound Drummer, and the white-suited, white-haired Snow, the latest recruit. Planetary sniff out various mysteries and deep conspiratorial truths about the world in a series of stories based on old and new comics. Unfortunately, the characters don't seem very active in the investigation process. They are put into each situation and the story is just narrated to them. They are too hip and cool to really have any personality. I suspect the attraction of this series are the many visual references to comics of yore. Most of those references were lost on me though, and they weren't enough to compensate for poor storytelling and weak characters. ( )

A collection of comics about a trio of super-powered "mystery archeologists" who travel the world on behalf of a shadowy organization, seeking to map out "the secret history of the world." Apparently the secret history of the world is very pulp fiction-y: we've got a Japanese island full of (now-dead) monsters, a ghost cop bent on vengeance, a team of astronauts who came back from a secret journey to the moon as something not-quite-human... That sort of thing. It's a terrifically fun concept. And the artwork is excellent, the characters at least potentially interesting... And yet, it just really didn't feel very satisfying to me, mainly because the stories themselves are so very, very slight. Mostly the team shows up, sees something interesting, goes, "Hey, that was interesting!" and leaves again without ever doing much. (Author Warren Ellis is clearly aware of this flaw, too, as he has one of the characters constantly complaining about it.)

So now I'm debating about whether to continue on with this series. This volume didn't leave me with a burning desire to read the rest of it, but it is only three more collections, and there are at least hints here that things might get a bit more involved, so maybe I'll give it another chance. ( )

Read this a couple years ago and just read it again because I wanted to be ready to read volume two. It still holds up to the 5 stars I gave it then. This is some amazing shit - Ellis possibly at his best (haven't read everything he's read). Each comic is a separate story with the same main characters and each one is incredibly original. The art is also absolutely fabulous. Can't wait to see what happens in volume 2 when the big picture starts coming together. ( )

Liked this quite a bit. It reminds me a bit of the Hyperkind comic series with the "secret history hidden from the world." There's a great pulp feel to it too. I just wish this volume wasn't so short. It whetted my appetite for more stories. Going to have to track down volume 2. ( )

Planetary is good on many layers, like a Gobstopper. First of all, it's beautiful. Cassaday's art is consistently lovely, and brings to the page the actual wonder that the story demands. Planetary is also a great story; it's intriguing, well-plotted, and has interesting characters. On another level, it's also about stories, especially comic books, but other popular media as well; about what those stories tell us about ourselves, and the way we use those bright myths to lie about our world.

It's fun to geek out over the references, the in-jokes and allusions in Planetary, but they are actually serving a greater narrative purpose. Planetary is about a world more wonderful than ours, but just as dark. It's using those shining visions to show us how disappointing and flawed humanity can be. Along with an adventure or two, beautiful vistas, and more than a soupçon of hope. ( )

Holy crap, this book blew me away. So many great ideas in so little space. ( )

A unique imaginative trek into the secret history of the world. Ellis and Cassaday create a pastiche/critique of some of the best in comics and pulp fair. Planetary being a variation of "Challengers of the Unknown". ( )

Det var länge sedan Warren Ellis var så här bra. De mytiska arkeologerna i organisationen Planetary presenteras. Varje äventyr är något kort men det finns ett tydligt driv mot en större berättelse. Snart tio år har gått utan att sista delen har kommit ut, och det beror tråkigt nog inte på att Ellis har haft för många berättelser i Planetary-universumet i sig. ( )

Warren Ellis constructs a secret history for the Wildstorm universe, giving it a rich depth and answering the old comic-book-universe question: with all these wonders, why isn't the world a better place?

Ellis draws on everything from nineteenth century fiction (not bothering to disguise characters who are out of copyright) to modern comics (with recognizable variants of famous characters, each seen in their own twisted mirror). The plot on its own is gripping, but the references to other works will tickle anyone who enjoyed Anno Dracula or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. ( )