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Planetary
#7-13 Planetary started out as an interesting book, just in terms of taking a different approach to the idea of superheroes and their place in the world -- seeing things from the perspective of a group of researchers whose purpose was to turf out the secrets. Then Warren Ellis switched the course of the book. Team member Elijah Snow not only started to question the purpose of Planetary, but pushed for a more pro-active operational stance. Hints were scattered here and there, odd looks, suggestions, the underlying idea that things were not what they seemed. Ellis has underlined the conspiracy aspects even more deliberately, it turns out, than anyone was thinking -- taking a direct line from the Jack Carter tale of #7 (with its Hidden England) to #8's secret science city in the US desert directly on to #9's story of how Planetary field agent Ambrose Chase meets his end, where Chase is shown as being a knock-on result of Science City Zero. #9 also layers in hint after hint about the mysterious Fourth Man of Planetary -- some are obvious, others look like something else entirely. It does something else, too -- it shows Planetary as having been a pro-active organization, taking things on in exactly the manner Snow has been demanding. #10 gets Elijah Snow back on track, with a three-way story that details some of the results of the Four's work in the world as Planetary teams catalog artifacts retrieved from one of the Four's storage locations. Ellis and Cassaday tell the tales of what happened to those associated with the artifacts, and there is a little more insight into Snow. #11 is the trigger issue, though, as we're introduced to John Stone, seemingly immortal secret agent and long-time friend of Elijah Snow. Meeting Stone in the Himalayas, Snow reveals gaps in his memory. When Stone fills in some of the blanks, Snow's memory opens up ... not completely, but far enough to bowl Elijah over and reveal who put the blocks into place, as well as the fact that he knows who the Fourth Man is. That opens up the way for #12 very well as Elijah confronts Jakita and the Drummer and lets the cat out of the bag, and we see why the Four chose to tamper with Elijah's memory rather than killing him outright. By the end of the issue, the thrust of the story has changed, and Elijah is issuing a challenge to the Four. Ellis and Cassaday convey subtle and not so subtle shifts in Elijah's character and mood wonderfully, showing Elijah going from follower to leader, and choosing to take the team from shadows to light. Having gone this far, Ellis then shifts the story again, going back into the history of Planetary, and the beginnings of Elijah Snow, who, we find, was a young daredevil adventurer in search of the strange -- and particularly in search of the Conspiracy, a group intent on directing the course of the world. What he finds is Sherlock Holmes, and the key to his own destiny. There is action in the course of the book, but it's almost perfunctory -- the core of the book is the meeting with Holmes, and the establishing of the ground on which Holmes and Elijah -- and, thus, Planetary -- stand. Issues #7-12 are being collected in Planetary: Who Is The Fourth Man?, a hardcover due in March 2001. #14, meanwhile, promises to get back not only to Elijah's history, but to the conflict with the Four, and the lives of Jakita Wagner and the Drummer (whose "Oh, don't tell me you remember that...?" in #12 has yet to be explained.) It's a pity that the series in finite, in some respects, but this is also the hallmark of a well-told tale -- that there is a definite end, and that the author knows how he's getting there. ©2000 by Steven E. McDonald |
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