I have two takeaways for Planetary, because I feel like Planetary is rather two different types of experiences. Both are excellent, and both work well off of each other. The first is that Planetary is in many ways much like The Authority. It's an Ellis superhero book, in which his character deal with a more grounded view of superheroes and more worldly, political perspectives clashing. The second is how Planetary is a more focused dissection of comic characters and figures from literature. I'm not going to pretend I picked up who every character referenced, or the nuance of each reference, but what I did pick up was excellent.
Let's start with the second point. I absolutely loved these every single one of these references, but a few really stood out. In issue #2, we get our first obvious introduction to what Planetary is about. We go to Island Zero, a land littered with the remains of dead Kaiju. There's so much to unpack here. It's a great message -- that there's more to this world than we understand. But also a melancholy message, in that everything is fragile. Humanity can do awful things, like create the atomic bomb, and in doing so create wonderful things, like the kaiju, and yet have them go extinct without even realizing they existed. That last line, with Jakita saying "Isn't that great?" when a child of the Kaiju flies overhead, defines a major message through the rest of the series. Embrace the strange, be it terrifying, be it unexplained, be it absurd.
There are several examples to follow that hammer in the idea of Planetary exploring reflections of "other worlds," touching on them through the lens of Ellis' personal views. But none provides as great an example of this as Ellis' love letter to Vertigo in issue #7. It helps so much that I know so many of the characters introduced in #7. Not just because it's so cool to see these characters through a new lens, but because of how something else becomes clear. This isn't just Ellis having fun with reflections of characters, this is Ellis' personal views of these characters brought to life. Would a lot of people really attend Constantine's funeral? In Ellis' world they would, because for Ellis the Vertigo universe revolved around Constantine. The transformation of Constantine into Spider from Transmet was especially poignant. Such a tribute to Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, and Paul Jenkins. (of course, it could just be tooting his own horn after his own Hellblazer run, but I doubt it)
One thing that left me curious is just how big of a role the Fantastic Four played in the story. Planetary's war against the Four lasts the vast majority of the series (which is perhaps my one criticism, as I'd have loved for Ellis to explore more), and in doing so made clear just how much he hates the Four -- both the characters and how much they represent. And so the second half of the book is quite literally one message, drawn out -- Planetary isn't just a statement about the world, politics, and how comics fit into it. Planetary is a condemnation of the superhero comic status quo, and particularly Marvel's role in creating it. Ellis wants doesn't just want the world to be weird, he wants comics to be weird. And he sees the Fantastic Four as a symbol of how Marvel help hold that strangeness back. And so he tortures, exiles (Ben's cool, so he doesn't die), and murders the Four and the idea they represent.
I feel like I could write 2000 words regarding how the team of Planetary symbolizes so much of these ideas -- Elijah Snow's purpose being to "save" things, like comics, Jakita being born of two contradictory views of comic Africa (Wakanda + Tarzan) and being exiled, and The Drummer, the walking avatar of information and science and detail (while also being a walking macguffin). It's all so awesome and so well done and such a look into the mind of Ellis.
Back to that first point. I've gone over what Planetary is about and why I love it, but I think it's also worth mentioning how the story is told. I really adored Ellis' run on The Authority, but the one thing that keeps it from really achieving greatness is how it's structured as a story. It starts in a completely different series, Stormwatch, dramatically revamps itself at the start of The Authority, tells four 3-issue stories and then switches to a new author without acknowledgment. Those 12 issues are great, but ugh, what a frustrating and oh-so-comic-book waste of an opportunity.
Planetary doesn't waste its chance. It has a beginning, a middle, an end, and oh what an end. Instead of just killing the 4, the big bad, and calling it a day, Planetary keeps going, because there's more to do. The Planetary crew saves Ambros Chase, and in doing so delivers a message -- this is the end of this comic, but this is only the beginning of the ideas we embody. That page with all of the portals is so good. Whether it's a message about comic books, about politics, about the nature of the world, it's less important than the hopefully feeling it leaves in you. Elijah Snow saves things. What do folk think he truly saves as Planetary ends? With all of those portals open and all of those Planetary groups staring as if at the reader?
So yeah, I loved Planetary. I don't have a list of my favorite stories or omnibi or anything, but Planetary is up there. It's without a doubt my favorite Ellis story. It represents Ellis as a person so well, like say The Sandman does for Gaiman. It's great.
