Action/Adventure

Planetary | All Over the World and Other Stories | Volume 1

Archeaologists of the Unknown

So starts what is arguably Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s greatest work to date, and that is a very sweeping statement because both gentlemen have produced a fair amount of quality work, however this series stands far and tall.

The series begins as Elijah Snow is recruited into the Planetary foundation. He gets 1 million dollars a year for as long as he lives whether he is with the foundation or not. His benefactor is the mysterious Fourth Man. You see Planetary has always been a three-man (or woman) team. So the first questions that should be on your mind is:

• Who’s the Fourth man?
• What happened to the other third man?

So the first part of the mystery is set within the first few pages of the story.The formula of Planetary is based around taking archetypes, be they story architypes or characters throughout pop culture publishing and turning them completely on their heads.

The first story centres around Axel Brass (who’s apparently a Doc Savage riff, I wouldn’t know waay before my time) and why he’s been lying in a cavern for over 50 years.

The second is a good old Japanese horror monster story.

The third chapter is a Hong Kong action movie with a serious twist to it, and this is where Cassaday really shines.

The fourth chapter gives a good sci-fi story with a lot of heart to it.

The fifth chapter tells us a bit more about Axel Brass and is one of the best stories up until then.

The final chapter starts putting a few more answers and questions forward with the introduction of the ‘bad guys’.

The stories at first seem to be one-off stories however there are seeds that are planted that take time to payoff. When one question is answered another is placed that makes you wonder why the hell you didn’t ask that question in the first place.

The artwork, while sparse in certain areas is meticulous in most areas and Cassaday has both a crisp and clean style while at the same time a nice and gritty one to give off some detail. This series made Cassaday stand out to comic book fandom everywhere and was the stepping stone for him being partnered with Joss Whedon on Amazing X-men.

Laura Depuy can do no wrong and David Baron picks up the baton very nicely after Laura went off to Crossgen for a little while, so the quality of the colouring remains consistent and a joy to behold throughout all the chapters.

The dress of the book is different for every single issue, different logo every issue. It’s indicative of the kind of love and attention that is spent on this book. John Cassaday is no Rian Hughes and those that are familiar with graphic design find his efforts a nice treat but not up to scratch as something like Wildcats 2.0 for example. It’s important to point out that a different logo for every issue is a tall order and something that at the time had not been considered or done regularly in comics so all due respect to the creators for this, however the design would have been enhanced a great deal more if a real graphic designer was employed on this as well.

The story works in layers and each time you finish a chapter there’s a sense of longing for the next chapter. Thankfully there are 3 collections of this series out right now. The first Planetary trade collects the first 6 issues of the series and a 6-page preview story found in a couple of Wildstorm books before this series was released, so what’s nice is that all the stories associated with this series are still in print.

Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: John Cassaday
Colourist: Laura Depuy and David Baron
Letter: Ali Fuchs and Bill O’Neil
Publisher: Wildstorm Comics