Planetary, Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories

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Planetary, Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories (Planetary #1)

by Warren Ellis (Goodreads Author), John Cassaday

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 6,544 ratings · 177 reviews

This first collection stars a team of super- powered mystery archaeologists who have uncovered evidence of super-human activity that spans the centuries. The team includes the ancient and enigmatic Elijah Snow, hot-tempered Jakita Wagner, and the insane techno-expert Drummer, as they deal with a World War II supercomputer that can access other universes, a spectral spirit...more

Hardcover, 160 pages

Published February 1st 2001 by DC Comics (first published March 1st 2000)

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Jul 04, 2011 Richard Guion rated it 4 of 5 stars

I bought every issue of Planetary from 1999 to the last one in 2010 and decided to re-read the entire saga. The first 6 issues are a bit light and the stories seem to be done-in-one little short stories. We get introduced to the team of extraordinary archaeologists: Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the Drummer. I think Elijah Snow is one of the best characters that Warren Ellis has ever created. He's cunning and takes no guff but Snow has a soft side. Pop culture junkies (like me) will love the r...more

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Mar 22, 2013 Fizzgig76 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reprints Planetary #1-6 and Planetary Preview (September 1998-November 1999). Elijah Snow is one hundred years old along with a number of other heroes of Earth. He is contacted by a woman named Jakita Wagner who works with a man named Drummer for a mysterious organization called Planetary. Being offered obscene amounts of money, Snow takes a job on the team and learns that Planetary is under the control of someone called the Fourth Man that neither Jakita or the Drummer has ever scene. As they c...more Reprints Planetary #1-6 and Planetary Preview (September 1998-November 1999). Elijah Snow is one hundred years old along with a number of other heroes of Earth. He is contacted by a woman named Jakita Wagner who works with a man named Drummer for a mysterious organization called Planetary. Being offered obscene amounts of money, Snow takes a job on the team and learns that Planetary is under the control of someone called the Fourth Man that neither Jakita or the Drummer has ever scene. As they crisscross the globe encountering giant monsters, phantom police officers, and men of brass, Planetary seeks answers...but who is the Fourth Man and what does he want with Snow?

Written by Warren Ellis, Planetary was tied in with Ellis' other project Stormwatch/The Authority. It was widely critically acclaimed for both in its writing and its art by John Cassaday. The series was sporatic and mostly on a bi-monthly status for a number of years with illnesses and delays holding it up on occasion. This first collection has also been collected as part of Absolute Planetary Volume 1 (which collects the first two trade paperbacks).

The first collection of Planetary introduces the team and some major themes. Snow is one hundred years old and like Jenny Sparks in The Authority, part of some mysterious phenomena that has occurred. Jakita has superhuman strength and speed. The Drummer has a bit more undefined powers with an ability to communicate with machinery among other things. A major supporting character also like Jenny Sparks and Elijah Snow is Doc Brass who is introduced in the first issue also and holds keys to the bigger mysteries of Planetary.

Planetary has a lot of fun playing with genres. Here there are stories about classic super-hero teams, giant-Godzilla monsters, a ghost story of a slain detective, a space-fantasy, a '30s pulp adventurer, and a Fantastic Four like space team. The stories are presented in a way that they feel like their basis. A good example is the pulp issue (Planetary #5) which has Doc Brass (a version of Doc Savage) with a lot of prose and serialized storytelling, but a more modern genre issue is the ghost detective issue (Planetary #3) which is written and drawn like a John Woo action film.

The wide range of stories added to the fantastic art makes Planetary a great, fun comic. Ellis and Cassaday work well together to tell a great story. Planetary is one of those comics you just want more of when you start reading them, and you wish that Ellis could pump out more without risking the comic's integrity. Planetary 1: All Over the World and Other Stories was followed by Planetary 2: The Fourth Man.
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Mar 11, 2013 Rob rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, modern-day, sci-fi, recommended-by-friends

Still on this comics kick. This is a Warren Ellis joint, which puts it in the company of Transmetropolitan and The Authority.

Let me put this upfront: I liked this one a lot. I'm going to continue the series.

I think Planetary is a bit tricky to define, at least so far. Is it a superhero series? It's hard to say, although I've heard it described as a modern update of one. It isn't your customary superheroes-in-spandex-fight-crime deal. It isn't a black-and-white, 1950s good-versus-evil series eith...more Still on this comics kick. This is a Warren Ellis joint, which puts it in the company of Transmetropolitan and The Authority.

Let me put this upfront: I liked this one a lot. I'm going to continue the series.

I think Planetary is a bit tricky to define, at least so far. Is it a superhero series? It's hard to say, although I've heard it described as a modern update of one. It isn't your customary superheroes-in-spandex-fight-crime deal. It isn't a black-and-white, 1950s good-versus-evil series either. The primary character -- so far, anyway -- seems to be basically an all right guy, but he isn't very friendly or charismatic, and neither are his colleagues. They all definitely have extrahuman abilities and are larger than life.

That primary character is Elijah Snow, who can do some temperature-related things as far as I've seen -- that's one thing about at least this volume, there isn't actually all that much superpowering through things. His colleagues are Jakita Wagner, who does I don't know what apart from packing a punch and being very hard to hurt, and a guy known as "The Drummer," who has some kind of weird electrical... thing going on. I don't know exactly what his deal is but it does seem to be percussion-based. All three are members of an organization called Planetary, who do a sort of clandestine traveling around the world keeping the stuff on the borders of human awareness on the right side of those borders. Motivations are as yet unclear, other than getting paid a bunch of money.

Speaking of Jakita, one gripe, and I know this is kind of a cliché complaint at this point. Elijah Snow typically wears all white: suit, shirt, tie, hair, you get the idea. The Drummer wears casualwear of some description. Jakita wears... close-fitting vinyl. The book doesn't generally feel like T&A, but come on, guys. You're continuing to perpetuate the reputation of the genre and of the community.

Issue #3 was my favorite section writing-wise. A lot of this volume is monster-of-the-week type stuff, but you can see the foundations for bigger stories being laid.

Reading others' reviews, it's clear that a lot of what's going on in Planetary is an examination of the history and tropes of past comics. For someone like me, with only a passing familiarity with the medium, the experience will necessarily be different than for a long-time comics reader who's better equipped to know what themes and references Ellis is playing on.(less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Justinbwood rated it 4 of 5 stars

Warren Ellis has the talent like Alan Moore of creating vivid, interesting characters in a medium supersaturated with tired superhero ideas. What's fascinating is that yes, you can consider their characters parodies or critiques, but they are so believable in their own right. Compared to the millions of X-men whose characters get more generic or forced and powers more esoteric, Ellis comes along and pops out characters that just nail it. I believe in these characters.

Jakita is stunning and appro...more Warren Ellis has the talent like Alan Moore of creating vivid, interesting characters in a medium supersaturated with tired superhero ideas. What's fascinating is that yes, you can consider their characters parodies or critiques, but they are so believable in their own right. Compared to the millions of X-men whose characters get more generic or forced and powers more esoteric, Ellis comes along and pops out characters that just nail it. I believe in these characters.

Jakita is stunning and appropriately edgy without being obnoxious. Drums could be the weakest, but his psychic connection to electronics just works, and Elijah Snow is fascinating. At first he seems to be just grumpy for the sake of being a grumpy character, to give him lines, but it blossoms into a perfect characterization. What's refreshing about Elijah, is that he is a superhero who doesn't have all the answers. He doesn't instantly respond to a crisis with heroics as is the rule. This is a man figuring out the world, realizing there is much he doesn't know, and slowly building towards action. That alone would keep me reading.

The stories overflow with creativity, incorporating aspects of comics and popular culture in an alternate view of the past that has been kept hidden from the world at large. Ellis isn't quite as deft with this as Moore is in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but neither is he quite as heavy-handed or borderline pretentious (and I do love Moore's work). Reading the description for the book, it sounds like the perfect idea, brilliantly inventive and intriguing. In actual practice though, I was somewhat let down. The primary flaw is that the stories are so passive.

Many people give Planetary the nod over the Authority, but at first I was blown away by the excitement of the Authority. There is a similar feel to the two books, but the Authority are active superheroes. Here, Planetary are more like children being told stories. As such it was more reading a story than experiencing it. It was quite apparent to me and provided my chief dissatisfaction with this book.

That being said, this is a series that builds. Reading Vol. 2, I was definitely on board and loving it. Book 2 retains the passivity, but the stories go to another level, and the action begins to build. There are some truly brilliant stories in Vol. 2 that definitely provoke an emotional response. Maybe they aren't knocking on the Watchmen's door, but they've arrived on the same street.

So though I think this book 1 is a bit slow and passive, this is a worthy starting point for a fascinating series, and as such I recommend it. Definitely more creative and intriguing than 90% of the superhero books out there.(less)

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Feb 07, 2012 Sam Quixote rated it 3 of 5 stars

Planetary has always seemed to me to be a less than substantial series of Warren Ellis’. They’re a group that fit in between The Authority and Stormwatch and act as a sort of Vector-13 but with superpowers. Also, Ellis really lets go of any subtlety of concept here, he just goes for it.

So there are stories of a group in the 40s who built a machine that created the world or can create the world and brought about the end of the world but the man who learned to not age survived and guarded the por...more

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Dec 14, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I recently managed to finally get the fourth (of four) volumes of this series, so I opted to reread the whole thing from start to finish. The basic concept is good: a trio of superhuman "mystery" archeologists travel the world and see the strange stuff that exists out there. All manner of different sci-fi, fantasy, or pop literature more or less happened and gets its own lawyer-friendly spin within the pages of the comic. Volume One, for example, brings in pulp heroes like Doc Savage (here Doc B...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Tom Coates rated it 4 of 5 stars

Planetary is an incredible exercise in uncovering and exploring—and occasionally exploding—the big narratives of comic and popular culture. Every issue / chapter is self-contained, taking a trope from the schlock culture of the past and interrogating it a bit. You could view it like a few volumes of short stories each one taking a code concept that we're familiar with and doing something wild and new and fascinating with it and you'd not be far wrong.

Partly it's about adding human emotion and re...more

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Apr 18, 2011 Julian rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a review of the full four-volume saga, consisting of Planetary, Volume. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories, Planetary, Volume 2: The Fourth Man, Planetary, Volume 3: Leaving the 20th Century and Planetary, Volume 4: Spacetime Archaeology. I will review the companion volume Planetary: Crossing Worlds elsewhere. I'm doing this because the four books simply don't work independently. Most of book 2 is completely incomprehensible until you read book 3, at which point all the apparently r...more This is a review of the full four-volume saga, consisting of Planetary, Volume. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories, Planetary, Volume 2: The Fourth Man, Planetary, Volume 3: Leaving the 20th Century and Planetary, Volume 4: Spacetime Archaeology. I will review the companion volume Planetary: Crossing Worlds elsewhere. I'm doing this because the four books simply don't work independently. Most of book 2 is completely incomprehensible until you read book 3, at which point all the apparently random unconnected adventures in book 1 become part of a single enormous unfolding narrative about a great game whose stakes are no less than the survival of the universe.

So, where to start? At the outset we appear to have a simple story of a somewhat more exciting version of The X Files, where our team is taked by a mysterious 'fourth man' to go around and investigate anomalous events in order to discover the secret history of the twentieth century. We still have a nerd and a sexy woman, only this time the nerd is a borderline psychotic who can interface with the internet without needing boring things like computers to do it, the sexy woman is very definitely in charge, and has a taste for ultraviolence. Oh yes, and there's a third person: a grumpy old man. In the course of the narrative we learn a fair bit about these individuals, but, rather wonderfully, it's part of a greater narrative which assumes things that Ellis doesn't bother to explain to us - after, all the characters know what a 'millenium baby' is, so why would they bother to explain it to one another? And another nice example of the subtlety of approach is that it's only very gradually during book 1 that we discover that Jakita (the sexy woman) is superhuman in more than being, well, a very sexy woman. Just how superhuman she is only fully emerges in book 3, and likewise Drums (the nerd) only reveals his full awesome powers gradually.

Volume 1, then, it made up of a series of apparently disconnected stories in which the team go and investigate something. And we learn fun stuff, like the existence of a black Moon Programme which made its first launch in 1961. That's right. And it's all amusing, but seems a bit light, until near the end of volume 2 where you realise that it's been one story all along. So I'm not going to say any more about the plot, save that multiverses are involved, and Ellis makes really neat of ideas from holographic cosmology. Let's just say that volume 2, in isolation, would seem really incoherent, dotting around in time and space (with a wonderful rip-off of the whole Superman origin story, which comes to a premature end when a US soldier empties a rifle into the boy 'just to be sure') with no clear plan. Until you get the big revelation and, with that, are ready for the massive struggle that makes up books 3 and 4 (though even they play merry hell with time, place and location).

Another nice feature is that we see at work the way that apparently nice people can be seduced into doing terrible things. And I don't just mean the bad guys. Jakita, despite her affection for hitting things really hard, is clearly a very moral person, and is repelled when her mysterious boss reveals that he's been torturing people. But by a gradual wearing-down, she reaches the point where she's willing to indulge in extra-judicial killing and so on and so forth, because she's been convinced it's for the greater good. This aspect of human behaviour is, I think, one of the most mysterious of all: how good, decent people can become, if not monsters, then monstrous, and all from the purest of motives. Nobody really understands it, but it happens, and it's good to see Ellis admitting to it (the sheer uprightness of Mulder & Scully was always one of the sillier aspects of The X Files).

Is there anything bad to say? Well, at first you'll wonder what you're getting into. But that's meant to happen, because you're then put on a footing with the principles, who don't have a clue either. So plough on. On a minor point, Jakita starts out as a strong character, but by book 3 she's faded a bit, and by book 4 she's in danger of becoming 'sexy woman in black neoprene who hits things' version 94. She doesn't, but she does feel a little underwritten in the latter stages of the narrative.

So, don't be put off, and make sure you have all four volumes available for cross-referencing.

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Feb 20, 2010 Jace rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: comics

It's hard to rate this book, because I can see where it's going and it looks pretty interesting. Unfortunately, these first 6 issues didn't really deliver. From what I've heard about this series, it's a pretty cool overarching journey. Although I was not completely hooked by this volume, I'd certainly consider checking out the rest.

The series strikes me as a sort of Justice League meets X-Files. From what I can tell so far, this team of people with super powers travel around investigating myster...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Kristopher rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, fiction

Transmetrolpolitan was one of the last titles I was reading regularly before dropping out of comics for about a decade. I just got back into them in a serious way this past year, and I've had a lot of fun catching up on everything I missed.

Planetary has a simple concept: a corporation exploring strange phenomena and winking references to beloved superheroes and pulp fiction tropes. It's plenty for Ellis to work with, though. His unique mingling of high-concept ideas with a gutter-level view of t...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Seth rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who loves a good story!!! and adventure! and mystery! and fun!

Recommended to Seth by: dale wallain

i mean, just a great great great book. one of the best i've read. i really think i love this book more than anything by alan moore (well, maybe except league of extraordinary gentlemen. and promethea, but that's really in a category all it's own), and as much as anything by grant morrison.

each individual issue is a self contained story. which was lucky for the poor bastards reading it as it was coming out (27 issues dating from april 1999 to october 2009!). almost every issue is totally fun, riv...more

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Aug 28, 2012 Addison rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was great. Very possibly deserves the fifth star. I'm going to wait until I've read the whole series to write a review I think. I don't feel ready. I have conflicting thoughts. Some of the issues felt too short, or that part of their narrative arc was missing. They just end. But I also think that was intentional, as it's something Snow comments on with regards to the reactive nature of Planetary (the group). So yeah, I'm undecided. Volumes of a title should be able to be reviewed on their o...more

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May 24, 2010 Izlinda rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels-comics, science-fiction

Whoops. Forgot to add this book when I read it way back early May. I was browsing the graphic novels shelf in my campus bookstore and this book caught my title. I generally will only read series I'm already familiar with or new series whose first volume are there. (So tempting, though, when series have volumes 3-7 or something...)

The name Warren Ellis caught my attention though I've never heard of this series before. It started in the late '90's, got put on hiatus, then picked up again in 2009....more

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Nov 30, 2011 Miles rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

I really enjoyed this one. Warren Ellis has created some very interesting ideas and characters - enough to make me go out and buy the next volume. There were lots of interesting homages - Doc Savage, the Incredible Hulk, 2001, etc. - inside a larger story about super-powered archeologists tracking down a series of hidden events and people from different periods throughout the 20th century. The stories definitely leave you wanting to read more to unravel all of the mysteries and understand more a...more

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Mar 28, 2009 Jordan rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: wildstorm_comics, warren_ellis

I'm finding myself sadly deficient on some of these latter-day "classics" I keep recommending to others but haven't read myself. So in an effort to feel less hypocritical, I'm diving in.

The idea behind this series is solid and Cassaday's art is amazing as always. The done-in-one format is perfect for the anything-goes way the plot is structured. But Ellis crams in too much information for a self-contained issue to feel very fulfilling. There is so much exposition and so many big ideas crammed in...more

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Feb 04, 2010 Sarah Payok rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

This is where I share my embarrassing revelation that, until reading Planetary, I had never read a single Warren Ellis creation. Furthermore, it was not too long ago that I realized that the bearded, tiny instrument playing musician Warren Ellis and the comics genius Warren Ellis were not one and the same.

That revelation out of the way, I enjoyed Planetary. I'm not usually one for superhero-type stories and that was what I expected with Planetary. Instead, I found the characters, with their ant...more

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Nov 28, 2009 vladimir rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers who think they've seen it all in comic books & the hero genre.

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 histor...more

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May 05, 2011 Bill rated it 4 of 5 stars

The fact that I read both the Transmetropolitan and Sandman series before this one likely accounts for my giving this 4 stars rather than 5, because Warren Ellis's imagination is pretty amazing, but so far this one hasn't totally blown me away the way either of the aforementioned masterpieces did pretty much right from the start. Don't get me wrong, the story is already pretty awesome and the graphic part is excellent, though I have to say once again, not quite equal to the frequently hallucinat...more

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May 17, 2011 Julian rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, library

This was awesome. It came highly recommended by a friend of mine and I can absolutely see why! This book and I imagine, through my canny powers of extrapolation, the entire series will give me the best of Warren Ellis' searing dialogue with the addition of his intrepid imagination that reflects elements of Hellboy (another series I love). It's all secrets upon secrets mixed with yet more undiscovered secrets, mutant lizards and moths, the Multiverse and it's impending doom. Yes the Heroes must s...more

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Sep 05, 2010 Rich rated it 5 of 5 stars

"The comic that gets better the more comics you read" was how this title was sold to me originally. Pure genius from the pen of Warren Ellis, Planetary references more comic books and characters than I can list here; from having a reimagined villainous Fantastic Four to splicing together characters such as John Constantine with Spider Jerusalem, around every corner is an Easter Egg. This however is merely a delicious side salad to the juicy steak of story within Planetary, charting the hidden kn...more

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May 06, 2009 Loyd rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

I stayed away from this for a long time, mainly because it looks like another super-hero book. But Planetary is way more subtle and ambitious than that. Ellis has taken some of the same themes he developed in his book Aetheric Mechanics and created an entire universe. The curious trio of Elijah Snow, The Drummer, and Jakita Wagner are similar to "traditional" super-heros, but are simultaneously the strangest heroes I've even seen in comics (quite a feat). It's as if they are on an expedition to...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Porkpie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Silly, silly, silly and more silly. A plot so blown-out as to be like reading skunky marijuana. Three superheroes are charged with protecting Earth from the hyperweirdness that abounds: snowflake alternate Earths, weird beasties - you name it. If only this were actually as good as that sounds.

The art is fantastic in this series, though. But the stories are just too whacked to track and the whole thing collapses under the weight of its own mess. If you like your comics on the etherized side of t...more

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Sep 12, 2010 Batmensch rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the best comic series ever made. Planetary is an organization that seeks out the strange in the world. Under that concept we meet most of the major fictional characters of the last couple of centuries, either by their real names, or, if they are under copyright, under easily translated pseudonyms. Imagine meeting Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, Jame Bond and the Justice League in one lifetime.

As usual with Ellis, there's a strong sci-fi undercurrent to the work. Also as usual the characters a...more

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Dec 16, 2012 Craig rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comic-books

A good opening to a series about a small group that work for Planetary, an organization that consider themselves archaeologists of the impossible. Each of the three main characters have unique superhuman abilities, with the newest recruit, Elijah Snow, having a large part of his memory missing.

Their missions takes them to a secret base where they discover a multidimensional mapping of the multiverse, a trip to Monster Island, and an encounter with a vengeful spirit of justice.

By the end of this...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Nuno Vargas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-library-physical, comics

I'd been reading this comic on and off for the past month (as toilet literature...) but when I finished I was left with a nagging feeling that something in the story had eluded me. So I decided to go back to it and try to read it in one go. In fact it took me two days but I now enjoy the book much more. The introduction (by none other than Alan Moore) was much clearer the second time around and gave me the right perspective to approach these "archaeologists of the impossible" as they uncover the...more

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May 31, 2012 Sunil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own, 2012

Planetary. The word itself evokes a sense of our place in the cosmos, one small planet in a vast universe of wonders. It is an apt name for an organization of mystery archaeologists who unearth these wonders, observing the hidden secrets of the world (our world, as well as its relation to others). The superhuman Jakita Wagner, the immortal Elijah Snow, and the machine-talker Drummer travel the world and investigate strange happenings, usually after strange things have already happened. Think Fri...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Joseph rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, fiction, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 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 mas...more

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Oct 26, 2011 Lloyd rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comic-book-graphic-novel, warren-ellis, 2000s

What do Tarzan, Godzilla, The Spectre, Chinese action films, The Fantastic Four, and The Hulk all have in common? Planetary. That's what...

The "high concept" of this book is nothing short of breathtaking. It is that our trio of heroes in Planetary, an international organization, are "archaeologists of the impossible".

What does that mean?

Ellis has taken on burrowing through 100 years of pop culture in the form of a comic book. We meet characters that oddly resemble familiar faces (mostly of the...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-and-read, creator-owned

This is one of the legendary works of Warren Ellis. Many creators cite Planetary as one of the most influential Ellis series, and it sure has a ridiculous number of Goodreads ratings.

Does that make it a mind-blowing book? On second reading, I really don't feel that moved by it. Maybe it's the later volumes that add the gravitas that so many people report. Right now, a day after finishing this first collection, I'm feeling a little "Alan Moore" vibe from it, which is not a good thing.

What's great...more This is one of the legendary works of Warren Ellis. Many creators cite Planetary as one of the most influential Ellis series, and it sure has a ridiculous number of Goodreads ratings.

Does that make it a mind-blowing book? On second reading, I really don't feel that moved by it. Maybe it's the later volumes that add the gravitas that so many people report. Right now, a day after finishing this first collection, I'm feeling a little "Alan Moore" vibe from it, which is not a good thing.

What's great: characters with hidden depths only hinted at (Snow, Wagner), a great premise of hunting down the century's greatest mysteries, and some fun powers only used sparingly while the good ideas spool forth.

Perhaps it's that aspect - a lot less flash-bang and fist fighting in this book, a lot more standing around talking and gawking - that takes my wonderment down a notch. But the "Alan Moore" vibe is even beyond that obvious parallel - it's the promise that every issue will tackle a different old trope of comic-booking tales (Hulk origin, FF origin, Godzilla, ...) and put a post-modern, realistic spin on them.

Also detracting for me is that each episode mostly stands on its own - like most non-mythology episodes of Fringe, Supernatural or X-Files - not contributing much to the story's larger momentum. That is frustrating to get "caught up in" when so little carries forward from one to the next.

I'll say this though: Ellis does Moore far better than Moore does. Where Moore just puts these pieces on the board and forces us to look at them, at least Ellis moves them around and draws us into the stories as participants. It's *more* engaging Moore, but it still leaves the bitter aftertaste of Alan in my mouth.

That said, Ellis then weaves some intrigue (who are Planetary's people exactly? What does their benefactor really want? Just how far back does the organization's efforts go?) into the otherwise-standalone/standoffish episodes, which will keep me reading just to see how much larger an idea Ellis is building towards.(less)

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Mar 05, 2010 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is probably the last of the pick-ups I will make from Comics Should Be Good's excellent series of posts from last year. Planetary is a superhero book about the concept of super heroes. Planetary is about the craft of comic book making. Planetary is about the genre and it's tried and true narrative choices. Planetary is about the roots of comic book universes, its influences and the faults they create. Planetary asks the question -- what would you do if you could remake the world?

And, ultima...more

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Graphic Novel Rea...: 2nd Optional Book Club Discussion: Planetary: All Over The World and Other Stories by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday - June 2012 (may contain spoilers)	38	56	Oct 31, 2012 06:03pm

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About Warren Ellis

Has written comics & graphic novels, books, journalism, animation, tv, film, videogames and anything else that looks like it might pay a bill or buy whisky.

Second novel, GUN MACHINE, due from Mulholland Books in autumn of 2012.

First non-fiction book due from FSG in 2014.

Currently a weekly columnist for VICE UK.

Hello. WHERE AM I

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Books by Warren Ellis

Transmetropolitan, Vol. 1: Back on the Street

Transmetropolitan, Vol. 3: Year of the Bastard

Transmetropolitan, Vol. 2: Lust for Life

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Quotes from Planetary, Vol. 1: All...

“Why do I even have to say this? Why do I have to say "Get off the unique and probably alien living plinth that zaps the unwary?" What is wrong with my life that I have to say these things out loud...?” — 3 people liked it

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Planetary, Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories (Planetary #1)

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