Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories, Volume 1 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday

Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories, Volume 1 by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday is for the reader who has a nostalgia for the space explorer- and Doc Savage-style pulp fiction along with a love of futuristic and science fiction settings. Three main characters make up the mysterious group called Planetary. Elijah Snow is about 100 years old, looks like a fit 40-50 year-old, can lower the temperature of a room by walking into it (hence his name), and is about as caring as his name suggests. Jakita Wagner takes lead and is physically strong on what seems to be a super-hero level. Drummer, as Jakita tells Snow, is crazy, AND (not because) he talks to machines — really. He seems to require drumsticks to communicate, tapping into energy flows throughout cities and other odd items that we don’t think of as computers bu... Read More

Planetary: The Fourth Man, Volume 2 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday

Having just written a review of Volume 1 of Planetary by Warren Ellis, I didn’t think I’d feel any need to write a review of Volume 2; however, I just finished reading Planetary: The Fourth Man, Volume 2 again and feel that it certainly deserves a review of its own. Please read my first review to get a full picture of the complex nature of this profound yet quickly-paced comic book. To summarize briefly, the title refers to a three-person team of mystery archeologists who attempt to uncover the secret history of the twentieth century. That secret history ranges from popular culture to haunted cities to mad scientists... Read More

Planetary: Leaving the 20th Century, Volume 3 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday

In this third volume of PLANETARY stories we not only get to step back for a moment and have a bit of a look at the adventures of Elijah Snow in his century of existence trying to keep the world strange, but we also get more details on the Four and their intersection with the Planetary organization prior to the current story arc. Ellis is able to play in a lot of cool sandboxes as a result and the genre mashing continues much to my personal glee!

Issue 13 – “Century”: Just how did Elijah Snow form the Planetary organization and why did he do it? Well, not all of the answers will be provided here, but we get an intriguing glimpse at young Elijah Snow circa 1919 as he tracks down the members of a secret organization from the 19th century whose goal was to “better mankind” from behind the scenes. Elijah doesn’t like that kin... Read More

Planetary: Spacetime Archaeology, Volume 4 by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday

This is it. The culmination of the PLANETARY series. Does it live up to the hype? Does the climax match the build up? Well, read on and we’ll see.

Issue 19 – “Mystery in Space”: There’s a strange artifact approaching earth from deep space and Elijah plans on seeing what mysteries it contains. Ellis pays homage to the Big Dumb Object in sci-fi and also draws on the ideas of generation starships, orbital habitats, and the remnants of precursor races. Elijah has a plan to draw out the one member of the Four he’s never seen and hopefully deal with him… permanently. We’re getting more and more of a feel for just how extensive the holdings of Planetary are and the resources that Snow can bring to bear when he needs to.

Issue 20 – “Rendezvous”: Jacob Greene, Ellis’ version of the Thing, is in the house. ... Read More

Trees by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard

Trees, a new comic by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard, has a great premise at is core. A decade ago, giant “Trees” (huge cylinders) landed in various spots on the Earth and then, well, stayed there. No aliens crawled out, no release of terraforming gas, no giant signals trying to communicate with the whales. They landed ten years ago and remain as mysterious now as when they arrived. But in the shadow of the trees, nothing is the same, as even without any overt action, the Trees shattered the previous social/economic/governmental systems of those areas as most who could moved out of their shadows. New enclaves and systems have grown up around the Trees, and... Read More

Supreme: Blue Rose by Warren Ellis & Tula Lotay

I have to admit that there are a few red flag elements in Supreme: Blue Rose, written by Warren Ellis and drawn by Tula Lotay, that might give some potential readers pause. One is the whole “inside game” element to it thanks to how it plays off of the old Supreme comic universe, meaning lots of its references will go completely over the head of those wholly unfamiliar with that fictional world (and I, I confess, am nearly so, only having picked up on this from recognizing a few names and references from prior reading not of Supreme itself but from some non-fiction about Alan Moore, who wrote some of that comic). I don’t know if one has to have read Supreme to enjoy... Read More