Planetary #26 (December 2006)

The pieces of this puzzle only come in four shapes. Is that a metaphor for the members of Planetary? Is the missing piece Ambrose?

Planetary #26 (December 2006)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

And now, the end is near. And so I face the final curtain. My friend, I'll say it clear; I'll state my case of which I'm certain. I've lived a life that's full; I traveled each and every highway. And more — much more than this — I did it my way.

If Frank Sinatra hadn't been Frank Sinatra, that song would just sound like somebody desperately trying to attempt to convince themselves that they didn't completely waste their life. But you know Frank Sinatra probably did travel down each and every highway and, yes, I mean that sexually. When do I ever mean anything not sexually? I'm a vulgar piece of shit. It's why the word "shit" is spelled out in the name of my blog. If you read my blog, you're metaphorically eating my shit. I'm like Shakespeare if Shakespeare had wiped his just-used dick all over some folio papers and wrote "Twelfth Night" above the awful stains. You know what's really sad? When I see some poor sap singing "My Way" at karaoke. "Sure, sure. Keep telling yourself you did it your way, pal. Nobody can argue with you! It's just nobody else did it your way because it doesn't look too great."

Okay, okay. I'm sorry about that! I hate being judgmental about karaoke! I love karaoke and I love everybody who gets up to sing at karaoke! Sometimes I hit unintended, innocent targets when I'm trying to lambast something else and in this case I was trying to point out that not everybody should be singing "My Way" because it just sounds like some pathetic sap on his deathbed trying not to feel depressed that they fucked up everything. But since Frankie Boy sings it, most people just think the song is inspiring and joyful but in a kind of melancholy reverie because who the fuck begins a song with "And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain"?! I'm calling a pharmacist right now to see if they have any extra mood stabilizers available after just typing that line! And you don't have to Sinatra-splain the way the song works in the comments section! I may be a vulgar cretin but I'm also the smartest guy in his mother's basement (at least the smartest one still alive)! The song isn't just about an old fucker dying in his bed and being happy he lived his life the way he did; the song's basically the musical version of For Whom the Bell Tolls. You're not supposed to go, "Oh, that bell has nothing to do with me! I'm young and alive and not dead or dying!" You're supposed to hear the song and think, "Oh fuck! I need to make sure I'm like this guy when I'm about to croak! Don't waste any minute of this shit, man! What am I doing reading comic books?! I should learn about fucking! I should stop worrying about vaginas possibly having teeth and go get laid!" That was a hypothetical person saying that and not me. If you think that was me, I'm going to sue you for libel. And slander. And sexual assault?

What I'm getting at is this comic book is over, baby! Technically this is the last issue because you don't write a series and then wait three years to release the final issue. That sounds more like an epilogue and an afterthought and one of those revisits because Warren kept thinking about a few more things he felt should be said about the characters. Obviously it's part of the whole but, for the moment, we're not thinking about three years in the future. We're thinking about this issue. The technical final issue! So let's go face our technically final curtain, baby!

Oh gross. I'll get back to the review after I vomit for three hours.

I'm glad it was pointed out that this thing was in John Stone's head because I would have been picturing Planetary pulling it out of his ass. Also, I've already pictured Planetary pulling it out of his ass. You can't think something like that and not contemplate it for several minutes. Slowly. Like caterpillar anal beads. Also, judging by the color of the liquid around it, it definitely was pulled out of his asshole.

I just had a spontaneous memory of the first time I ever witnessed anal beads! No idea something like that existed until that moment. I must have been nineteen because that's when I was working odd jobs for my cousin's cousin, David O'Neil, doing cabinet work. You had to be desperate for money to work for David because once he picked you up for the job, you were basically his hostage. So you'd help him sand and stain cabinets, load them on his truck, ride shotgun to the house he was fixing up, help him install them, and then wind up at his apartment drinking beers and eating pizza as he tried to renegotiate your pay rate for the day by charging you for the pizza and beer he offered you which you could refuse, I suppose, but you were fucking stuck at his apartment until he drove you home. One of those times, he popped in a porn video of a woman removing anal beads from the place they're stuffed (it's right there in the name, if you're unsure) and I was all, "Oh, this is interesting!" But I wasn't that interested because no fucking way was I getting a boner in David O'Neil's apartment!

Anyway, if David O'Neil ever does Internet searches on his own name, "Hi, Dave! I hope you never got arrested for dropping bad checks to your DUI lawyer!"

I'd like to take a short moment to say this: if you knew me in real life, you'd never believe this was my blog. Christ I fucking ramble on this thing! If I'm out with people and not drinking, I barely say a thing! Sure, get one drink in me, usually a low alcohol by volume domestic shit beer, and then maybe you would believe this was my blog. I've got a really easy to flip inhibition switch. When it's off, it's fucking off. But that switch can get bumped on in so many various ways: alcohol, LSD, mushrooms, knowing you for twenty plus years. So mostly through drugs and alcohol. But also through friendship!

This is Jakita's response to Elijah when he tells Drummer he wants the anal bug turned back on.

If this panel were a long, rectangular panel, I'd probably make it another header. Which then made me realize that the panel with Drummer looking at the bug that's obviously come out of somebody's ass would make a great panel with "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" being placed over his word balloon. It's a good visual representation of this blog!

Elijah believes he's figured out how to clear this whole rivalry up just by speaking with Randall Dowling. So even though turned the ass bug back on will reveal their location to Dowling (which is really dangerous because he owns that orbital death laser), Snow still wants to risk it.

Elijah's plan is to offer a deal: Dowling gives Snow everything he knows, all of his secret technologies and answers to mysteries and alien sex slaves. In exchange, Elijah Snow won't murder Kim Süskind. Dowling's first reaction is to laugh but that's probably because he forgot that they almost already killed her once and probably could have done it if they'd wanted to at the time. But Elijah also points out that Leather and Greene are dead so, well, what's one more? Sure, they aren't dead. But they've been disappeared permanently which is different on a semantic level but the difference is so negligible that it puts the "static" in statistics. Fuck you! That works well enough!

"My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight."

When did Elijah Snow become Jesus? Has that been the premise all along and I fucking missed it for 26 issues?! Man, no matter how much of The Bible I've learned about thanks to having a college degree in Literature where you need basically need to know two texts backwards and forwards to understand all the metaphor and allusions (The Bible and Hamlet), I still can't shake being raised areligious! Religion isn't the first thing I think about when I'm reading texts! It's like how, basically not having a father in my life, I miss out on tons of father/son dynamics in stories. You wouldn't believe how huge a blind spot I had with Infinite Jest because it doesn't come naturally to me to see a boy as wanting attention and love from his father!

Anyway, Snow's point is the same as Jesus's point: the material world shouldn't be your concern. Especially now that Snow has seen the afterlife thanks to Melanctha, and he's seen the shape of the world thanks to Hong Kong and Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Kwelo & his angels. Also, I imagine he's luring Dowling into a trap because if I were Dowling and I was offered the deal, "I will give you everything you ever wanted," I would take it. Unless that deal came from a candy magnate who murders children. I might not trust that guy.

Elijah declares the Deli in the Desert as their meeting place. He also mentions his "time in the wilderness". So this fucker is Jesus?! Do I need to instantly re-read this entire fucking thing? Or is this just the genre of this particular issue? Planetary as The Last Temptation of Christ? Starring Randall Dowling as the voice of Satan?

Yes, girl! Somebody's finally speaking their power!

So, this really smells like a trap but Dowling's olfactory senses are working as well as an archivist with a sinus infection on the main floor of San Diego Comic-con. He thinks he's strolling a garden of roses, the poor bastard. Knowing Dowling's arrogance, Snow baits him by calling him small and powerless. Snow knows Dowling won't show up alone. Or won't set up a trap of his own, somehow. And when Dowling breaks the deal, Snow will release the Jakita hounds. Maybe. What do I know? I couldn't even tell the man in full white and calling himself Snow, symbols of absolute purity, was a Jesus figure!

The page after that bit I scanned basically has Snow revealing what I just said in the last paragraph. Which is why I like writing about the things I'm currently reading! I want to understand it as I'm supposed to understand it without having to be told what how I'm supposed to understand it. And when the text says, "Hey, this is explicitly what I just said just a second ago, you know, if you were paying attention," I can nod my head vigorously and say, "Yes, yes sir! I was paying attention sir! I'm a smart boy! Perhaps the smartest!"

Later at the meeting in the desert (same place Jesus met Satan. I think?), Snow blows smoke in Dowling's face and points out that the super power he got from the aliens sucks fucking dick (in a bad, toothy, doesn't end in an orgasm way!). Jesus Snow reverses the temptation and attempts to get Dowling to join him in defending Earth. But Dowling, being too stupid to realize how easily he's been manipulated, turns him down. He's all, "Look, the only way you're going to be able to kill me is if this desert is full of giant ants or a massive shiftship. And what are the chances of that?!"

Pretty good, I reckon. Although I'd have preferred giant ants exploded out of the sand to tear them apart.

Randall and Kim fall into the massive hold created by the Shiftship's emergence from the Earth. Dead or dying, their bodies are picked up by the ship with Planetary now on board and they head off to finish the last business of the 20th Century before passing the torch over to Mr. Wilder and his crew of superhuman children of the City Zero survivors. That business has to do with Apokolips Earth and its threat to take over Planetary's Earth by 2011. The business is simple: delivering a couple of parcels.

I guess gods die pretty easily.

The Ranking!
The series technically ends with Elijah explaining how his version of power and knowledge is used to save people and better the world, the antithesis of Dowling's idea of power which was violence and destruction. Brother, I am so there with you. The fucking Pete Hegseths of the world will never understand true power. They'll live their entire little lives obsessed with an image they're afraid they're never quite rising to. These AI fucks who think knowledge is rote memorization of facts that are sometimes up to 40% incorrect. The kind of people who think jokes are only funny when they're belittling somebody else. The people who never find joy or whimsy in curiosity and discovery. Just a bunch of real shit Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four people out there.

Oh, one more thing. This is technically the final issue because it deals with The Four and the actual final issue doesn't come out for three more years. But Elijah does say on the last page that there's one more "loose thread to take care of". And since he's been talking about saving Ambrose, I suspect Ambrose is that loose thread which can be tied off with the scientific knowledge acquired from The Four. Luckily I don't have to wait three years to read it!

Planetary #25 (June 2006)

Okay!

Planetary #25 (June 2006)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Scott Dunbier

The phrase "Seize the World!" obviously made me think of "Seize the Day!" which made me think of "Carpe Diem!" which made me assume the Latin translation of "Seize the World!" would be "Carpe Mundi!" but that's because I'm too lazy to see if it is (thus the use of "assume") and I never took Latin because the only class that was ever offered when I was in college was at seven in the morning. I mean, fuck that, right? They expect a college student to wake up, shower (negotiable), and get to class BY 7 AM?! Ludicrous. Anyway, continuing my runaway and nearly derailed train of thought, the Non-Certified Spouse sometimes uses the phrase "Carpe Crustulum" which she translates as "Seize the Cookie!" which made me think, "No wonder we've been together for almost 30 years. I love cookies!" And, finally, the train lying on its side in a massive smoking wreck, twisted bodies strewn about the landscape, as we arrive at our destination: here are all the times I mentioned cookies on Facebook:

"Nothing better than a cup of coffee and 300 Oreos."
"This morning, I discovered Carrot Cake flavored Oreos. It was nice living without diabetes but I must say goodbye to those years now."
"Just looking for a doctor that will prescribe Oreos."
"Gonna just eat these cookies left hanging on my door in the assumption that it isn't some insane holiday poisoner." [It wasn't! It was my friend Vanessa who bakes who made cookies for us!]
"Dinner is delayed because they forgot the cookies! Never a more apt time for the word 'motherfuckers.'"
"I'd probably betray my best friend for some cookies." [Oh shit! I've got a great picture to go with this one!]

The Non-Certified Spouse's friend from college, Teresa, made these for my Maundy Thursday party which I used to celebrate for my cat and the all-time love of my life, Judas!

"I learned a little sign language from a children's television show years ago and I'm proud to say I can still say, 'Please send me some cookies via helicopter.'"
"Never took Latin in college because the class began too early in the morning and I regret it so much because now I can't say 'Please send me some cookies via helicopter' in a dead language." [See?! I wasn't lying about the class!]
"My body would be so incredibly fit right now if fitness were directly related to how many cookies you eat."

That last one is scientifically accurate because I have barely had any cookies for the last six months and I've lost over 30 pounds. That's basically proof via scientific experiment where I was the test subject and just as you'd expect, being a test subject is fucking hell. Give me some cookies, for fuck's sake!

One last Honorable Mention post from the Non-Certified Spouse in relation to the closure of Wilson's Bakery in Santa Clara: "No mention of your favorite cookies, but lots of grieving! Looks like it closed in 2006."

Christ, sometimes I think amnesia would be a blessing! How many stupid memories can the human brain hold?! Although don't do that thing to me that Frost asks not be done to him in "Birches" about granting his wish too well and steal away my cookie memories!

This issue begins with Elijah confronting Alternate Dimension James Bond in the lonely pub of nuclear Strangeloves. Snow just wants Stone to know that he knows that Stone does work for The Four. Probably against his will but, well, that's what Elijah wants to know. What do they have on him and why would he help them? Especially since he met at the pub to break down Elijah's memory blocks because the pub can't be monitored by outside sources due to all the nuclear radiation and electromagnetic interference and the souls of the suicides.

When you side with shitters, you eventually get shit on. At least, I hope you do. Please, please, please hurry up and shit on everybody currently in power. And the pretend opposition party, while you're at it!

I don't know who I'm asking to shit on all the morons ruining the fucking world but if it happens to be God and They hear me and all those motherfuckers drop dead or literally get shit on, I'll be the most devout motherfucker you ever saw tomorrow! But this deal only lasts for Memorial Day Weekend. If I don't see some motherfuckers covered in shit by Monday, the deal is off the table. This deal is also open to Satan if that's the guy who can get this shit done! But I'll work that out with him another weekend so I don't get confused as to which god-like being did the paranormal dirty work.

John Stone tries to escape because he's always been able to get out of a jam before. Usually he does it by fucking the right person or drinking the right Martini or winning the big bet. But this time he decides to reveal his secret weapon: the Devil's Paw!

One thing I definitely know about Stone's personal life now: he jerks off with his left hand.

Planetary engages in an awful lot of ball kicking which is why I predicted that Kim Süskind will be taken out by a kick to the pussy.

Jakita kicks his ass and then Elijah knocks him unconscious. He later wakes up in a hospital bed without his Devil's Paw so hopefully he really does jerk off with the left. My assumption could easily be wrong because who wouldn't think about trying it with the Devil's Paw while sitting around bored and slightly horny?

From his hospital bed, John Stone spills every single bean he has on The Four because he figures he's dead anyway. Or he's dead if Planetary doesn't win. I guess John Stone just doesn't have any faith in Planetary which might be scary if Elijah thought about it for even a second!

The Four's secret origin is that Randall Dowling, with help from a Planetary Guide, knew about a crack into the bleed somewhere between the Earth and the moon. He found it and shot himself and his three cohorts through it, through the Bleed, and into a dimension where Alternate Universe Darkseid had conquered Earth.

It looks like Mogo's blow-up sex doll.

Stone explains that in exchange for gaining random super powers and immortality, The Four would give the Earth to Earth-Apokolips in 50 years. So in 2011. But they have yet to truly control Earth because of Elijah Stone so they're panicking a bit. And by "they", I guess I just mean Randall Dowling. The others, even Kim, are just useful pawns to his ambition. Stone also gives Elijah the final puzzle piece to his problem: Randall Dowling's super power.

So Dowling's super power is a really long mind penis? Gross.

The Ranking!
Holy shit! I'm so close to the end now! I never had any plans on doing any blog posts about this comic book because I'd re-read it during my blogging years and hadn't done it before. But I happened to open the short box where it was stored and who am I to deny fate?! Although 25+ issues of one series in a row (well, mostly in a row! I'm looking at you, Sexual Diseases For Fun and Profit High School) can drag a bit. It's much easier to discuss different characters from post to post instead of having to say the same thing about Elijah over and over again. It's probably why I'm always talking about cookies and how often I masturbate (not together! Although...?). I think when I do Preacher next, it's going to have to be interspersed with another series. Transmetropolitan? No, no. I think I need to give Ellis a rest for a bit. I'm sure I'll find something lying around here!

Planetary #24 (March 2006)

I'm sad this isn't an actual Planetary Guide.

Planetary #24 (March 2006)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Scott Dunbier

Hopefully every issue of Elijah Stone's Planetary Guide doesn't come off as America-centric. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to assume that every cover highlighted the part of the planet where the best secrets and mysteries for that month were discovered. Here, Elijah Snow probably covers a bunch of pyramids and ancient mounds of humanoid construction found in North, Central, and South America which predate the scientifically-accepted time of human migration to the Western continents. Or maybe it's just about Bigfoot and Mexican Bigfoot and Chilean Bigfoot. Or maybe Elijah Snow, being an American, is a fucking narcissist who can't see the planet from any other angle than the one chosen on the cover? Why should I fight his public relations battles for him?! If you think he's an arrogant asshole, what do I fucking care?! It's not like defending him by making up a bunch of possible excuses is going to win me a Marvel No-Prize! Especially since this is a Wildstorm comic book!

Look, I realize the Planetary logo always fucking shows the Western Hemisphere so, you know, fuck it. Why did I even bring it up?! We get it. Planetary gives less of a fuck about Europe, Asia, and Australia. And probably South America, too, except it's lucky enough to be photobombing North America in most shots of the Earth. Also, Planetary very much cares about Antarctica. Don't think I just forgot about that giant ice-covered alien ship converted into a Planetary trophy room and alien storage locker.

If the Bugaloos are real, I'm going to have to assume Sigmund's sea monster, H.R. Pufnstuf, and Donnie and Marie Osmond are real too. I already agree that they're all terrifying.

The issue begins with Jakita and Drummer confronting Elijah Snow, letting him know they know what he's up to. Being Elijah Snow, he knew they knew what he was up to because you can't fucking hide anything from Drummer. So now that he's lured them to a special Planetary headquarters located in Rio de Janeiro that's jam-packed with Planetary Guides, redacted interviews, and secret photographs from all across the 20th Century world (but mostly America and American interests (see Planetary Logo)), Elijah's ready to fill them in on the entire plan. I think. I hope!

I mean, I think his entire plan is to have Ambrose Chase phase back into reality at the exact right time to kick Kim Süskind in the vagina so that, being a Nazi and loving pain, she comes so hard that her head explodes. Then Randall, who loves violence and gore, will come so hard that his balls will explode. And then he'll say, "You win, Snow! I applaud your gamesmanship!" Then he'll die forever not because he wasn't some immortal god but because Warren Ellis was probably fucking bored of this shit by Issue #26.

The foundational metaphor of Elijah Snow's explanation of reality and the way humans extract knowledge from that reality is archaeology because remember how Planetary is about archaeology?!

Elijah's monologue continues from archaeology to security systems. He brings up the Century Babies and how they all have jobs to protect this system that seems to have been set up by something that understands justice. It's why the ghost in Hong Kong works for God's wank bank and said that thing about, "It's just us." It's why John Leather turned into the Lone Ranger after visiting the afterlife on Tonto's supply. It's why Jakita, the child of Century Baby Tarzan, now works with Planetary to protect the world and its secret and to help keep it weird. I mean strange. After that, he simply explains what's been happening, issue by issue. But, I mean, we read all of those issues so we don't have to go through all that again, right?! Let's just read in silence for a bit, shall we?

Hmm hmmm hmm hmmmm hmm. Oh, sorry. I sometimes hum when I read. I'll try to be more quiet.

*SCRITCH SCRITCH SCRITCH SHAZZLESHAZZLESCHFFSCHFF* Sorry, my balls suddenly itched.

(surreptitious sniff of fingers)

Oh wait! Here we go! The important bit!

Okay, maybe not super important, as far as new information goes. But it confirms what we all figured had happened based on the evidence.

The problem with saving Ambrose from his pocket of no time in no space? Elijah Snow's a hick from some rural shitstain in America and he doesn't know how to do science. But he knows Randall and Kim probably have the means to save Ambrose stashed away in their dragon's hoard of information and technology. Which is why he's going after them. Well, that and to make their heads and testicles explode.

While Elijah holds his meetings in the bowels of Planetary: Rio de Janeiro, the final two of The Four blast the building with an orbital death ray. It turns the entire building and the people within it to ash. But Elijah, Jakita, and Drummer all remain safely in the bunker that stores Snow's collection of Planetary Guides. It's really important to keep them safe in a dry, stable temperature which can't be disrupted by twenty nuclear warheads. Twenty-one, maybe, but who's going to launch 21 into the same place?! Especially when you've got an orbital death laser!

The Ranking
The Four done fucked up now! Stupid 4 and their half-finished swastika logo. Dumb Nazis! I love reading a book that explicitly says, "Nazis suck and we're going to kill those fucking bastards," because it means Nazis can't like this book. I mean, sure, I guess stupid Nazis can like the book because they're too dumb to know that it's saying they should be dead. And also all Nazis are fucking morons so I guess maybe all Nazis love this book? It's like when I see some idiot conservative praise some Kurt Vonnegut he's read and I have to kick them in the spleen and yell, "Kurt Vonnegut fucking hates you, you stupid piece of shit! Even dead, he hates you! He thinks you're an absolute moron who has wasted his life! If I got out a Ouija board right now and asked Kurt Vonnegut if he had anything to say to you, we'd spend five minutes standing around the board watching the planchette move around until it spelled out, 'Go take a flxing fuck bt a rolking doughnut!'" Don't blame the typos on dead Kurt Vonnegut! Blame them on my fat fingers and my terrible control of the planchette!

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