This issue looks like a fun time.
Planetary #10 (June 2000)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Depuy Martin, David Baron, and Ryan Cline
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman
This issue is called "Magic & Loss". Isn't that the name of the four panel comic with the guy rushing into the hospital to see his girlfriend who just lost her pregnancy? Or is that just called "Loss" and everybody thinks it's "Magic"? Or the opposite of magic? Science?
Maybe I should begin again but more confidently. This issue is called "Magic & Loss" which reminds me of that heartbreaking comic strip that everybody applauded as one of the most sensitive portrayals of a miscarriage in comedy web cartoon strips. Nobody ever made fun of it and it never became an attempt to embarrass the artist or his work. Giants in the field like that bald human-sized thumb and his scrawny hunchbacked friend didn't shit all over it in an attempt to distract from their dick wolf comic that they'd publish two years later. Nobody attacked Tim Buckley and his superb artistic expression at every opportunity and nobody's feelings were ever hurt and everybody on the Internet held hands with everybody else forever after. And everybody was happy except the two people on either side of Jerry Holkins. Because I imagine his hands are both sweaty and sticky.
Whew. That was much better. I saved it! I'm the hero!
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Depuy Martin, David Baron, and Ryan Cline
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by John Layman
This issue is called "Magic & Loss". Isn't that the name of the four panel comic with the guy rushing into the hospital to see his girlfriend who just lost her pregnancy? Or is that just called "Loss" and everybody thinks it's "Magic"? Or the opposite of magic? Science?
Maybe I should begin again but more confidently. This issue is called "Magic & Loss" which reminds me of that heartbreaking comic strip that everybody applauded as one of the most sensitive portrayals of a miscarriage in comedy web cartoon strips. Nobody ever made fun of it and it never became an attempt to embarrass the artist or his work. Giants in the field like that bald human-sized thumb and his scrawny hunchbacked friend didn't shit all over it in an attempt to distract from their dick wolf comic that they'd publish two years later. Nobody attacked Tim Buckley and his superb artistic expression at every opportunity and nobody's feelings were ever hurt and everybody on the Internet held hands with everybody else forever after. And everybody was happy except the two people on either side of Jerry Holkins. Because I imagine his hands are both sweaty and sticky.
Whew. That was much better. I saved it! I'm the hero!
This first page is just as depressing as the cover, isn't it?
Seems to me if you put "Loss" in the title of your comic book and/or strip, you drastically change the tone of the thing. We're we having alternate history fun in this comic book just a few issues ago? Giant monsters, giant ants, radioactive ghost women, guys named Leather, God's Hong Kong Cum Sock, First, Second, Third, and Fourth Men, and all the cool science fiction stuff that I've already forgotten? Why's everybody suddenly got to start dying? I bet I should blame it all on Ambrose Chase's reality distortion field. He activated it at the end of 1997 and everything just went off the rails after that. Now I have to witness Alternate Dimension Superman, Alternate Dimension Green Lantern, and Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman die?!
Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. They could just be tossing all of their shit on the floor because they're about to fuck each other.
Or the reality: the items in the previous panel were all part of Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four's collection. The Planetary Clean-up Crew are taking apart Dowling's lab which the Field Team secured a few issues ago when Jakita was thrown out of the window and Elijah kicked Leather in the balls.
Sidebar: I have a theory that one of the reasons Gen-X have become the worst voting demographic is that, aside from so many of them already being the bad dudes in the John Hughes' movies, is that when Covid and the vaccine came about, they were just getting to the age where cancer risk increased. So they began seeing friends and family being diagnosed with cancer simply because they were aging into that risk group. But what they saw was a bunch of people getting the Covid vaccine and then being diagnosed with cancer and they were all, "A-ha! I am the great British Detective John Holmes! I know exactly what caused this cancer!" Another part of my theory is that a lot of people are just stupid morons. And, funny enough, all of the dumbest guys I was friends with when I was younger were all the ones to fall for Fox News propaganda. Who would have thought?! End Sidebar.
Was that a sidebar? I wished I'd watched more lawyer television shows so I'd know. The only one I ever watched regularly was L.A. Law and that was because I loved Larry Drake's character. He was always bringing them doughnuts!
After some techs look at the pile of super hero accessories and before they piss on it (or whatever lowly blue collar workers do to things on the job¹), Warren Ellis turns this issue into the origin stories he would have written for Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.
Maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. They could just be tossing all of their shit on the floor because they're about to fuck each other.
Or the reality: the items in the previous panel were all part of Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four's collection. The Planetary Clean-up Crew are taking apart Dowling's lab which the Field Team secured a few issues ago when Jakita was thrown out of the window and Elijah kicked Leather in the balls.
Sidebar: I have a theory that one of the reasons Gen-X have become the worst voting demographic is that, aside from so many of them already being the bad dudes in the John Hughes' movies, is that when Covid and the vaccine came about, they were just getting to the age where cancer risk increased. So they began seeing friends and family being diagnosed with cancer simply because they were aging into that risk group. But what they saw was a bunch of people getting the Covid vaccine and then being diagnosed with cancer and they were all, "A-ha! I am the great British Detective John Holmes! I know exactly what caused this cancer!" Another part of my theory is that a lot of people are just stupid morons. And, funny enough, all of the dumbest guys I was friends with when I was younger were all the ones to fall for Fox News propaganda. Who would have thought?! End Sidebar.
Was that a sidebar? I wished I'd watched more lawyer television shows so I'd know. The only one I ever watched regularly was L.A. Law and that was because I loved Larry Drake's character. He was always bringing them doughnuts!
After some techs look at the pile of super hero accessories and before they piss on it (or whatever lowly blue collar workers do to things on the job¹), Warren Ellis turns this issue into the origin stories he would have written for Superman, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman.
This is gay sex so powerful that the orgasm destroys Krypton.
Warren Ellis's take on Kryptonians is that they're so arrogant and proud that they destroy their planet by sending their art, poetry, and history into space to be enjoyed by all the other civilizations. Krypton explodes because every launch uses a gravitational system that destabilizes a black hole at the center of the planet. The launch by these two Kryptonians — the ship carrying Superfoetus — is the last straw on the Nightwing's back. The planet implodes. Seems like Alternate Dimension Superman, being responsible for the death of Krypton, is going to need more therapy than Alternate Dimension Batman (whose origin we're not going to get. At least not here).
Alternate Dimension Green Lantern is actually a Blue Lantern and actually uses a lantern instead of a ring. I guess they haven't gotten to the point in their organization's existence where somebody said, "Why are we carrying these stupid lanterns around? Can't we refine this shit down to something smaller? Like a brooch or a pocket watch?"
Alternate Dimension Green Lantern is actually a Blue Lantern and actually uses a lantern instead of a ring. I guess they haven't gotten to the point in their organization's existence where somebody said, "Why are we carrying these stupid lanterns around? Can't we refine this shit down to something smaller? Like a brooch or a pocket watch?"
I think one of these Blue Lanterns is Arseface!
Judging by the group shot, it seems each individual member is allowed to modify the lantern for their own ease of use. But it's still essentially a "lantern". Even when it's on a guy's finger!
Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman decides to visit mankind's world from her secret island because she got tired of watching them fuck space with their rocket dicks.
Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman decides to visit mankind's world from her secret island because she got tired of watching them fuck space with their rocket dicks.
Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman's Mother doesn't know about Artemis.²
Man. That one image of Wonder Woman looking back over her shoulder makes me wish John Cassaday had done a Wonder Woman run.³
Timeout: I just realized I should be selling my comic runs as I read them so I can afford to buy more old comic runs to read! I should create a WhatNot account?! Time in!
After the origins, we learn how the Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four dealt with these powerful beings. Leather incinerated Alternate Dimension Baby Superman and stole his cape. Dowling captured and dissected Alternate Dimension Green Lantern who, interestingly enough, has an, um, uh, well, err . . . you know.
Timeout: I just realized I should be selling my comic runs as I read them so I can afford to buy more old comic runs to read! I should create a WhatNot account?! Time in!
After the origins, we learn how the Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four dealt with these powerful beings. Leather incinerated Alternate Dimension Baby Superman and stole his cape. Dowling captured and dissected Alternate Dimension Green Lantern who, interestingly enough, has an, um, uh, well, err . . . you know.
I'm blushing so deeply right now!
Dowling mentions selling the Blue Lantern's lantern to Henry Bendix so that establishes that that jerk knows about Artemis. Or at the very least, the Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four.
Kim, the Nazi daughter of the Nazi, kills Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman as soon as she steps out from the shield keeping Alternate Dimension Paradise Island safe. So what we've learned is that the Earth where Planetary resides never had a chance to learn about hope and inspiration through super heroes. It's timeline was kept firmly pointed at shadowy bullshit, dark futures, and shepherding the masses into the slaughterhouse by the Artemis Project and its four mad keepers.
The Ranking!
There was one page left which I hadn't read when I got ready to write this ranking bit that doesn't have any real identity as a separate section of the review. I know it says The Ranking! right there as a demarcation to show that we've gotten to the point where I assess what I've just written but do I ever really do that? Fuck no. That's, like, bullshit review work where you suddenly have to repeat yourself over and over again using review terms and standard review tropes that everybody understands. I just want to point out that my assessment of this story was how this "timeline was kept firmly pointed at shadowy bullshit, dark futures, and shepherding the masses into the slaughterhouse" was done before I read Elijah Snow's final word on his realization that Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four has been actively keeping his world from hope, joy, and enlightenment.
Kim, the Nazi daughter of the Nazi, kills Alternate Dimension Wonder Woman as soon as she steps out from the shield keeping Alternate Dimension Paradise Island safe. So what we've learned is that the Earth where Planetary resides never had a chance to learn about hope and inspiration through super heroes. It's timeline was kept firmly pointed at shadowy bullshit, dark futures, and shepherding the masses into the slaughterhouse by the Artemis Project and its four mad keepers.
The Ranking!
There was one page left which I hadn't read when I got ready to write this ranking bit that doesn't have any real identity as a separate section of the review. I know it says The Ranking! right there as a demarcation to show that we've gotten to the point where I assess what I've just written but do I ever really do that? Fuck no. That's, like, bullshit review work where you suddenly have to repeat yourself over and over again using review terms and standard review tropes that everybody understands. I just want to point out that my assessment of this story was how this "timeline was kept firmly pointed at shadowy bullshit, dark futures, and shepherding the masses into the slaughterhouse" was done before I read Elijah Snow's final word on his realization that Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four has been actively keeping his world from hope, joy, and enlightenment.
See? Sometimes I comprehend the things I read!
I forget who John Stone is but we'll find out next issue, I guess. From the cover of Issue #11, it looks like John Stone is some kind of James Bond or Human Target figure. Maybe it's Martian Manhunter, eh?!
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¹ I'm pretending I don't know even though I've never worked a non-blue collar job in my entire life. It's just that if I talked about jerking off on the items during some boring downtime, people might begin to look at warehouse workers and burger flippers differently. Even if they shouldn't.
² I'm talking about the evil Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four's Artemis which has basically established a base on the moon as well as Mars but if you want to think I'm talking about our 2026 Artemis, that works as well.
³ Do I need to search out The Wonder Woman 100 Project just for Cassaday's Wonder Woman cover art?!
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¹ I'm pretending I don't know even though I've never worked a non-blue collar job in my entire life. It's just that if I talked about jerking off on the items during some boring downtime, people might begin to look at warehouse workers and burger flippers differently. Even if they shouldn't.
² I'm talking about the evil Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four's Artemis which has basically established a base on the moon as well as Mars but if you want to think I'm talking about our 2026 Artemis, that works as well.
³ Do I need to search out The Wonder Woman 100 Project just for Cassaday's Wonder Woman cover art?!
