Planetary Loves Batman: Night on Earth (August 2003)

Earth's secret archaeologist's hide outside of the light. And thus inside the Batman.

Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth (June 25th, 2003)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, David Baron, and Wes Abbott
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

I believe one of the reasons I was good at avoiding pointless and mindless debates with awful people on the Internet from the very beginning is that I was inoculated early in my life against that kind of dialogue thanks to my Catholic and Conservative friend in high school, Soy Rakelson. He completely disappeared from my life in 2016 when Trump was elected as president and I have my suspicions that it was because he completely agrees with every ideology Trump espouses (if you can call anything that comes out of Trump's mouth an "ideology" and not "diarrhea mouth vomit") but just didn't want to have to justify agreeing with it. Because Soy always believed he was living in a righteous and logical world behind that thin veneer of plausible deniability and dog whistles. But once the dog whistled message simply became the message, he understood it would be harder to agree with the message while maintaining his righteous and intelligent and "good" persona. I put good in quotes because he was never truly good; he was a selfish sociopath who merely wanted to be seen and understood as a good person.

Living through my teenage years with Soy was very much like being vaccinated against a disease. Once I was online and somebody came at me with the familiar Soy tactics, I would simply respond once. If I sensed they were actually confused by something I had said and weren't just being an asshole, I would respond with a quick clarification. Other times, I would just mock them and be done. Sometimes I would do both at once, like that time somebody on tumblr asked me if I was pro-domestic violence. What an absurd thing to ask somebody, I thought. So I simply responded, "If you thought I was for domestic violence in that passage, re-read it again while thinking, 'Tess isn't for domestic violence.' That should clear it up!"

Sometimes I refer to myself as "Tess" even though the name has nothing to do with me and is just part of the play on words in the title of my blog. Usually I'm Grunion Guy!

What got me thinking about this was a response from Soy to a Facebook post in 2010 (I'm going through my old emails! Nostalgia!) where I mentioned how I didn't want to "debate" him anymore because of his "ready-made arguments and attempts at logical traps." And then Soy, in his attempt to get me to drop my stance of not arguing with his idiocy, wrote, "How much can we learn from people with whom we vehemently agree? ;^)". Which, I'm sure, I didn't respond to because, you know, my rule of not arguing with choads on the Internet. You may begin to understand whom Soy is by that response because it's one you hear all the time from terrible people with terrible politics and the worst ideas about the world when they're trying to accuse other people of being in echo chambers. But my response is simply, "How much can we learn from people with whom we vehemently disagree?" I won't attempt the snide emoticon which, I guess, Soy thought was cute and friendly but, at least to me, looks like the look somebody gives you right before they commit sexual assault. Another response to Soy's inauthentic and meaningless question could have been, "How much have you ever learned from somebody with whom you vehemently disagree, Soy?" I'm sure it was and always will be nothing. Because the people trying to get people to debate them think that they're teaching the rest of the world some kind of capital T "Truth". And you can't argue Truth! You either succumb to its Truthiness or you remain a heathen blaspheming Godless piece of shit.

Yes, Soy. I chose heathen blaspheming Godless piece of shit rather than what you chose: "Defender of Western Civilization and Purveyor of the Truth." Both of those, really, are just synonyms for authoritarianism.

One last comment of Soy's from 2010 because I find him endlessly fascinating. Not likeable! Just fascinating! "I mention politics, and [Grunion Guy] emerges. Calling me names, no less! Welcome, brother! My point was this: The author seems to blame most of our ills on Republicans. I think that's a bit too simplistic, since we vote our representatives into office. So, with all of his contempt for our representatives, perhaps he should be blaming America's esteemed voters themselves?"

Here, Soy poses a question at the end that he thinks is some kind of logical trap. "Oho! I have replaced the target of his ire with a target that people would look down on him for targeting! Plus I called them 'America's esteemed voters' so that should really put him in a pickle if he dares to answer that with, 'Okay, yeah, fine. I blame the voters.'" Which is exactly how I would have answered that! Sure, fine! I will blame the voters! Now you have every reason to attack me directly because I've shown myself to be angry or against America or something. It's been awhile but I bet back in 2010, I could have predicted exactly how Soy would have answered me if I agreed with him that the voters should be blamed.

Enough about that authoritarian! Let's read about Batman! And Gotham City. Let's begin with a quick Gotham history lesson from Elijah Snow:

I'm disappointed that he doesn't mention the goats the hamlet was named after. They were probably on drugs too.

Jakita introduces Elijah to two of the Gotham City office Planetary staff: Dick Grayson and Jaspar. Jaspar looks suspiciously like The Joker. Like identical. I suppose even before this moment — perhaps the moment I picked up a comic book merging the Wildstorm universe with the DC Universe — I should have realized this was an Elseworlds title. It doesn't say Elseworlds anywhere on the book but in 2003, DC was still playing fast and loose with continuity and canon. I think they believed fans would understand the difference and nobody would be too bothered. I'm not sure why they would have thought that because even without the Internet, rabid continuity fans would bombard their offices with letters mentioning any suggestion that something happened differently than it had appeared to happen before. But with the rise of the Internet and too many fans being able to contact DC's offices and creators way too easily, they probably figured they needed to make every out-of-continuity and non-canon story extremely well-documented as such.

This issue also feels like it's the Gremlins of DC Comics in that the cover didn't have any kind of Mature rating on it but the content within immediately winds up being more mature than you'd usually see in a Batman funny book. Like The Drummer fucking a television set showing ant porn.

Maybe Cassaday just had something in his contract that stated his covers couldn't be modified even with Elseworlds or Mature Content labels?

I know it was mentioned multiple times that The Drummer enjoys fucking gadgets and gizmos but is this the first time he's shown actually doing it? And you know he's got his dick inside an A/V connection (possibly the tight little RF input!) because Jakita tells The Drummer to "zip it up"! Meaning his pants! His dick is out of his zipper!

What I was trying to point out with that Gremlins reference is that DC probably got yelled at by some Karen somewhere (not Berger! She was cool!) about their comics needing a stricter rating. Or any at all, apparently!

I just remembered in the previous Planetary Loves the Justice League, Batman wanted to destroy Planetary. For good reasons! They were more like the Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four in that book. So now I'm wondering: is this version of Planetary the good guys or the bad guys? Is Batman, whatever they are, their opposite? Does The Joker make a good bureaucrat?

Planetary have come to Gotham to seek out John Black, the son of a man who was experimented on in City Zero. That means he likely has powers, perhaps god-like powers, and they, being diggers up of information, would like to know what kinds of powers he might display.

I was going to joke that that's not a power but based on the zero people I've killed and the belief I couldn't kill any, I have to admit it's a power!

A lot of psycho people (especially men but women are psycho too. Think Kristi Noem) fantasize about killing other people. Most of them think they are good people so those fantasies of murdering somebody are ensconced in the narrative of a home invasion or somebody threatening their lives. But the impulse is still to imagine yourself murdering another human being. I don't even have that! I figure the only way I would murder another human being would be to save one of my cats. I probably wouldn't even bother with my own life because thank you, murderer, for setting me free!

Maybe I should add an addendum to people having fantasies about murdering people because I'm giving a lot of them too much benefit of the doubt with the "home invasion" fantasy. There's a direct line from Soy Rakelson arguing that it's wrong for liberals to call Republicans names (those were some of his arguments in the Facebook thread I was recently revisiting. That liberals pointing out that Republicans are selfish bastards is the real problem (sounds familiar, right?! Yeah, they haven't really come up with any new arguments other than "What if we just dropped the dog whistles? Those take too much imagination and most of our voter base are too stupid to hear them")) to Republicans now believing that liberals are so awful that murdering them is actually a righteous position. You can argue that's cynical and hyperbolic if you want but I'll just point out how many hand jobs Kyle Rittenhouse has gotten from Conservatives since he murdered a guy with a skateboard.

Fair warning: I'll probably be referring to a lot of my old emails as I nostalgia my way through 16 years of saved emails.

The Joker and Nightwing continue with the "John Black" debrief.

Dick Grayson outs himself as a secret Brit with the whole "body with prints on" bit. Next he'll be saying he was stood nearby the body or that it was found not wearing pants. Meaning underwear, of course!

The next crime scene photograph Dick shows them consists of three victims all seemingly merged at the torso. Elijah Snow assumes it was caused by some kind of alternate reality temporal disturbance but he's forgetting he's in Gotham and that just might be some weird Batman villain named The Rat King or something. Elijah mentions he was somewhere he wasn't supposed to be in 1986. If I had to think about somewhere I wasn't supposed to be in 1986, the only thing I can come up with is at Shoreline Amphitheater at a Bon Jovi/Cinderella concert. My first concert if you don't count The Country Bear Jamboree or a weekend at Chuck E. Cheese!

The team heads to Crime Alley to do some investigating the way Elijah Snow learned to detectivate from Sherlock Holmes and Dracula.

By "deliberate and clearly defined arc," Elijah's talking about John Black's character arc, right? Because John Black is Batman, right?

If there aren't any detectives to catch John Black then John Black is Gotham's greatest detective! Right? Is that Logic 101? Hmm. Okay, maybe John Black isn't Batman. But I had to write it just in case it turns out to be true so I can be all, "Ha ha! I knew it!" But if it doesn't wind up true, we can all simply forget I suggested it.

While in Crime Alley, Planetary stumbles upon John Black and a half-dissolved hooker. That's an old-fashioned term for sex worker! That's the kind of crack detective work that Sherlock Holmes would be proud of! Once you eliminate anywhere the criminal isn't, you'll accidentally be where the criminal is! Maybe that was more luck than detective work.

John Black manifests a kind of temporal reality field similar to the thing Ambrose Chase can do. After the field's gone, John Black staggers away while Planetary realizes they're suddenly in a completely different Gotham. One that contains The Batman!

This is where I'd usually scan the picture with Batman but you know what he looks like. Dark cowl. Cape. Bat on his chest. Pants on the outside of his trousers.

Jakita tells Batman they're dealing with the man who killed the hooker but Batman, being a control freak, is all, "Not in my city, you won't!" And then they fight. Should I have put fight in quotation marks? Because how can Batman stand up to Jakita Wagner? Sure, he can defeat all of his friends in the case they go mental but that's because they've all leaked their weaknesses to him. How can Batman beat a super fast, super strong woman whom he knows nothing about?!

OH! Through pure sexiness is how!

Before Jakita bends a couple of pipes into weapons to beat Batman to death, she mentions how beating men in fetish bat costumes is one of the things that keeps her going and, well, apparently one that fights back is exactly what she's looking for in a partner.

Jakita goes easy on Batman for a number of pages because women love foreplay. But then John Black does his alternate reality thing again and suddenly old-school Batman turns into Adam West Batman and Jakita loses her lady boner almost immediately.

I didn't even read this page before saying Jakita lost her lady boner. I just understand her character arc. And her fetishes.

I don't know what Batman sprays in her face to drive Jakita away but it's probably Cougar Repellant. Get it?! See, she's, inexplicably, much older than Adam West was when he played Batman. So her trying to fuck the alternate '40s Batman (who was probably even younger) makes her a cougar! And we know Batman keeps sprays on him that repel certain animals. Plus not only would he never hit a woman, he would never allow a woman to suck him off. Loser.

Oh wait! The next page shows the name on the can and, well, let me just be the first to congratulate me on being exactly right once again.

Not about the cougar repellant, obvs! But about how Adam West Batman wouldn't let a woman suck him off!

Since Jakita isn't exactly a villain, I'm assuming that repellant simply works against any woman at all. And Robin.

If you're wondering, "What Batman could possibly appear after John Black's next temporal seizure?", you're showing you ignorance on comic books. Because we all know it's going to be Frank Miller's Dark Knight. I mean, sure, I saw it on the opposite page. But it's what I would have guessed anyway!

Miller's Dark Knight does a little ass kicking because he's actually more like Midnighter. That makes it believable that he could stand toe-to-toe with Jakita and Elijah anyway. After he bests Planetary, he's changed again by a time-shift and becomes the Batman I think of as the Mike W. Barr/Jim Aparo Batman. Is that just pre-Crisis Batman? Post-Crisis Batman? Crisis-Crisis Batman? He's definitely the most detective-like and probably the one most willing to listen to Planetary.

This Batman does take the time to listen to them. And he almost gives in and allows them to deal with him but, you know, he's still Batman. And he's all, "Things must be done the right way! First arrest. Then Arkham. Then escape. Then loads of dead citizens. Then a fist fight. Then another arrest. Then Arkham. Then escape. Then loads of dead citizens. Then a fist fight. Then arrest. Then Blackgate. Then forgotten. Then years go by. Then Johns or Morrison or Gaiman make him even scarier. Then escape. Then loads of dead planets. And so on." So while he doesn't fight them, he does delay long enough for one more alternate reality shift.

Oh no! Original Batman with a gun! I though, culturally, we were all supposed to have forgotten this one!

The Drummer taps into the memories in Crime Alley (which they're all still in!) and learns about Batman's origin. This causes a shift to Idealized Future Batman! He's the Batman that has made the world a better place through doing the right thing and not using a gun. This version of Batman listens to Planetary and realizes giving John Black into their care is the only compassionate option that also makes the world better and safer.

Inspirational Batman is the best Batman!

Batman chooses not to use the weapons of his enemies (you know, guns!). But Inspirational Batman takes it one step further. He chooses to use the weapons that his enemy could never use: compassion, empathy, kindness. I love Idealized Batman!

And so does Jakita!

The Ranking!
Excellent! I love alternate reality comic books. I think comic books that don't need to rely on continuity and canon make for better entertainment. And yet, they rely on that continuity and canon to make their stories so impactful. You have to understand the lore of Batman to understand this comic book (I mean, sort of. It's not like this is Gravity's Rainbow). So I guess I have to acknowledge that continuity and canon stories are needed so that I can enjoy the occasional non-canon story out of continuity! It's a Catch-22, isn't it? That's some catch, that catch-22!

Planetary #27 (December 2009)

I know this isn't the actual front and back cover of the single issue but this version from the trade paperback will have to do.

Planetary #27 (December 2009)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Comicraft
Cover by John Cassaday and Laura DePuy Martin
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Ben Abernathy

This feels like one of those issues where I'm going to act like I got so engrossed in it that I forgot to write my reactions and then spend exactly three lines describing how the issue made me feel in some strange metaphorical anecdote that only 13% of readers understand (not because I'm so weird-cool but because I'm so weird-off-putting) which is really just a way to not have to admit that I was being lazy. It isn't going to be that, I assure you. But it really feels like that's something I would normally do. I don't have a lot of patience for final issues because this blog was initially meant to be a reminder of what happened in the previous month's issue just before I read the next month's issue in a series and why would I need to ever remember the final issue of something? It's a precedent I set fairly early with the final issue of The New 52 Blackhawks. But I don't feel like drawing naked pictures of Jakita giving birth to Ambrose Chase. It's probably easier just to comment on the actual story.

The story begins a short amount of time in the future (or maybe three actual years?) when Planetary has made it through 20% of Dowling's files. The world's technology in all fields has grown by, um, 20% and everybody is super grateful except for some weird billionaire playboy in Gotham. Elijah himself demands all the scientists working for Planetary move much faster because the only file he cares about is the one that will allow him to save Ambrose Chase. Since Planetary can sort through only so many files in a day, he passes along some of the work to the Hark Corporation and to Axel Brass and his team.

Meanwhile, Elijah, Jakita, and Drummer go over the events of Ambrose's death in meticulous detail to try to figure out what happened when he disappeared.

I'm not great at understanding scientific diagrams (is what Drummer drew a scientific diagram?) so can somebody explain why he closed the loop on the question mark in the last panel?

Was Drummer's light pen simulation supposed to say, "There's questions surrounding Ambrose's death." And then his follow up diagram supposed to say, "That is not surprising!" See? Because he turned the question mark into an exclamation point (surprising!) and then crossed that out (Not!)? Man, Barbie was fucking right on the money. Math and science are hard.

Later, they rescue Ambrose Chase. The end!

Ha ha! Just kidding! I'm still trying to interpret Drummer's sketch! Also, what the fuck is he drawing on? Just using a light pen in air?

The supposition is that Ambrose turned off time so he didn't bleed out and die. Why that means he disappeared, I don't know. Unless the planet and everything else just moved on past him and he's floating in space in a stasis bubble on the brink of death! I don't think that's happening so maybe he just began moving so slowly that everybody else began moving too fast to see him. I know that doesn't make any sense! But explain to me how 2 plus 2 equaling 4 makes sense! You fucking can't, can you?! Stupid!

Drummer does recall a Dowling file on time travel but it was only theory and the theory was that you could only time travel back to the point the machine was created. So, again, like Primer. So that won't help them since nobody has built a time machine. But then Elijah is all, "Wells built one back in 1888 but he only went forward so your theory makes sense." And Drummer is all, "So what you're saying is we can get all the way back to 1888 if we find his time machine?"

Instead they just build the same time machine that was seen in Planetary Loves JLA: Terra Obscura. I'm not sure how it's supposed to help them though. Sorry about calling y'all stupid earlier. I guess I'm the kettle, hunh?

Quick threading up of another loose one about the fictional person. It might be on the test later.

I bet the fictional character was meant to be Warren Ellis! Maybe it still will be. Maybe those two panels will be the last time the character's mentioned.

The team finds Ambrose in his bubble and surround him with the time machine. I guess when it works, it somehow nudges him out of his stasis bubble and two seconds into the future where they'll quickly catch up to him and save his life. But the Drummer fears that once you create a time machine, everybody in the future will come back to that point of time to witness the creation of the time machine. And thus future history will solidify and everybody can just go home and jerk off until they die because now there's no point. It's all been done, baby!

Except that's how it is anyway, Drummer, so stop worrying about it, dude! Just dig in and meet some future yous for a bit, save Ambrose, and then settle in for a couple decades of jerking off and not giving a shit. I assure you, it can be done!

I guess the number of Planetary teams that arrive destroy Drummer's theory that time has settled forever into one timeline.

Anyway the plan works and they save Ambrose and then all the future Ambrose's step out of the future portals and they're all, "Ha ha! We didn't want to ruin the surprise!" But I have a feeling they didn't exist until his life was saved by the medical team. You know. Due to Schrodeigger or whatever. Heisendinger? Yeah, that's the one!

The Ranking!
Turning on the time machine allowed readers to see all the various futures that could have been if Warren Ellis and John Cassaday had kept creating Planetary. But they didn't because they hate writing and drawing Ambrose Chase. At least that's my takeaway! Why bring back Ambrose and then never get any more stories out of him?! Just seems a bit racist, is what I'm getting at. Unless my believing that makes me the racist? That's enough! Turn off the cameras! We're done here! There'll be no self-reflection on my watch!

Hmm, I thought I'd actually have more to say about the series as a whole. Maybe I'm too anxious over real life problems right now (that are barely problems but the slightest of things left unresolved always loom heavy over me. I don't understand the kind of people who need drama in their lives at all times! I don't even like knowing I have to meet up with friends for dinner later in the day. Just ruins the whole morning, really!) to think on it. Maybe I'll do a wrap-up post in the future. Or maybe I'll just leave at this: 27+ commentaries on a pretty fucking cool comic book.

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 #21 (December 2004)

This issue gonna be about the Grateful Dead, right?

Planetary #21 (December 2004)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

This issue is called "Death Machine Telemetry" and my brain has no idea how to process that. It began by nodding vigorously and assuring me it knew what all of those words meant. But then it began sidestepping all of my questions about what they meant when they're strung together like that. It was all, "Oh, you know, data about a machine that causes death being sent out to an observer, I suppose." And I'm all, "Okay, yeah, I know what all the words mean and can put them together like that but why has Ellis put them together like that? Speculate, you gooey pink piece of shit." And my brain answered, "I guess we'll just have to read more because you can't always know what a thing means devoid of context. You sound like your aunt two minutes into a movie asking about questions nobody could possibly know the answers to at the movie's two minute mark." So I guess I'll revisit the meaning of the title even though I know (and so does my fucking brain) that Warren Ellis loves to come up with phrases that sound like they probably mean something just on the other side of profound or paranormal and they never actually need to be explained because sometimes stuff is just cool, you know?

"Death Machine Telemetry". Maybe it's just the name of a band Elijah Snow was in when he lived in San Francisco in the '60s?

The issue begins with Elijah Snow meeting up with the psychedelic medusa on the cover.

Is this the same Melanctha from Gertrude Stein's Three Lives?

I only ask if this is a fictional character from a book published just a few years after Elijah's birth because that's the kind of shit that happens in Planetary. Plus it's an easy short cut to get the 1% of readers who have read "Melanctha" into the fucked up state of mind that the novella puts them in. I'm exhausted and dizzy already and I've barely finished the first page! Maybe I should read it eighteen more times to really get in the right mood!

Elijah visits Melanctha for an oracle because she's an, um, oracle. Or, as he tells people who ask, a magician. He wants to know how to get to the other three members of The Four now that he's taken out Jacob Greene and captured William Leather. Um, wait. Shouldn't he be asking about how to get to the final two? What happened to Leather? Did I miss him getting away at the end of "The Gun Club"?! Did "The Gun Club" take place after "Rendezvous"? Maybe I should just assume Leather was rescued or escaped. I'm certainly not going to re-read a comic book I've already read to see if I missed something important!

Oh, sorry. I called Melanctha an oracle but she assures Elijah that she's a scientist. Fine. If that's what she wants to call herself, I'll accept that she's a scientist. Just try to ignore that when I call her that, I'll tend to wink and make jerk-off hand motions. Who am I to deny what she claims to be? But also who is anybody else to say I can't wink and make jerk-off hand motions when I say things?!

Melanctha spends a few pages describing nanotechnology to convince Elijah that she's a scientist and not a practitioner of hoodoo.

Now that we all agree Melanctha's a scientist (*wink* *jerking off hand motion*), she describes Shinto to Elijah. Her specialties seem to be micro-universes and the souls of the dead. Oh, is she describing the science of "Death Machine Telemetry"?! Did Warren Ellis name this story and then thought, "Shit. I'm going to have to spend half of the script's page count to describe the title!" Well, I guess it worked!

Never you mind why both of my hands are now making jerk off motions!

Anyway, Melanctha gives Elijah all of this backstory to explain that she drugged him with hallucinogens. See, hallucinogens, according to Melanctha's theory, do their work because they're saturated with the souls of our buried dead. Oracles and Shaman do not simply ingest drugs to get into the correct state to speak with the dead; they eat the dead so that they can share their memories and hear their voices. Elijah soon trips his fucking balls off.

By speaking to the dead and visiting the afterlife and given information from informational superobjects, Elijah learns that the Century Babies are not natural beings. They are not organic creatures of evolution. They were, all of them, created for a specific purpose. When they "die", they do not possess a soul that moves into the afterlife (or becomes drugs or whatever). And in learning the vastness of the universe, both the macro and the micro versions, Melanctha asks Elijah Snow: "How can your purpose be so small as to murder four stupid assholes?"

The Ranking!
An interesting issue that throws a lot of Warren Ellis's mind-noodles against the wall and I'm not sure most of it's done. At least not in the context of Planetary, maybe. Maybe more seems to be perfectly cooked in the context of "Warren Ellis has some philosophical thoughts on death and drugs and shamanic rituals." I think some of the context is also "Warren Ellis loves sexy new age mystic women who teach him how to be a more profoundly weird man and also make him come a lot." But I guess the main point was to let Elijah Snow know that maybe he's losing track of his century long exploration of the mysteries of the 20 Century in his need to avenge the injustices done to him and his people by The Four. Sure, it'll be satisfying to kick Randall Dowlings' head off of his smug shoulders but maybe don't see that as the end point of his work, I guess?

Planetary #20 (September 2004)

Is this Jacob Greene's fucked up eyeball?

Planetary #20 (September 2004)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

Last issue recap: we saw Galactus's quim. And that's all I have to say about that.

Jacob Greene, Alternate Dimension Ben Grimm, has arrived at the alien biodome while Planetary watches. It's their first ever glimpse of him. Sure, he's in a spacesuit but it's a massive fucking spacesuit. My guess is he looks like Thrunk from Cerebus which would make sense since I think Thrunk was supposed to be a parody of The Thing anyway. Except I've seen what Jacob Greene actually looks like on the cover of the fourth Planetary collection and he looks more like Swamp Thing than The Thing. I don't see any Man-Thing in him which is a stupid joke but I've written it so, well . . . *shrug*

Jacob Greene disappears into the ship and Planetary loses sight of him. So they contact the angels to tell them to get back to the entrance of the ship because they missed recording something super cool. But they're currently recording something super cool already so why would they want to backtrack?

The super coolest: Bee People with Pubic Hair.

The angels rush back to observe Jacob Greene and Dr. Kwelo learns that his little pets can fly faster than Mach 2 when they're really curious. They pass more creatures with pubic hair before they finally lay their eyes on Jacob Greene (who has no pubic hair at all).

I skipped many pages of visual storytelling which were beautiful and haunting but, you know, I only know how to talk about words. And pubic hair.

Jacob Greene is just as gross as everybody was expecting him to be. He's also tremendously violent and bloodthirsty. Plus he does sort of look like Thrunk crossed with Swamp Thing (with maybe a touch of Sloth from Goonies thrown in). The pupils of his eyes are those triangles from the cover which remind me of the massive god-like being from The Authority which (if I remember correctly) Jenny Sparks kind of gave her life to defeat (but mostly because they defeated it just on the turn of the century (it's also possible I'm mixing up two or three different story arcs from the series)). Could it be that that massive pyramid god was the thing that transformed The Four into their Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four personas?

While the angels scan Jacob Greene and download the data to Planetary, Elijah Snow springs the trap. The angels' vessel was fitted with a bomb which they detonate, destroying Jacob Greene's ship as well. He's now stranded on the alien vessel which is simply passing through our solar system. The angels are also trapped aboard it but they're totally cool with it because it contains so much pubic hair to document.

This didn't make me weep like Pig or Mark Russell's Traveling to Mars but it is touching.

For some reason, Jakita gets really pissed off and claims that this Elijah isn't like he was before the memory loss. Is she mad that he separated the angels from Dr. Kwelo even though the angels were destined to leave at some point anyway? Sure, Dr. Kwelo is sad. But he's sad in a happy way like when the Bigfoot you've been living with finally gains the confidence it needs to go live in the forest on its own and you have to drive it from your home. You're proud of it but also sad to see your big little guy go. Is Jakita mad because Elijah ruined a chance to do some really good archaeology on the alien vessel? Is she mad because he stranded another human being on a craft headed for deep space even if that human being is gross? Oh, um, and evil! Is it because Jacob Greene is certainly going to kill, eat, and fuck every living thing aboard that vessel? Or is she just mad because Elijah didn't tell her his plans and she's all, "How could he lie to me?! I'll never forgive that Goddamned Oliver Queen!" I mean Elijah Snow!

The Ranking!
Well that's it for my single issues! This issue came out in July of 2004 and I believe I stopped collecting monthly comic books with the final issue of Cerebus in, I believe, March 2004. Sometimes around then, anyway. But this proves I was still going to the comic book store occasionally, mostly to pick up Fables and The Walking Dead. But eventually I just started getting those books in collected editions and didn't really pick up many comics at all until The New 52 began. I think maybe I also got a Giffen Suicide Squad run and maybe those I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League books? I can't remember. I'll find out as I continue my journey through all of my old books.

Even though this is my last single issue, I'll finish the run by reading the last seven issues from the collected book, Spacetime Archaeology. I normally don't do reviews of issues I read out of trades but it's going to become a regular thing because my next two runs of comics I'll be reading are also missing some of the first issues: Preacher and Hitman! I'm also currently reading the hardback of Tom King's Supergirl but haven't decided how I want to talk about that yet. Maybe when I've finished it.

Planetary #19 (May 2004)

Christ. It's so Goddamned white!

Planetary #19 (May 2004)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

Planetary is ostensibly about a group of people discovering as much as they can about the planet Earth, first for passive librarian science reasons but eventually to help protect the planet and its people from those who would manipulate them and take advantage of everything. So when you have an issue that calls itself "Mystery in Space", it's an attempt at extending the premise outward, embiggening it. It seems obvious that the protection of Earth cannot remain exclusively an on-Earth activity. Threats come from space as well! We saw that last issue when three 150 year old corpses crashed to Earth. Okay, well, that wasn't a threat but it was maybe a prelude to the idea that unknown threats can come from space. Although this cover doesn't hint, at least to me, at a dangerous threat from space. This cover hints at God making the index finger of one hand going in and out of a circle made by the index finger and thumb of the other hand. I guess that could be interpreted as an alien or god sending the message "You're fucked!" to Earthlings.

This paragraph and the next are asides and have nothing to do with the comic book meaning none of it will be on the test and you can skip them if you're in a hurry or you're a fucking traitor. Recently I heard somebody spouting the old tried and true statement about how crazy it is that everything had to work out just perfectly for life to evolve on Earth. How miraculous it must be for all the parameters for life to have been correct. But, dude, yeah. Obviously! The only way life can take place on a planet is if that planet is the correct distance from the sun and has water and has a Jupiter as a shield and has a moon as a mini-shield or whatever all of those parameters are. What am I? A scientist? No, I'm just a philosopher who understands when people are trying to make something more out of a pure tautological argument. "Humans exist on Earth because Earth has the right conditions for humans." Yeah. That's fucking it, man. It's not magic. It's not a miracle. It's not God. It's a fucking fluke of random chance! Now if your argument was "Humans exist on Earth despite its not having the correct parameters for life", now I'm fucking listening! I'm all, "Whoa. How did life evolve here then? What helped us along? How could the impossible happen?!" But instead, people are all, "How did the possible become possible?! The only way people could be on Earth is if Earth were in the correct position to evolve people! Mind blown, man! Mind blown!"

Fucking hell, dudes. If that's your argument then you've got to admit right now that if we find any other planets in the Goldilocks zone that they'll have life because your argument isn't life is a miracle and what were the odds. Your argument is this planet could sustain life and so life happened. Which, you know, isn't a big admission to make. You're not going out on a limb there. Because we're also dealing with an Earth that didn't have life on it for billions of years. Maybe millions. Hundreds of millions? What am I? A geologist?! Anyway, you know, whatever. Back to the comic book.

At a secret base in Zambia which nobody in Planetary knew about for over a decade because Elijah Snow forgot it was there (as well as where everything else was), a team keeps watch of objects in the sky. They've noted a cylindrical object floating out well past the moon, too far away for conventional space flight. But, as the director of the place says, they engage in unconventional space flight. They also house angels.

Angels. Fairies. Alien greys with gossamer wings.

Elijah says he's been keeping the angels in captivity, changing locations often, since they "came down on Germany in the Thirties". Isn't that where and when Superbaby landed? And didn't the people of Krypton look something like these creatures (minus the wings)? Is this Zod, Faora, and, um, the other one? Elijah says they're happy to stay as long as they're fed information but they don't look that happy to me. Maybe they were just fed the entirety of Watership Down? Hopefully they're not too depressed because they are Planetary's "unconventional space flight". Elijah's going to send them to investigate the massive dildo floating out past the moon.

Oh. I get it. Some scientist found Elijah's sex doll and he was all, "It's an angel! AN ANGEL! It records shit!"

So after Elijah stuck a camcorder and reel-to-reel tape recorder into his sex doll, he convinced his team of astrophysicists that they're alien beings that can fly spacecraft. He says they have limited brains which is his way of saying, "My 20th Century Baby super sperm control them."

Elijah casually reveals more of his memories to Jakita which were secrets kept from her for decades when Elijah had his memory. So now she's giving him constant narrowed eyes. We might be ramping into Felicity not trusting Oliver WB Green Arrow territory here. "How could you not tell me you hate Diet Coke?! You're a massive liar whom I cannot trust anymore!" Although maybe keeping nineteen alien space invasions of Earth secret from Jakita is a little bigger than all the bullshit things Felicity would get upset about Oliver not telling her. "You pee sitting down?! How could I not know this?! How can I ever trust you again?!" Man, that show was rough.

The plan isn't just to send the cum dolls to observe the space phallus; it's also to catch Jacob Greene, Alternate Dimension The Thing, investigating on his own. I guess they've yet to see the monstrosity he's turned into and they're all got massive expectation boners going. You know what an expectation boner is, right? It's when you're pretty sure somebody's going to put their hand down your pants at some point during the night so you walk around with a massive hard-on which maybe winds up being the cause of somebody putting their hands down your pants to check it out. Kind of a self-fulfilling boner.

I appreciate that Cassaday went out of his way to make sure the angel's ship wasn't penile but I know a pee hole when I see one.

The angel's ship looks like a suppository which might be some kind of foreshadowing. I think the original script for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier had the Enterprise flying up God's butthole so maybe this is an homage to that. Or it would be if I wasn't always full of shit and writing complete nonsense. But imagine if Kirk had to fly up God's butthole instead of what the actual movie was written to show: Kirk is the only person in the universe man enough to sass back to God. I know it wasn't God but that's the point. Everybody else was shitting themselves and kowtowing to the obvious fakery and Kirk was all, "I question your reality!" And everybody was all, "Oh no! Is Kirk an atheist?!" And then God turns out to be the Star Trek version of Zod in the Phantom Zone and he loses his shit and attacks, proving that Kirk was right: there is no God.

If you're one of the few people familiar with Star Trek V, you might realize I don't fully know what I'm talking about. But that's because I haven't seen the movie since it was in theaters! But you kind of remember a movie where Captain Kirk faces down a god. It would have been even better if they had Kirk fuck it.

Here is the part of the comic book where I nod along as if I understand and pretend I haven't been reading comic books for decades just for the tits and ass.

After The Drummer gets completely red pilled by Dr. Kwelo, he goes off to his room to do some calculations which, in a universe whose underpinnings are information, might be slang for masturbating. "I just ejected fifteen different derivative functions from my holographic sex unit!" is what I'm going to say next time I get caught jerking off.

The Drummer's new theory of the multiverse and the snowflake incorporates God's wank bank they saw in Hong Kong. So now I guess we're just accepting the Dr. Kwelo's theory that everything is two dimensional and what they saw in Hong Kong was the ultimate version of reality: God's stack of hard drives. And the 20th Century Babies are the anti-virus protection. The Four are the virus. These angels are, um, spiders, I guess?

The angels breach the massive floating cylinder to discover an alien ecosystem containing trees, water, and even primal, naked humanoids. They move in even further and discover a dead Alternate Dimension Lady Galactus.

Complete with Galactic Camel Toe.

Birdlike creatures feed off the dead or dying god's eye juice. Giant rats eat the flesh from its extremities. Humanoids trek across the vast expanse of its fingernails. Skeletons crowded around its nipple have died trying to get the last of its milk. Villages have sprung up in the shelter of shadow of its feet. Its death has created much life (other than the skeletons whose death was created by its death).

As Planetary observes in awe, another ship with a lone pilot pulls up alongside the space object. Jacob Green. Finally! And, I think, the first Planetary story to be more than one issue because that's the end of this one!

The Ranking!
Some astute readers may have noticed that my "The Ranking!" section doesn't actually rank anything. It's just a way to say, "I'm done commenting on the comic because I reached the end!" It's hardly ever even a section where I sum up my feelings on the entire piece! It's just a place to say one or two more stupid things before I end the entire process in the weakest manner possible. In reality, this section should at least say trite things like, "This issue was fucking awesome!" or "I can't wait for next issue!" or "Ellis and Cassaday and DePuy-Martin have created the kind of story which will linger on in the minds of readers whose brains actually somehow retain information for longer than six months!" I will say, "I do remember the whole Galactus thing." So that's a plus for my stupid brain. I don't really remember what takes place with Jacob Greene though. According to the cover of the next issue, it looks like it's going to be part of that Authority story where they encounter the giant dead triangle God thing and root about its corpse. Fuck. I'm probably remembering that all wrong too and I just re-read it a year and a half ago!

I might be desperate enough to start taking fish oil or whatever fake bullshit supposedly helps with memory. I probably can't make my memory worse! Hmm, maybe more LSD and mushrooms would help?!

Planetary #18 (February 2004)

Looks like more backstory and imperialism!

Planetary #18 (February 2004)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

Here are some of the themes I get while reading Thomas Pynchon novels:

1. THEY are doing everything they can to make the world a worse place for the majority of people simply to sate their own selfish desires.
2. Imperialism is one of the major tools used by THEM.
3. Predestination and Preterition may not be true religious or philosophical concepts but it hardly matters since they explain so much of the world. THEY have everything at birth and keep it; the Preterite have nothing and gain less.
4. Belief warps reality. New ideas don't just change the future; they literally change the current reality.
5. Nostalgia traps the mind into viewing the world where constancy trumps change leading to stagnation, racism, and anger.
6. Dick jokes are pretty goddamned funny.

I feel like Planetary hits a lot of the same notes. Maybe not so big on the predestination stuff but, I don't know, maybe? I haven't really thought about it much but The Four are gods who are definitely also THEM and who is to say why they were picked to become gods? THEY were picked so THEY were always picked so THEY were predestined to become gods. Everybody else are the Preterite to be used at their whimsy. I mean, everybody except all the Century Babies! I think they were natures way of combating those four future gods.

I guess all the white men with guns on the cover made me realize I need to finish Against the Day!

This issue begins, sort of, with (6.), the dick joke:

See, Bond fucks so many dirty evil spy women that his dick probably looks like a half-rotten cucumber mauled by a sewer rat.

Thanks to Elijah Snow's earlier meeting with John Stone where Snow regained his memory, Elijah has been meeting up with all of his allies (and potential allies) to bolster his relationship with them. He's been giving some of them pensions and some of them Wilders and some of them German families. He's been considering his past and deciding who might join him against The Four and who might have already sided with The Four. He's headed toward an ultimate showdown with the gods who have been shitting on the world because it's their kink and now he's meeting with the guy who — for still unknown reasons — got the ball rolling. Where does Stone, John Stone, stand?

Stone has some information for Elijah: he knows where William Leather will be in a few days. An object that has been in orbit between the Earth and moon for 150 years will be making landfall soon. Leather will be there. Stone thinks Elijah, with help, has a real chance of destroying him. John Stone kills a pigeon with his cigarette and walks off. So I guess Stone isn't actually offering to help any more than handing Elijah a piece of paper with the location of the space object's return to Earth? And what does this have to do with the Gun Club?

Oh wait! Do I actually remember something? Did the Gun Club launch this thing like a massive skeet shoot in the mid-nineteenth century?! I guess that's why those three guys on the cover are in rudimentary space suits. And that's the space barrel of their space gun behind them, ready to launch those three idiots to their death.

I do not, however, remember what happened to the crew. Or what will happen to Leather when Snow catches up to him. Or too many things to list but none of them have anything to do with this comic book which I first read 22 years ago and, I believe, re-read eight years ago. I do remember a day many decades ago in Aptos, California standing in front of a full length mirror naked immediately after losing my virginity suspecting that I'd see myself differently but, alas, I perceived no change at all. Except maybe I was a little giddy while my partner in the other room was a lot disappointed.

The returning space capsule landing exactly where it was launched 150 years previously.

Alternate Dimension Johnny Storm, aka William Leather, blazes onto the scene covered in blue fire. He speaks angrily with Randall Dowling about getting something in return for this artifact recovery. It seems they've been on the outs and Dowling has been keeping something which Leather desires. His soul, maybe? That's a joke. Souls don't exist! Even in comic books!

Before Leather can procure the space bullet, a Planetary helicopter arrives on the scene and scoops it up. Knowing that Leather isn't subtle about his actions and doesn't think anything through because, you know, he's a god. Why would a god worry about the consequences of his actions? So he burns his way into the helicopter to begin kicking ass and discovers he's in the inventory of Dungeon Crawler Carl.

Man, I've got to remember that one. If I ever meet a god, I'm calling them Mr. Buttwipe. Or Ms. Buttwipe, if I can easily tell their gender. Probably don't have one so, um, Mx. Buttwipe? Is that right? I'm old.

I don't imagine a helicopter full of explosives is meant to take Leather out but merely to knock him off-kilter so Elijah, Jakita, and whoever else they convinced to help them appears.

While Leather's getting his bearings, Jakita speeds up to him and jams some kind of Hark-brand inoculator with a five inch needle into the back of his head. Leather remains unconscious and Planetary takes him into custody. Next, Jakita opens up the massive space capsule to see what that thing's all about.

This would have made a cool painting on the inside of a double album by a prog rock band in the '70s. The front and back covers would have just been the orb itself floating in space.

Planetary can only surmise what happened here from the available evidence in the capsule, the surrounding buildings, and the massive pipe crumbling across the moor. Three men make an attempt to visit the moon using the technology of 1850 and disappear from history for the next 150 years. They discover photos of the day, the club, the men as they entered the space vehicle. And they discovered a list of signatures of people in the club, one of them being Jules Verne. So that name alone probably answers any question anybody might still be asking!

The Ranking!
This one was unexpectedly emotional! What I was thinking as I read it was, "Wouldn't it be awesome if nothing after opening the capsule was explained? Then the reader would just put it together from the cover, really. But the cover is a replica of a photo inside the space capsule. And, of course, Jakita and Elijah wander about speculating on what could have happened here. It's so weirdly optimistic in the way it shows what humans will attempt for nothing more than curiosity and possible knowledge. Three men willing to risk their lives on a belief in their belief in technology, math, and human ability. Seeing their corpses was both sad and uplifting at the same time. This is why I love literature. I like people who do things out of passion and love and curiosity and knowledge and whimsy and art. I can't stand people who do things for money or fear or hatred or practicality. Give me chaos over order any fucking day because chaos believes you can shoot the moon. Order believes you're stuck in the mud.

I'm so glad I was wrong about the cover being imperialistic! Of course, I don't know that these men weren't planning on colonizing the moon, excited to oppress the moon beings they find there. But that's too cynical even for me. The cover knows it'll make the viewer's colonizer Spidey sense tingle and then it actually tells a story about scientific ingenuity and humanity attempting the seemingly impossible. And they succeeded! Sort of!

Oh look! No footnotes this time! Maybe I've gotten them out of my system for a bit. I guess littering my thoughts with asides encased in em dashes and parentheses is probably easier.

Planetary #17 (December 2003)

I hope the cat wins.

Planetary #17 (December 2003)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

Cassaday got that cat looking right in the camera doing the whole record-scratch, freeze-frame movie moment when the cat's narration begins, "You might be wondering how I got in this situation." The more I look at the cover, the more I see it from the sabre-tooth's point of view in a comedic tone. I know it's supposed to evoke the thrilling action of an old pulp fantasy novel with barbarians and topless women but this was put out in the 21st Century and in the 21st Century, nobody wants to see the hero kill a big sweet pussy kitty probably named Mr. Tom-tom. Imagine living for 100 years spanning the entire 20th Century. You experience growing up on a farm drowning kittens like in that poem I can't name because I don't want to re-read it when I look it up and realizing 100 years later that if you told anybody about those memories of something that was not just normal but expected to keep farm life running the way it must, they'd castigate you as a monster. Which you are, obviously, because even 100 years ago, I couldn't drown a kitten! Also imagine having toes almost as long as fingers. What's going on there, Elijah?! Maybe I'm the freak, though, because I do know some people with long toes. Even with shoes on you can tell who has long toes because they're often seen chanting, "Gooble gobble! Gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!"

If I'd seen a book with this cover at the B. Dalton Bookseller in Valley Fair Mall in the late '70s, early '80s, I would have snapped it up and devoured it. I think I read my first Conan book because the cover reminded me of a Harryhausen film. Later, I convinced my grandmother to buy me a Skeletor¹ figure because it looked like something out of a Conan novel.

Man, I hope I wasn't like fifteen when the first He-man figures came out. Looking them up, it looks like they were originally marketed in 1982 meaning I was ten. So I guess I read my first Conan book at nine or ten. That was probably appropriate, right?

This book begins in 1933 with Elijah shirtless and heading down a river in a jungle in Africa. It's previously been mentioned that Elijah Snow and Alex Brass explored Opak-re early in their careers (though at different times). Not only does it have a pulp fiction vibe but it's definitely playing to the Heart of Darkness crowd as well.² Elijah has become lost but he's sure he's nearing Opak-re. I thought maybe Opak-re was an anagram for something but the best I can come up with is "Kreap-o" which might be foreshadowing of Warren Ellis's social life.

I think this is the one where Snow discovers Eclipso.

I have, at times, seemed to criticize this comic book (as well as many others because I'm just not a visual person) for spending several pages at a time without any dialogue. But that's because of my own limitations when it comes to experiencing art. I just wanted to make clear that I understand how much Warren Ellis trusted Cassaday to tell the story through his visuals. I often make a joke about how short and lazy Ellis's script probably looked but when you've got John Cassaday on the other end of the fax line, you realize just how little you need to say. This time instead of sending Cassaday reels of film containing Slouching Tiger, Forbidden Dragon, he sent him a DVD of Apocalypse Now and just said, "This but Elijah's looking for Wakanda instead of Marlon Brando."

The river Elijah's floating down leads him directly to the lost city which means it couldn't have been that lost if the river led right to it. Lost cities should be in the middle of the jungle covered by foliage and not just sitting there close enough to be seen from anybody passing by on the river. But I guess when you have a massive phallus guarding the place, it makes it easier to remain lost.

While I hated that Elijah is about to kill the pussy on the cover, I really don't mind if he slays this penis.

I don't think you can categorize a work of fiction as pulp fantasy unless there's at least one giant snake in it and three topless women. I suspect Ellis and Cassaday will have to forego the topless women though but only because this is a comic book that probably sold on the same rack as Scrooge McDuck. My guess is they'll have at least one topless woman but she'll be wearing a necklace which hangs perfectly to hide her nipples or have that perfect length hair for hiding tits.

Elijah blows out the snake's left eye and freezes it in the river. But a bunch of legs come out of the portholes built into it and it pulls itself free of the ice to charge him. Just as it's about to eat him, Tarzan swings down and does an elbow drop on its head, knocking it unconscious. Tarzan introduces himself as Kevin Sack which is, um, embarrassing. He also goes by the name Lord Blackstock which is just another indicator that he's Tarzan if you hadn't already gotten it from his swinging on a vine, his Tarzan shout, his loincloth, the description earlier that he'd gone feral, and his perfect nipples.

Another clue to his Tarzan identity: he fucks chimpanzees.

One of the rules for outsiders spending time in Opak-re, especially white outsiders, is not to breed with the locals. Elijah is all, "Oh, don't worry: I hate kids!" But then he meets Anaykah, a topless woman, with whom he has loads and loads of unsafe sex.³ None of it results in a child and the breaking of the rules because Elijah respects the culture and/or he's shooting blanks. Eventually, Elijah leaves to go gather more information for his Planetary Guide. While he's gone, Anaykah gets bored, has sex with Tarzan, and births a child. When Elijah returns, he discovers the city collapsing into the ground to seal out the rest of the world. Anaykah meets him outside with her and Tarzan's baby, pleading with him to keep it safe as she disappears underground with the rest of her people, never to see the outside world again. Her last words are "Wakanda forever!"

Elijah, not made to deal with babies, drops the kid off with the German family that would have raised Superman if William Leather hadn't ground little Kal-el's baby skull under his bootheel. Their name was Wagner and they named the baby Jakita. That'll probably be important later. The name sounds familiar, anyway.

The Ranking!
Well if Jakita is Tarzan's baby then that means the girl whose mother was bathed in Gamma Radiation and saved by Alternate Dimension Incredible Hulk is still out there as yet unrevealed! Will she make an appearance along with the creature from Planet Fiction that arrived on the day Ambrose Chase "died"? We don't have many issues left, Warren! And we're still getting back story! Where's the front story?! I want to see Dowling murdered already!

Hey! I just realized Elijah Snow never battles a sabre-tooth tiger! Fraud! False advertising! Also, I'm kind of relieved. I didn't want to see him murder a kitty cat.


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¹ This was before there was a cartoon and they were sold with mini-comics to explain the characters and the world. I didn't care about all that because Skeletor was just some animated Skeleton bad guy to fight Conan. Conan was, um, me, I guess? Definitely didn't have a Conan figure and didn't purchase He-man until I realized he had the other half of Skeletor's sword (which wasn't as cool as his ram's head staff but I still needed the full sword!).
² Which obviously means playing to the Apocalypse Now lovers too, especially when you consider Cassaday's visuals. Cassaday never had a problem putting the visual sources he was alluding to right out in the open.
³ That's why Tarzan confesses to fucking animals. Because he's admitting to Elijah that he's never slept with an African woman. I think it's less because he doesn't want to and he's kind of racist (in a systemic way which is different than a hick way (though not better. Just clarifying!)) and more because the women see him as an arrogant imperialist who just wants to dominate people he sees as subservient to him. He is a British Lord, after all!

Planetary #16 (October 2003)

I'm assuming the Kanji reads "Planetary" because of the little bubble that makes that first symbol into "pu".

Planetary #16 (October 2003)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Kristy Quinn and Scott Dunbier

This cover screams two things at me: movie poster and "We're gonna learn about the Harks, motherfuckers!" Most comic book covers usually just scream at me, "You're a pathetic loser, you virgin bitch!" So I'm actually quite thankful that this one's being so helpful what with the Asian face and the super long fingernails and the Kanji and whatnot¹. Oh, this comic book cover screams one other thing at me as well: "Don't think about how the last issue you read, Planetary #15, also had 'OCT' on the cover or how Laura Martin used to be Laura DePuy and how John Layman isn't editor anymore and how two years of your pathetic excuse for a life have passed since the last issue!" So, um, you know what, cover? I'll take that advice. I'm not going to think about that two year gap between issues at all! It's not my problem!

One thing I will note about the delay between issues as this comic book moves along. I only own the single issues up to Planetary #20 because of these delays and my self-exile from the world of comic books for nearly a decade. About eight years ago, I finally remembered that I'd never finished the series and purchased the final book in the collection so I could see how it all ends. I've only read the last seven issues the one time which means I've basically never read it at all, being that that's how my brain works. The only comic books I truly remember are Elfquest and Cerebus because I re-read them many, many times and also I was a lonely loser who often fell asleep at night pretending that he was Skywise making out with Foxfur under the stars while also listening to country music or Doctor Demento on big plastic yellow radio headphones.

No, you know what? I made up the last sentence of that last paragraph. You can disregard it as me being stupid and silly. Especially the part about how I'd have sexual fantasies about being Skywise. That part was totally just a joke. Ha ha!

This is the end result of Anna Hark's Night's Stars Attack. It occurs on Page 10.

Being that the first ten pages of this script must have been something like, "Hey, John? Did you see Hidden Tiger, Crouching Dragon? Just come up with a fight scene like in that movie for the first half of the book. *cough, cough* I'm a widdle sick boi. :(", I decided to read up on the whole two year delay. My extensive research uncovered that Ellis was sick and Cassaday had other work engagements. I was fairly certain the delay was on Ellis's end because Cassaday knocks the fucking fight scenes out of the martial arts ball park where they play martial arts ball. I don't know if you can plagiarize a movie's fight scenes but Cassaday does them so well, I just assumed that he projected scenes from Sneaky Tiger, Rambunctious Dragon on his desk and just traced the fuck out of them. It's also possible my pretend script had too many words and Ellis just sent Cassaday a film reel of the movie with a Post-it note stuck to it that read, "Planetary #16".

In the second half of the comic book, Warren Ellis decided to have the characters use more words than "Die!" and "No you die!" That's probably because Elijah Snow and Anna Hark needed to reveal more back story while flirting with each other.

The sexual tension has me throbbing like a massive erection!²

Whenever somebody tells me something I didn't know, I always respond, "Who cares? Nobody, that's who! Such useless information!" Especially if it's information about my father. If he wanted me to know what you're telling me, he wouldn't have abandoned me when I was two years old! Then I'd hope they'd leave quickly so I could pull out my jar of tears from under my bed and explosively add another half inch of volume to its salty contents.

In this conversation with Anna Hark, I think it's the first time Elijah Snow is referred to as "the ghost of the 20th Century" which I fucking love. Jenny Sparks is the Spirit of the 20th Century and we know there are many more Century Babies than Jenny. So labeling them all as various aspects of the century seems like a natural progression to their identities. But I don't think Ellis ever really commits to that. I'm not even sure what "the ghost of the 20th century" means. But I love it and even if it's just Anna Hark's personal manner of referring to the man who tried to stay hidden as he also created a super secret world organization, it's pretty fucking great.

Elijah lets Anna know that he met a witness who saw her working with Alternate Dimension Fantastic Four at City Zero and he won't stand for it. He wants to work with her to keep the world safe. He wants to befriend her and her organization, utilizing her secrets for the benefit of the world. But he needs to know that she'll turn against Nazi Fantastic Four. She says there's always been a Hark to make sure the sun comes up and she implies that working with The Four may have been her only option to keep peace in the world. But now Elijah is offering her a better choice. Maybe work with the team that didn't choose a symbol that's basically an unfinished Swastika, hmm?

If I were Elijah, I'd be nervous about this meeting because what if these two had some kind of weird sexual history that he's yet to remember?!

While discussing how Wilder, the man who became a Shiftship Engineer by stepping on an ancient sacrificial stone, Hark alludes to Jakita Wagner being an orphan brought into Planetary by Elijah Stone. In a previous issue, Elijah³ mentions how Jakita is older than she looks. I still suspect she's the daughter of the woman saved by Alternate Dimension Incredible Hulk just at the edge of the Gamma Bomb's explosion mentioned in the introductory story published in, um, Gen-13 or something?

Hark smiles at Elijah which apparently means she agrees to work with Planetary. It's a bit maddening that they understand each other on this level. It's like when somebody hangs up a telephone in a television show without actually saying goodbye or indicating that the conversation is over in any way. Am I the only one that bothers? Or is that how people actually do things?!

After Anna smiles, Elijah calls in her orphan employee Wilder so she can see what's become of him. They hug and Elijah looks on like the Ghost of the 20th Century before disappearing to haunt somebody else for a bit.

The Ranking!
Since Elijah's memory returned and he decided he was done running, he's pretty much just began collecting his army, either by outwardly recruiting them or by simply making sure everybody in his organization are well taken care of so that they'll back him when four godlike shits hit the fan. I know the final issue is some kind of epilogue so that leaves ten more issues for the final confrontation. I figure Ellis and Cassaday will need a full issue for the Randall Dowling battle and another full issue for the William Leather battle. But I think Alternate Dimension Thing will go down fast, maybe he's already even dead from his transformation. We haven't really seen him yet and I don't remember much about him except I think he doesn't play a major role in the climax.⁴ Alternate Dimension Nazi Sue Storm feels like she'll go down quick. Somebody will call her a Nazi and punch her tits off and that'll be that. Anyway, according to the next cover, Elijah Snow suplexes a sabre-toothed tiger!




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¹ The whatnot does not indicate that I had anything else to say. It is, in fact, the exact opposite. I had run out of things to say but didn't think a list of two things was enough. I mean three things. I can count.
² I really need to work on my metaphors.
³ Or somebody. It's the forest that my brain remembers. It doesn't give a fuck about the trees.
⁴ I can't wait to find out though. Maybe I should write shorter entries so I can read more than one comic book per day!