Tangent Comics: The Superman #1 (September 1998)

If this Superman doesn't decapitate at least four people, I'm going to be disappointed in Mark Millar.

The Superman #1 (July 29th, 1998)
By Mark Millar, Jackson Guice, Lovern Kindzierski, and Richard Starkings
Cover by Jackson Guice and Ian Hannin
Edited by Frank Berrios and Eddie Berganza

I picked up a couple of Tangent Comics about a year ago. I'd never read them before even though I was still purchasing monthly comics when they came out. Judging by the art design on the cover of the two comics I have, I suspect it's part of why I didn't pick them up. The muted colors on the gray background with all the weird text and symbols does not scream to me, "This is going to be a fun comic book!" Also probably Mark Millar's name although in 1998, "fun" wasn't the only reason I was picking up comics. I also enjoyed violent and edgy if they were written well. Mark Millar wasn't on my radar in 1998 since I think the first thing I read by him (and consciously registered the writer's name; it's possible I'd read a Millar book previously and just didn't realize it. The way I didn't realize I'd read Ann Nocenti before The New 52 until I dug out and re-read Kid Eternity) was The Ultimates.

Yes, I understand that the entire design of the comic book is supposed to suggest an alternate timeline comic book publisher. "What if this was The Superman everybody knew and loved?! It's pretty shocking, right?! He's fighting with a staff! He's just had some kind of surgery so he has to wear a Kryptonian neck cone! He's got Pop Rocks eyes!" Maybe we're supposed to think he's some kind of Dungeons & Dragons monk? I'd like to think that Millar's big take on an alternate Superman would be "What if Superman really was a fucking pacifist and relied way less on physical assaults?" but the body language of this The Superman is anything but "let's hug it out". It's possibly he's just got a bad leg and this cover represents him walking with his walking staff and the red lines around his head are the pain he suffers during perambulation!

Being that this comic was published in an alternate universe, I cannot tell if the advert on the back cover is a parody of milk ads or not!

Most young guys can't get enough of the undead and revealing outfits?!

I hate the fucking embracing of the milk mustache in milk ads. Especially when the name of the milk promotional board is "National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board". Just reading that caused my dick to detach and burrow into my skin like a Goddamned spirochete. I don't know who was on the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion Board but it must have been perverts who spend a lot of time on foggy moors. Why is Buffy wearing a thick fucking wool jacket over a bustier? Is this supposed to be a sexy photo because all it's telegraphing to me is "prostitute trolling for Johns in the rain who forgot to wipe the cum off her lip after her last trick."

Weird. After I typed that, I got a sudden craving for a glass of milk.

The first page of every Tangent Comic needed to explain what it was all about. First they had to define the word "tangent" for all the dullards and monobrows who read comic books. After that, they explained that they challenged a bunch of writers to make up new characters based on the boring fucking names of their major characters. "Oh, oh! Who could 'Wonder Woman' be when she's not a woman who is wonderous?! Maybe an alien who can unmake people with a single thought! That makes sense, right? If the alien is a woman, I mean! And she's all, 'I wonder if that person even exists?' And then that person is unmade!" "What if the 'Flash' wasn't named for being quick but named for showing her boobs?! I mean known for turning into light like a flash bulb!" "What if Green Lantern wasn't a jerk who invited everybody he met into a bar so he could start a brawl with them?!"

Oh! That, at least, was one thing that the new Lanterns show got right! Hal Jordan starting a massive bar fight! My heart was so warmed by that moment! And I don't mean "one thing they got right" as a criticism to the rest of the show. I'm actually really loving it! Also, they had the sheriff tell Hal Jordan to "eat shit" which was obviously thrown in by Tom King as a reference to my blog, "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" Right? RIGHT?!

The story begins, as most boring stories do, at the very beginning. And when I say "very beginning" in reference to the birth of The Superman, yes, I am making an argument against life beginning at conception. If you need to believe that life begins at conception than the most horrific baby killer of all-time is Jesus the King of Miscarriages.

No. Seriously. The comic begins with The Superman's mother spread wide with her ankles in restraints.

Surprisingly, none of the doctors are decapitated during the birth. Even more surprisingly, being a Mark Millar comic book, nobody is hurt at all. The birth is perfectly normal. Cut to page two and "twenty-three years later" and me wondering why the fuck the story had to start at mom's legs spread wide if we were just going to start when The Superman was 23? Maybe Millar was all, "You know what would be a shocking image? A bunch of guys in hazmat suits staring straight down a lady's sex chute!"

What are the Polymarket odds on this blog post getting flagged for being inappropriate with those last two images of Buffy and the lady in ping pong ball position? Probably pretty good. Also, fuck Polymarket and all its bastard copy cat scam gambling companies. People will create anything that makes the world worse just to get theirs, won't they?

Oh, this might also be important: The Superman's name is Harvey Lee Dent. I'm trying not to speculate as to why that might be the case because speculation just leads to misunderstanding and disappointment. People will speculate why something is the way it is and when they find out it isn't the way they thought, they have a hard time believing the truth and desperately stick to their initial ruminations. Also, if I speculate a fantastic reason why Millar chose to name The Superman Harvey Lee Dent, like maybe he's some bipolar assassin looking to end democracy in an embracing of some poorly thought out ideology, I'm probably going to be disappointed when I discover that Millar just chose the name because he thought it sounded cool.

Did Jackson Guice use a still of Clyde from Every Which Way But Loose as the reference for this picture?

I know I'm walking an easily misunderstood line when I'm saying a Black character looks like an orangutan but only if you're one of those people who are so cynical and awful that you don't care about understanding things if there's a chance to just be angry at somebody. But look at the way Guice drew that guy! You're not going to tell me that you didn't think the same thing? If the first thought in your head after seeing that wasn't, "Right turn, Clyde," then I know, well, um, I know you're way fucking younger than I am! What I'm saying is don't turn me into a Roseanne Barr or Howard Cosell simply because you brought your own baggage to an observation about the body language of a comic book character!

True story: my father dragged us out of Every Which Way But Loose because it was too violent. I guess he thought, "Hey! A movie with a funny monkey! The kids will love it!" And then the funny monkey is beating the shit out of people and the funny monkey's owner who is known for over-the-top violent roles was also beating the shit out of people and my dad was all, "What the fuck?! How was I tricked into bringing my kids to this?!" My guess is the person my conservative father is today would be embarrassed about that man who cared enough to try to limit his kid's exposure to violence. Well guess what, dad?! I now limit my exposure to you!

Harvey cuffs himself to Carter Hall not realizing that Carter Hall is Hawkman so why wouldn't he still leap from the building? Although really Carter isn't trying to fly somewhere. Instead, he's leaping to commit suicide because the people who built the building he drew up the plans for painted it yellow. Yeah. That's why he wants to kill himself. Because he feels like people are laughing at the guy who designed the building that somebody else decided to make yellow. Also I guess if The Superman is named after Two-face then this guy named after Hawkman isn't actually Hawkman. It's the Tangent Universe, baby! This is the kind of stuff they're writing to totally blow your mind!

I guess this is where Harvey Lee Dent finds out he's super.

I was about to question how Harvey could get to twenty-three without ever realizing that he had some kind of invulnerability but then I remembered that I'm 54 and have never broken any bones or had any stitches. Oh, I've been injured badly enough while blasting down the Santa Cruz mountains on a BMX bike that I've needed stitches. I just never got them. Just tucking your torn up, barely hanging on, mangled skin back into the blood-filled hole that it used to cover and wrapping it up works just as well! Unless those were my super powers that allowed me to heal so completely from those accidents (minus the various scars all over both knees)! And maybe I did break some bones but never knew it because they knitted themselves back together instantaneously? Should I try jumping off of a building to see what happens?! I might be The Superman!

Harvey wakes up in the hospital to learn that he's lucky to be alive considering Carter Hall was nothing but a thin sheet of human paste after hitting the ground. He then begins using racial slurs on the guy who stopped by to visit with Harvey's girlfriend in tow.

I only learned the term "pie-face" was a racist slur because of this blog!

Do you think Pie-face is going to show up in Lanterns?! The writers probably don't want Hal to appear too racist so they'll probably changed Hal's nickname for Pie-face to Eskimo. That softens the racism up a bit, right?!

Speaking of Lanterns, I just finished Episode 3, "OutKast", like ten minutes ago and holy fuck it's a good show!

After falling off the tallest building in, um, Metropolis?, Harvey Dent's personality seems to have changed. He's become a whole new person just like some other guy I can't think of. His girlfriend notices that he suddenly reads intelligent books now instead of constantly re-reading Piers Anthony's Xanth novels. Plus he's become competent at electronics which I don't think is a superpower but maybe? He does stop sleeping which causes his girlfriend to begin worrying because not needing to sleep, while it feels like a great superpower, it's actually just a symptom of something that's going to kill you in a few months.

Eventually, he learns to fly, I guess?

Um. What the fuck is he wearing?

I get that this is an alternate universe but I don't think there's an alternate universe in the whole of space and time where that outfit is cool. He looks like a perverted milkman.

His "origin" goes on for several more pages of pure exposition from the point of view of his girlfriend. She's concerned that he's gaining every power Mark Millar could think of but mostly just sad that he won't fuck her anymore. So much so that she winds up fucking Pie-face and I can't imagine that she's screaming, "Fuck me harder, Pie-face!", because, oh, wait, I did imagine that which is why I wrote it. Sorry! I guess it was really easy for my mind to picture a naked woman getting railed from behind as she screams racial epithets at him! Look, I'm way more disturbed by this revelation than you are!

Loads of DC hero and villain names are dropped during the "origin" so the reader can be all, "I totally recognize that name and/or get that reference!" and "Whoa! Martin Stein merged with a nuclear submarine to become Firestorm the Nuclear Submarine! That's so different from Firestorm the Nuclear Man!" [Now picture me looking quizzically at a butterfly] "Is this fan service?" [Okay, you can go back to picturing a woman getting fucked from behind now] Or is "recognizing" things pretty much the height of what you can expect comic book readers to understand. Maybe this story has actual themes and subtext but being a comic book reader myself, I just can't fathom them. But you can bet my stupid face lit up when they mentioned Batgirl being a grotesque monster and the Native American Johnny Thunder!

Eventually, The Superman begins looking into his own origin, having, as his brain evolves a century every hour, become too smart to believe that his near death caused his powers. He discovers that his origin has something to do with the shady government group Nightwing. He meets up with one of its members, Black Orchid (I recognize that character! So good!), to find out what she knows by reading her mind and/or seducing her. Except according to his girlfriend, he's not particularly horny right now.

I guess that's why Black Orchid fails to seduce him. Although I don't know why she's trying!

Black Orchid seems to have left Nightwing because they're a bunch of horrible monsters. I'll find out exactly how horrible they are when I read my copy of John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics! But for now, I'll just assume she knows what she's talking about. She gives The Superman the location of a Nightwing base where he'll learn about the weird men who watched his mother give birth to him. Once he's there, Black Orchid hopes The Superman will also see what horrible monsters they are and decapitate them all using his new mind power, Decapitathy.

Oh, I should point out that I just made up the term "decapitathy" for using your mind to decapitate a person. I feel I needed to point out this was a dumb joke because it's the sort of word that Mark Millar would absolutely come up with but while looking serious and, later, cashing a massive check from all the idiots impressed by it.

Officially (although what does "officially" mean to an organization that's so top secret that even the president doesn't know about it?), Nightwing was shut down. I guess when a Top Secret organization gets shut down, everybody suddenly gets to know about it. Or maybe after I read John Ostrander's Nightwing from Tangent Comics, I'll learn that it was "shut down" because the whole hideous organization came to light and the public demanded that it go away forever. So of course it went away when the government was all, "We put it away! It's gone now!" Except it wasn't! Shocker! It's command center was simply moved to a location outside of the map.

You can't just tell me a location exists where "all forms of radar" can't even find it. I mean, who cares? RADAR?! Tell me it's hidden by magic, at least, ya dumb asshole!

I hope all of the Tangent Comics aren't this boring and stupid because I'm kind of interested in reading them all. But this just feels like a back of the napkin pitch that was immediately turned in as a finished script. My guess is that Mark Millar knew he wasn't doing more than one issue so he knew he wouldn't have to expand on any of the ideas he jotted down after four whiskies and seventeen Mozzarella sticks. So he just made a list of ESP powers (some of which he didn't even know the name of and couldn't be bothered to research later so he just has the girlfriend say, "I don't know what that one's called. Duh!"), the barest outline of two origins that could compete to create the tension (being born super and falling off a building), and what I have to imagine is an archaic racial slur.

One idea I really fucking love but I'm not sure if I can pin it on Millar. I wouldn't mind doing it if I could be sure but this feels like the various writers and editors made sure that the books were all linked up by a shared continuity so I don't know if this idea was Millar's or Ostrander's or somebody else's: the original superhero, created by Nightwing, was the Atom. So the whole arms race of superheroes started when an American (Joe Chill and his team! I know that name!) created the atom bomb of superheroes: the Atom.

This arms race eventually lead to further experiments by Joe Chill which took place the only way America has ever really known how to accomplish its Nazi-esque bullshit: experiment on an unwitting Black American town.

Do you think Millar disavows this comic now? "I can't believe I wrote this historically accurate woke shit that didn't even have any decapitations in it!"

Millar was probably just taking a shot at Americans when he wrote that, identifying with the way they treat minority citizens and foreigners. But once he learned his bread wallet was buttered by Incels and misogynists, and how easy it was to resolve every conflict with a head separated from a body, he had to tiptoe around storylines that might not center white male heroes. Unless it's a story about a little girl who can ruthlessly murder anybody because that's ha-ha funny! A little girl? Being violent?! How does he think up these gems?!

The narration of the story by Harvey's girlfriend is actually an email she's typing up to send to him in the hopes of saving their relationship. One thing I left out is how this is 1996 and Harvey helps people via emails they send him. He then picks a problem he thinks is worthy of his time. Not the person who's in the most need! Oh, no! The problem that he sees as the most complicated to solve! It's no wonder people quickly begin questioning his motives in doing what he does. Does he care about people? Or is he just bored? I can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure Alan Moore could have sued Millar over stealing Doctor Manhattan's entire personality for The Superman.

As the world is on the brink of destruction by the Ultra-Humanite (not a big-brained monkey but some stone or steel guy wearing a flying nun habit), The Superman tries to solve the problem of his wife fucking Pie-face. He offers her a Miraclo pill to evolve like he has so he doesn't feel like he's fucking a chimpanzee. She's all, "Okay! As long as this is for love and not for you proving you can solve this problem!" And he's all, "Hey, baby! What's the difference?!" And she's all, "Let's fuck!"

The End!

The Ranking!
This comic book feels like the skeleton of an idea. Which, I think, is exactly how the whole Tangent Comics idea was planned. Have some writers and artists reinvent a few characters and give audiences a glimpse of a universe that could have been. It probably could have been pulled off with less exposition but I think a lot of what made the idea exciting in the eyes of the creators was just doing a big "What if this?" instead of a story that takes place in a world that feels fleshed out but doesn't give the reader all of the answers. This story felt like it was more important to flesh out the ideas of the world The Superman came from than to tell an actual story in that world. A story in that world could have gotten the point across as well. But I'm probably in the minority there. People love to have clear cut answers instead of ambiguous questions even after their disappointment in yet another The X-files or Lost television show that they loved when they didn't know what was going on and then they quickly grew bored of when the show started explaining things. Or Twin Peaks! "Oh, who murdered Laura Palmer?! I wish the show would tell us!" Then the show told them and then you got James leaving Twin Peaks to star in a different soap opear in a boring town with boring people. Also James was boring.

I suppose my lackluster feelings for this comic book from 1998 were shared by most of the readers which is why I was able to purchase it nearly 30 years later for three bucks.

Planetary #26 (December 2006)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I guess gods die pretty easily.

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

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

Planetary #25 (June 2006)

Okay!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planetary #24 (March 2006)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(surreptitious sniff of fingers)

Oh wait! Here we go! The important bit!

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

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

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

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

Planetary #23 (August 2005)

Just in case you forgot what the Armageddon movie poster looked like seven years ago, Cassaday attempts to make Elijah Snow look like Bruce Willis.

Planetary #23 (August 2005)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Scott Dunbier

My first thought (being that all of my first thoughts concern The X-Files) was that this cover was an homage to The X-Files. But then that whole Bruce Willis look-a-like thing was going on and I was all, "Oh shit. I remember this movie poster. This is that movie that the Non-Certified Spouse and I went to see in Omaha with our married couple friends and afterward, we walked out laughing our cynical asses off and making jokes about it while the other couple were both weeping." Was it because I'm a coastal elite that I thought the movie was vapid and ridiculous? Do I just not understand the common concerns of real America and their belief that an oil driller would sacrifice his life to save his daughter and also save the entire world and also be basically Jesus because working class people are way better than anybody who even sniffed at going to college? Was I too dumb to realize that Space Madness was actually a truly terrifying metaphor for Communism and also probably learning anything at all? Was growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area a form of brainwashing that enabled me to become too compassionate and open to acceptance and also able to read a movie like nobody's fucking business?! You know what I mean by read! I just said I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area!

I'll say this about the difference between the Bay Area and Lincoln, Nebraska: in the Bay, I never had some dimwit approach me thinking he was the wittiest motherfucker since Rosalind in As You Like It when he asked he asked me in a terrible Australian accent if I wouldn't mind removing my cap so he could get a look at my wicked mullet. Instead of kicking him in the balls like he deserved, I took my hat off to show him my outrageously beautiful full length locks. I also didn't tell him to come up with his own ideas because didn't some asshole on one of The Real World seasons proclaim himself as The Mullet Hunter? Mostly I just went on my way without saying one word to the idiot.

I'm not saying there weren't idiots, assholes, and fuck-ups in the Bay Area! My best friend growing up, Fireball the Well-Done Comedian, had an angry cousin who eventually became a skinhead (no surprise to any of us who played with him over those elementary school summers). His aggression was well-documented in the beginning of the movie, Enemy of the State, where he beats the shit out of his gay neighbor. I was once at a house party with this guy (Josh was his name. Nobody wanted him there. I guess he came with Fireball the Well-Done Comedian. If I remembered his last name, I'd put it out there. Of course, I think I've said enough about him that you could figure out who he is if you fucking cared about a giant skinhead asshole's identity) and his vibe and aura were fucking intense and the worst and everybody was just waiting for him to lose his shit. Which he eventually did, jumping up from his seat and throwing punches at my friend Carlos, the nicest fucking guy in the entire world. I'm not sure he landed any because we were all so on edge waiting for him to fucking explode that at least five guys jumped on him and threw him out of the house while telling Fireball to fucking take care of his fucking boy. Man I hated that guy!

Speaking of Fireball, he was the only kid I knew to have the extra-tall, alternate colored Snaggletooth Star Wars figure and it boggled my mind for two decades until the Internet finally came into existence and I found out where the fuck that thing came from. I'm sure I could have figured it out earlier but for those of you who didn't live in a time without an Internet, you'll just have to realize that we were pretty comfortable living with the unknown. It's probably why The X-Files was so huge.

Anyway, I guess this issue is going to be Drummer's origin story?

Okay! So that's the explanation why Elijah said he was still looking for three of The Four when he spoke with Melanctha.

See? This is why you don't base your entire personality on calling out a writer's mistakes when you believe they've made one. First and foremost, you should assume no mistakes. Second, you ponder why the thing that you, as an observer of the piece of art, think is a mistake might not be one and what it says about the rest of the piece. I know far too many people who think deconstructing a text is creating a wedge where they can point out the artist's hypocrisy and then go whole hog on making that reality, even if, later, it's obvious why the "hypocrisy" exists in the piece. People stake so much on their own opinions and readings of a piece of art that they're often unable to ever truly see it for what it really is.

It's also possible Warren Ellis had to read hundreds of fan letters complaining about his "mistake" for a full year between this story and the Melanctha one. He was probably all, "Fine! Fuck. Now I have to explain myself because of all the idiots who are probably from America's heartland! Which, by the way, means 'the middle of the country' and not 'the heart and soul and people who understand the true meaning of democracy and freedom and Christianity', no matter how many New York Times editorial pieces try to convince everybody of it." That might not be an exact quote of Ellis's reaction to all the "I'm so much fucking smarter than Warren Ellis" fans who could bother to write an "A-ha! You fucked up!" letter to him.

See? Drummer's a good deconstructionist. And he's modeling the right behavior to all the assholes who own pens and stamps and Warren Ellis's address.

Jakita and Drummer debate how much Elijah has changed with Jakita saying, "He's harder! Hee hee! And colder! Not hee hee!" But Drummer is all, "Look. My job is to know shit. So I know Elijah hasn't changed. He saved Jacob Greene by sending him out of the solar system on a ship containing multiple biomes. Maybe he didn't save all the creatures living there that Jacob Greene is going to fuck to death. But our name is 'Planetary' and not 'Alien Biomes Randomly Floating From Solar System to Solar System'. What I also know is what Elijah Snow's Century Baby job is but I'm not going to tell you because maybe Warren Ellis doesn't really know yet? No, no. I'm sure he does! But we've got to keep some cards up our holes for the last few issues. Is that a poker term? 'Up our holes'?"

After Drummer reassures readers and Jakita that Elijah Snow is doing exactly what a Century Baby whose job was the job entrusted to Elijah Snow would do in this situation, he goes on to explain to everybody why he trusts Elijah so much. In other words, his origin story.

The Drummer began his career as a programming monkey enslaved by Dr. Randall Dowling. His job was to make sure the future Internet wasn't secure to Dowling's spying eyes. Or maybe to invent the Internet with a secret backdoor for the spying eyes of a guy named Dowling. Those are basically the same thing. Also, Drummer wasn't an actual monkey. That was me being metaphorical. One day while Drummer was on the Internet Factory Assembly Line banging away at the keys with his drumsticks because he never learned to type, Elijah Snow and Ambrose Chase were hiding in the bathroom waiting for a security guard to drop by so Elijah could freeze the piss in his penis and threaten to snap it off. So gross and inappropriate.

Ambrose and Elijah have too much frat boy DNA to hide in the same stall.

What happened to Frat Boys between the '50s and modern times? Used to be they loved to cram themselves into small spaces with as many other men as possible. And then they learned the phrase, "No homo, dude," and couldn't abide even the accidental touch of another man.

Jakita hid in the women's bathroom because, um, propriety? No, probably just because the guy's smelled horrible.

In Drummer's recollection of the story, Jakita didn't understand why they were interfering with The Four's foray into computers since, to her, they were just for games like Wizardry and Castle Wolfenstein and Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Bah, she wasn't wrong. Things would be way better if computers were just barely connected to each other again. Imagine how many narcissists and boring old everyday idiots would never get online because the barrier to access was, even though quite minimal, boring as shit. Waste time tying up the phone to post about The X-Files on a message board? When they could be talking to Chad or Karen in person?! I'm suddenly overwhelmed by the nostalgia of a time when the word "nerd" actually meant something!

When Planetary invade the den of enslaved child programmers, Ambrose Chase fucks up his time distortion field and one of the guards remains outside of it enabling him enough time to push the button on the neck bombs being worn by all the kids.

Whoops!

Luckily for Drummer, the bombs went off in sequence and Jakita was able to rip his off before it exploded his face. Unluckily for the other kids, nobody fucking cares about the other kids. This isn't their goddamned origin story! Losers.

During the battle, Ellis sneaks in at least two references to other Planetary moments: Snow saving Jakita as a child and Snow not being around to save Ambrose Chase. I'm sure there were more like maybe some time Elijah was caught hiding in the stall of the men's bathroom listening to people piss. Not in a perverse way! To gather information for his Planetary Guide! Who knows how important it will be to the future to know exactly how strong Sherlock Holmes' piss stream was?!

Before leaving, Elijah allows Drummer to hack into and crash Dowling's Project Internet Backdoor (hee hee!). Because Drummer and his drumsticks have super powers, he winds up blowing the entire floor of the building and Planetary have to leave immediately through the window.

Quit bitching, kid. At least your head isn't peanut butter and jelly.

After rescuing the kid, Elijah hires him to be on Planetary because nobody else in the kid's life is alive and Drummer asks point blank if he's going to wind up in foster care like Jakita and Elijah realizes that nobody in the whole fucking world will be able to handle this kid. Also, the kid knows most of their secrets simply by being in the same place as their computer systems. So he's kind of forced to take the kid on. And that's the end of the origin story.

But the main story isn't finished yet! Drummer needs to tell Jakita what Elijah Snow's Century Baby purpose is: to archive shit. In other words, to save things. He saves information. He saves history. He saves people. Sometimes he saves people from themselves, like Jacob Greene and William Leather. And soon Kim and Randall, I guess. But his main purpose right now — the main bit of archiving he's really digging his teeth into at the moment — is an attempt to save Ambrose Chase.

The Ranking!
See? Ambrose Chase disappearing in a flutter of reality distorting waves and not leaving a corpse was an obvious tell that he was still extant somewhere in space and time. And Elijah Snow promised to always have his back if he was around. He wasn't around at the specific time Ambrose was shot by that guy searching for Planet Fiction, but he's around now. And if anybody can figure out what Ambrose did the moment before he died to save himself, it's Elijah, Jakita, and the Little Drummer Boy. But we only have four issues left. Technically three, I think, with an epilogue tacked on years later. I should probably re-read the Melanctha story with the knowledge that she's pushing Elijah to save Ambrose with her "Death Machine Telemetry" bullshit but, well, I'm busy not reading all the other stuff I have to read!

Planetary #22 (March 2005)

They manage to obliterate the Wildstorm logo and the Issue number and price without any evidence but they chose to scrub the "TM" with what? A Sharpie tool in Photoshop?

Planetary #22 (March 2005)
By Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy Martin, and Richard Starkings
Cover by John Cassaday
Edited by Scott Dunbier

I don't own the singles of the last seven issues of Planetary so this is a scan of the cover from the trade. Which is why the various edits and the missing UPC code box. As somebody with well over 25 years of Photopaint experience, that attempted obliteration of the TM after Planetary is just mind-boggling. They could have just cloned over it using the covers own colors. Who would choose to grab a pen tool, select BLACKEST BLACK, and rub it out like they were filling in a Scantron? This entire trade is fucking ruined for me. I might as well just throw it in the bin. Just low quality garbage!

After lying about that, let's lie about something else: William Leather sure has short legs! I never realized! Also I think I'd fuck that horse. Obviously I mean if I were drunk. Or had been drinking. Or was about to go out drinking.

So now that you know I don't understand foreshortening or basic non-bestiality etiquette, let's read about William Leather's torture! I guess after last issue, somebody reminded Ellis that Planetary had captured William Leather and Snow wasn't actually trying to find the last three of The Four. Just the last two. And with one of them being invisible, it wasn't going to be easy so Elijah had to ask an oracle and risk winding up fucking his mother.

As you can tell by the cover, this issue is of the Western genre. It is the story of William Leather's ancestors and it involves outlaws and lawmen and mining rights and a mystic, mysterious Indian savior. But there's something odd going on right from the start.

The cracked moon is a clue!

Also the name of this story, "The Torture of William Leather", is a clue. One the first page, William Leather's pupils are strange, reflecting some odd shape that looks like the sight on a gun or maybe a harsh spotlight. And being that he's tortured, the spotlight seems like a likely suspect. Which then maybe explains the prominence of the moon on the next few pages, always overhead, always slightly blocked by some piece of geography or a Native American's mysterious head.

William Leather's grandfather, John, was nearly killed by Dowling's ancestors who did manage to kill his grandfather's brother (I'd describe him more accurately if I knew anything about how you refer to family members further up the family tree. Great Uncle, maybe?). But William Leather's grandfather escaped. He was rescued by a Native American scientist (the Melanctha kind and not the Stephen Hawking kind (or maybe? Was Hawking into hallucinogens?)) who stuffed a bunch of drugs into his mouth so that he could experience what Elijah Snow just experienced at Melanctha's pad. Legend has it that nobody ever learned the Native American's name because if they learned it was Tonto, Ellis might have been sued.

Having been saved by an experimental drug that drove him to the afterlife and back, John Leather took up murdering people with Mercury-tipped silver bullets. I think he only murdered scumbags and maybe it was his working with Mercury that made him a massive nutbag and not Tonto's drugs.

Ha ha! Not armed! Good one!

That final shot looking through the dead man's split head looks remarkably like William Leather's pupils from the first page. Is that a clue?! Probably although I don't think there really are any clues here. They're just echoes of William Leather's surroundings as he tells his torturers his tale. I've never played Assassin's Creed but I think it's similar to how I think that game's story goes.

The Leather Ranger eventually hung up his guns and unsaddled his silver to get a lady pregnant just in time to give birth to their son at the turn of the Century. His name was Bret Leather and he was the Century Baby father to William Leather. Bret became a vigilante running about at night in Chicago in the '20s and '30s, a parody of Batman and The Shadow and, I don't know, Dick Tracy? Maybe Spider-man since he could seemingly turn into spiders and other bugs. The bandolier across his chest looks like a cockroach so maybe he was a parody of a parody and emulating Cerebus's The Roach.

This guy was one of Axel Brass's group who were nearly all killed in the Adirondacks by Alternate Dimension Justice League in the, um, '40s, I think it was? The night he's showing of his skills in the story is the night that William Leather was born.

Is this an interrogation or therapy?

After learning that he wasn't actually the son of the coolest guy in Chicago, William Leather began drinking and pouting and kicking rocks. Right up until he met Randall Dowling who was all, "We suck and it's the fault of those super human jerks! How dare they not be us!" So he joined Dowling's 20th Century gang of bandits and brigands to steal all the silver mines in all the worlds.

The final two pages return us to the present where William Leather is strapped to a table under a spotlight so much like the moon while Elijah looms over him and tells him his future (because he's the scientist in this situation): William Leather is going to get his eyeballs punched out by a pair of goggles full of needles and then he's going to tell Elijah where Alternate Dimension Reed and Sue are. Elijah admits he was told to think about the big picture and not the little picture where he's a vindictive jerk who murders four assholes for the sheer pleasure of it but he's all, "You shot somebody I loved or something so now listen to your eyeballs pop, you piece of shit."

The Ranking!
Warren Ellis had probably been promising John Cassaday a western story for years and he finally figured out how to do it. Probably when he was playing Assassin's Creed while listening to old radio dramas of The Shadow while The Lone Ranger played on nearby television and a small baggy full of the detritus of the mushrooms he just took sat on the table nearby. I wish he'd promised John Cassaday two western issues because one just isn't enough. Especially when he had to throw in the Chicago gangster stuff. Those could have been pages and pages of wild horses running free with their manes blowing in the wind! Maybe even throw in a panel of a horse just pissing so much piss. Just so much piss!

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?!