Here.
Look at us! they think in unison. We’ve changed! All of us! We’re more than just human! And, just like that, the Fantastic Four were born.
The 1961 cover blared, “The Thing! Mr. Fantastic! Human Torch! Invisible Girl! Together for the first time in one magazine!” Yes, changed in strange ways by bizarre and mysterious “cosmic rays,” a mild-mannered science team is transformed into… THE FANTASTIC FOUR!
But “those rays! Those terrible cosmic rays!” did more than simply transform scientists into heroes, they ushered in an age of comics naturalism. Science, now, would be king; superhero comics would no longer rely exclusively (and soon, at all) on magic and the occult to drive their fantastic plots. Indeed, comics as a medium become synonymous with two genres: superheroes and science fiction.
40 years after The Fantastic Four burst onto the scene, comics were staring into the face of a new century. Alan Moore’s 1986 Watchmen had come and gone, and left an indelible dark stain on the once-happy and optimistic world of superheroes. As Dave Itzkoff wrote in The New York Times:
But "Watchmen" has another legacy, one that Moore almost certainly never intended, whose DNA is encoded in the increasingly black inks and bleak storylines that have become the essential elements of the contemporary superhero comic book-a domain he has largely ceded to writers and artists who share his fascination with brutality but not his interest in its consequences, his eagerness to tear down old boundaries but not his drive to find new ones.
It was 1999, and comics were ready for something new, ready for someone who would—in Itzkoff’s terms—not just tear the old down, but make something new.
Enter Warren Ellis, the scatological Englishman known best for his sci-fi-Gonzo manifesto, Transmetropolitan. Two new ongoing books, both bearing Ellis’s name, came out within months of each other: The Authority, and its oft-underrated and overlooked sister, Planetary.
The Authority was an instant success, and it launched superheroes into the new millennium. Cinematic in style, epic in scope, Authority took the self-awareness and moral ambiguity of Watchmen and pushed beyond the flaccid violence and impotent self-absorption that followed it. Ellis had superheroes wade into international (and interplanetary) politics, and have fun (and kick ass) doing it.
But The Authority's success meant that Planetary, probably Ellis's best work, has ended up playing Jan to The Authority's Marsha.
Planetary began a "monthly" comic and was originally slated for 25 issues. But illness on Ellis's part and John Cassaday's (the artist and co-creator) many other commitments led to a paroxysmal publication history. What was supposed to last two years has stretched into a decade: the penultimate issue came out in 2006, and the conclusion comes to stores—finally—this week. The long waits between issues, while perhaps adding to Planetary’s mystique, did little to reinforce its themes.
Planetary follows Elijah Snow, “the ghost of the twentieth century,” as he sifts through the “secret history of the world.” Ellis brings in figures from almost every gloriously ignoble sub-genre: there are throwbacks to the silver screen and Lovecraft, Hong Kong action flicks and monster movies; there are appearances from Sherlock Holmes and Dracula, a thinly veiled Green Lantern and Wonder Woman (not to mention characters based on nearly every famous superhero in the last fifty-odd years).
So, while Ellis’s characters are exploring the history of the world, Ellis himself is exploring—and remaking—the secret history of comics. As Alan Moore wrote in the introduction to the first issue:
Warren Ellis and John Cassaday have manufactured an ingenious device by means of which they can exploit the possibilities of our contemporary situation … The heroes of their tale are neither crime-fighters nor global guardians, but, by some perfect stroke of inspiration, archaeologists.
That’s the crucial point: Ellis isn’t sifting through the past to demonstrate his erudition or to make fanboys wet themselves; no, he’s unearthing the past to build the future—to, as Moore writes, “exploit the possibilities of our contemporary situation.” [eww… split infinitive]
Through Ellis’s eyes, we see The Fantastic Four, not as the protagonists in the history of comics, but as the Four, villains who hoard technology and lock away the world’s secrets. Because, for Ellis (and his protagonists), the greatest crime we can commit is to tame the world. Science, Ellis insists, is about uncovering the strangeness beneath the skin of things, not, as it is so often portrayed, torturing nature to reveal her secrets.
By extension, comics—so entwined as it is with sci-fi—shouldn’t use science as a crutch for the rather hum-drum slaying of the “monster of the week.” Instead, comics should remain tethered to its strange, genre-speckled past and the high camp of science fiction.
“It’s a strange world,” his characters remind themselves, “let’s keep it that way.” Of course, Ellis isn’t just talking about the world he’s created. After all, comics is a strange medium; let’s keep it that way.
Issue 27—the final issue—of Planetary hits the shelves on October 7. Head down to Infinite Monkey (Oberlin’s own comics store, on Main Street, across from The Feve) and pick it up. There you can also find trade paperbacks collecting the first eighteen issues, if you need to get caught up. The fourth trade should be out in a couple of months.
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