“Hark”
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: John Cassaday
Publisher: DC/Wildstorm
Planetary is back!! You couldn’t know this, but I just giggled like a schoolgirl. What to tell you about this book? Buy it. Buy two copies and give one to someone who doesn’t read comics. You, and they, might be a little confused if you haven’t been keeping up – of course that’s understandable, seeing as how it’s been over a year since issue 15 – but it’s worth it.
If you don’t know already, Elijah Snow and the Planetary Foundation have been investigating the world’s mysteries, which have ranged from giant monsters on Japanese islands to phantom policemen in Hong Kong. Wherever something weird has been going on, Planetary has been there. Ellis is using this book to examine, deconstruct and reconstruct pulp iconography and the history of speculative fiction in both film, literature and, of course, comics. There are two trades collecting the first 12 issues and a bumper collection of issues 13 through 15 that was just released a couple of months ago and should still be available, if you can’t find or don’t already have the singles. That’s not to mention the Planetary/Authority, Planetary/JLA and Planetary/Batman one-shots.
But enough of that. This issue focuses on Snow’s attempted recruitment of Anna Hark, the daughter of Ellis’ version of Fu Manchu. The first half of the issue is a Hong Kong wire-fu movie and the back half is a tense discussion between Hark and Snow. Cassaday’s art is remarkable. He just keeps getting better and better (I just recently re-read the Union Jack trade he illustrated years ago and while that was good, this is so much better). If he keeps growing at this rate it’ll take the army to stop him. Anyway, Snow wants Hark to stop working with The Four, an evil version of the Fantastic Four who basically run the world from behind the scenes. Did I mention that this stuff is brilliant? Ellis’ take on the FF is my favorite of all time. Screw that whole happy family stuff. This is where it’s at.
Planetary is a limited series, so I have no fear of this dropping off in quality. In fact, it just keeps getting better and better as Ellis and Cassaday build and build upon the layers of imaginative reconstructions that are the foundation of this series. This is rapidly becoming my favorite comic, shuffling The Invisibles off to the side for a while.
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