Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The coolest book I've read this year, October 19, 2001
What makes All Over the World so cool? Warren Ellis is at the top of his game here, with dazzling ideas, deft characterization, and great dialogue all working together. Planetary is the story of the secret history of the twentieth century - or at least, the twentieth century as reflected in our fiction. Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner and the Drummer are the field team for the mysterious and extremely wealthy organization called Planetary; they are mystery archaeologists, travelling, well, all over the world to find the hidden wonders in Japanese monster islands, long buried alien spaceships, and the hidden lair of thirties pulp heroes. So what we have is a roaring adventure story that doubles as a commentary on the twentieth century's adventure fiction. What's important is that Planetary works on both levels. Each chapter of All Over the World seems like a stand alone story, full of wild action and carried by the interplay between Jakita, Drummer, and Elijah. The character interaction and inventive plots would be enough to carry the book, but through each chapter a deeper mystery - largely built around the identity and history of Elijah Snow, but also around the true nature of Planetary and its adversaries - gradually unfolds, and the book ends on a great little cliffhanger that had me eagerly anticipating new chapters. At the same time, Planetary is Ellis' chance to play with a lot of archetypes. Planetary's main adversaries are clear analogues of Marvel's Fantastic Four; Snow's hatred of them, and the reasons for it, should inspire readers to take another look at the assumptions that allow superhero universes to function. Planetary is a thrill to read, but it's a very intelligent thrill that proves that action stories don't need to check their brains at the door. Equal credit must go to artist John Cassaday and colorist Laura De Puy. This book looks great. Cassaday's design work is impeccable; the characters' wardrobes, for example, are highly reflective of their personality, and Cassaday makes the wondrous and strange things that Planetary encounters appear wondrous and strange. His faces convey emotion beautifully; there's a two-page conversation could be carried by the art alone. De Puy and her fellow colorists take Cassaday's drawings and make them shine with rich color work that immerses the reader even deeper in the world of Planetary. Everything about this book works. It's intelligent, accessible, fun, beautiful, and wonderful. Read it.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best Warren Ellis material I've read so far, August 2, 2001
I'm not one to easily over-praise something I like. I mostly look at the things I enjoy as critical as possible to come to as much of an honest opinion as possible, so that my words really mean something instead of turning into a bold statement which helps nobody. With this title however I can do nothing else but expres how much I enjoy it. It's as close to "historical fiction" as a mainstream 'superhero'-title is ever going to be and it's done well. And the term "superhero-title" isn't exactly right either because it isn't a superhero title, but the main characters ARE supernatural.About the story: Elijah Snow, a mysterious man who was born on January 1st of the year 1900 encounters a woman called Jakita Wagner (who is accompagnied by another man called 'the Drummer') and she invites him to be part of a supernatural archaeologist group called 'Planetary'. She invites him to be the third member of their field-team who's goal it is to unravel the 'secret history of the world'. They try to map events in history how they REALLY took place, not how the common public was told it all happened. Elijah gets offered a salary of one million dollars a year for the rest of his life and all other professional expenses will also be taken care off by an anonymous financial aid only known as 'the fourth man', a man nobody knows. Elijah accepts and goes on his way to see things common man has never known was there. The great thing bout this title is that each detail, as little as it looks at first, turns into a mystery of his own in time. Each story in each issue seems to be a self-contained story at first, but later on turns out to be just a piece of the puzzle in the 'grand scheme of things'. There's very little going on that's useless information. What also is very nice is that the essence, the starting line if you will, of the series is reality as WE know it. It's about OUR reality (not one made up as a comic-reality), WE are 'the common public and the way things really happened occured behind OUR backs on things that are REALLY in our history (like the first man on the moon and such things). Think of it as having a little bit the mood like 'X-Files' and you'll know what I mean. So finally I would like to advise this title to all people who are not strictly interested in superhero clashes but not neccesarily only into 'serious comics' either. It's a mix of the two and it's done very well with a good mixing of illustrating and text. None of the two factors is dominating, it's very well balanced and it makes for a very good experience. For me it's easily the best writing I've seen of Warren Ellis so far.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great stuff, but prior knowledge required., April 30, 2000
Continuing the trend of revisionist tales based on comic book company universes that was begun with Alan Moore's Miracleman and the Watchmen, and Frank Miller's Batman: Dark Knight Returns; Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's Planetary gives the trend an interesting X-File-ish spin. While I enjoy the series and recommend it to any long-time comic book fan, I have to say that, like Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, you really have to have been reading comics for some time to get the most out of the book. How many people would know that the ghost of the police officer damned to act as a spirit of vengence in Planetary #3 is both a homage to John Woo's Hong Kong action films as well as a update of DC Comic's Spectre? I must say Ellis recasting the Fantastic Four in such a sinister light is really refreshing. Includes the very hard to find Planetary preview/revisionist view of Marvel Comic's the Hulk which appeared in Gen13 #33. People who enjoy this series should also check out Ellis and Bryan Hitch's excellent work on The Authority #1-12, (oft referred to as the JLA or Avengers, "finally done right")the first eight issues of which will soon be reprinted in The Authority: Relentless trade paperback.
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