| SYNOPSIS: A terrorist group calling themselves "The Snowflake" bombs an empty Hark Corporation office building, unearthing a mysterious alien structure embedded in the ground. Corporation head Ms. Anna Hark (who we'll learn more about in Issue #5) assigns her personal private investigator, Jim Wilder, to find out what happened. Investigating the mystery, Wilder ends up breaking up a petty crime and chasing the thief into the heart of the bomb site. There he comes into contact with the object itself, and is instantly transported inside it. The Planetary field team, also investigating the incident, is witness to both his disappearance and his sudden return moments later. He awakens in a Planetary hospital and shares an incredible story: The embedded object is a living, sentient shiftship that crashed on earth hundreds of millions of years in the past. It tells Wilder that there is more than one earth, and it was designed to sail "The Bleed" between universes. Its crew was killed on impact, and for all this time the ship has been stranded. Unearthed at last, it needs a pilot and a crew of seven to enable it to finally return home. Wilder has already agreed to help, and has been altered by the ship accordingly. He takes Snow, Wagner, and the Drummer inside, showing them an entire world of inconceivable beauty and wonder. Charged with assembling the necessary crew, he asks Planetary for help. Wagner waffles, at which point Snow steps in and promises Wilder whatever is needed. Shaking his head at his new fellow members' hesitance to do the same, he makes it clear that Planetary is about to become much more active in its reactions to the mysteries it investigates. REVIEW: This issue has all the indications of being the start of something big. First, the awesome spaceship itself is clearly not something to just be filed away and abandoned. Second, the gathering of the crew to take the craft back to the stars is too intriguing a premise for Ellis not to spend some time with it in the remainder of the series. And third, only a few issues in we learn that Snow is the kind of person who's not content to blithely go along with the Planetary party line. Wagner and the Drummer react with amusement to Snow's attitude -- but oblige him. Not that Jakita isn't overwhelmed by the shiftship. "These are the moments I live for," she tells Wilder. "The moments when you know the world is a better place than advertised. I envy you. You're about to discover the depth of strangeness and beauty the world holds." That attitude is slightly overshadowed by her hesitance to actually help, saying, "Planetary has only an investigative mandate." It's great to see Snow take charge, as quick to do "the right thing" as Wilder is. Snow says of Wagner: "She just wants to play tourist in the place he gave up being human." To her credit, she gives his pledge of assistance no opposition.
Likely setting the stage for quite a number of future developments, the issue is a tremendous success, and advances the relationships between both the Planetary characters and them and the world. Or rather, worlds. | |  Random Thoughts:I wonder if we've already met any of the characters who will ultimately join Wilder as one of the other six crew members. Doc Brass? He makes a cameo here and is already a man out of place in the world, so it's not a bad bet. Snow himself? Ellis has said that Planetary is a finite series, so one never knows. The snowflake, first seen in Issue #1, pops up again, as the name of the terrorist organization that unearths the shiftship, and then in the ship itself. Again I have to comment on Cassaday's art -- what an imagination. The world inside the ship is fittingly breathtaking. So many of today's popular comic artists have plenty of technical skills, but are short on vision. Cassaday has plenty to spare. "Still, the looks on their faces..." Snow's final thoughts are open to interpretation: what were the looks? "Wonder" was my first thought, which makes his thoughts ones of mild admiration. But it's debatable. And in light of future developments, it's possible the correct answer is "relief": Because this is what they were hoping Snow's reaction would be. As you get deeper into the series, it's this theory that makes the most sense. Moments like this are a test that Snow passes. RATING: 10/10. A rippin' good yarn and a beginning with infinite possibilities. |
