| SYNOPSIS: Diana Prince sits on a park bench in New York City, writing a letter of lament to her mother (who we later learn is dead). The technology we see around her when she leaves the park indicates the future, but we soon realize it is
an alternate reality in which "Planetary Portals" can transport her to Gotham City in the blink of an eye. Shortly after her arrival, she meets up with millionaire Bruce Wayne, feigning intoxication at a party, and joins him at his mansion, where he has scheduled a clandestine meeting that also includes journalist Clark Kent. Wayne reveals that the four individuals known as Planetary -- Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, Ambrose Chase, and The Drummer -- who rule the world from their base of operations on the moon are actually thieves and murderers, who control everything through ultratechnology and brilliant advances stolen from scientists and various would-be superheroes (Barry Allen, for example). They are also responsible for the murder of Kent's parents and the razing of Smallville, to cover up their theft of his spacecraft's interstellar secrets; and the murder of Diana's people through the destruction of her island, to prevent their advances from being shared with humanity. Wayne enlists the pair in his fight against the four, but when they reach the lab of a scientist whose project Wayne means to utilize, they run into a problem: Ambrose Chase. Overcoming him, they use his personal teleporter to transport themselves to the moon. They are quickly detected and Kent is killed, but the two remaining "Justice League" members prevail, brutally killing the evil Wagner and Snow. The world is now theirs.
REVIEW: Boy, where to start? This would be one short review if I took to heart the old "If you can't say something nice...." credo. So I'll just say what I thought and move on.
First off, with all due respect to artist Jerry Ordway, a comics great who has done some fine work over the years, it seems safe to say that this series would never have gotten off the ground had he been drawing the book since Day One. I can assure you that there would never have been this web site. Ordway is a talented, technically excellent artist, and there are some great pages here. The inside back cover is brilliant. And on the bright side, his unpleasant and rather unattractive, perhaps intentionally so, renditions of Snow and (particularly) Jakita make it a lot easier to forget that these are versions of the characters we've grown to love over the past three years. But John Cassaday's work is beautiful. Without question we've been spoiled by his gorgeous and lush renderings; but having been so spoiled, it will be hard for regular fans of the book to accept anyone else. Depressing as the gap between recent issues has been (13 months and counting since Issue #15) I think I'm glad the book hasn't come out with a different artist. Relieved, one might say.
Moving on though, the other problem here is that because we've waited a year, there's a certain sentiment that you'd like to see the characters themselves. Instead we get the Bizarro Planetary, a group of horrible killers whose words and deeds echo those of "our" Planetary's arch-nemeses, The Four. Several lines, in fact, are virtually identical to ones spoken by William Leather (Issue #6) and Randall Dowling (basically whenever he slithers into the series). But while there's a momentary sense of appreciation for the cleverness, there's also a feeling of disappointment. This is not JLA/Planetary. It's JLA/The Four. They just happen to be wearing Planetary's clothes and faces.
You could argue that although Planetary is cast as The Four, the JLA is cast as Planetary, and indeed there is a certain similarity between Wayne's presentation to his JLA and Snow's presentations to his Planetary in the regular series. But I think it's kind of a stretch. To me this is just DC's greatest heroes vs. Planetary's greatest foes, and it would be hard to dispute that even the actual confrontations are somewhat awkward and rushed. Jakita's defeat happens off-panel; Snow's defeat largely underrates the character's abilities (although of course, this is the "Elseworlds Snow"; and The Drummer is apparently forgotten about entirely. Only the Clark Kent/Ambrose Chase confrontation is worth the price of admission; their battle is pretty darn cool. But on the whole it sure seems like they squeezed the conclusion into a smaller number of pages than they'd hoped for.
Leaving out the art, your appreciation of this one-shot will depend primarily on how clever you find the concept of Dark Planetary in a fairly bland adventure involving a time machine that does little of note and a battle between the noble and scarred JLA and the utterly evil Planetary. For me, it wasn't enough.
| |  Random Thoughts:Can I get some memory blocks, please?
Seriously though, there were some things I enjoyed about this issue. It was great to see Ambrose Chase again. It was a nice touch when Clark Kent crushed Chase's gun into his hand -- just as Jakita did to Ambrose's killer in Issue #9. Poor Ambrose Chase; such a cool character, but he fares no better in Elseworlds than he does in our reality.
I'm sure everyone already recognized that the Diana Prince character here is the same character seen in Issue #10. Perhaps less obvious (unless you're familiar with Martian Manhunter's origins) is that the short-lived alien and the scientist who brings him from the past owe their lineage to that DC character.
Other cameos include Barry Allen, The Atom, a whole mess of Green Lanterns, and Doomsday. None of whom make out very well in the Planetary-ruled universe.
How exactly was Wayne intending to utilize Dr. Erdel's invention, do you suppose? I'm kind of curious about that one.
If this one-shot turns JLA fans on to Planetary, that's great, but since we still have no real idea when #16 will appear, it might be kind of a moot point. I guess they'll sell some trade paperbacks...
For the record, the delay since #15 didn't help my appreciation of this issue, since as I said, it didn't feature the "real" characters. But I tend to doubt I'd have liked it even if we were seeing the actual Planetary on a regular basis. I mean, Warren Ellis and Cassaday spent a lot of effort getting us to really hate The Four, and were quite effective at it. Seeing Snow and Jakita wearing their souls....you know, it just wasn't very pleasant.
Although my lack of fondness for the art is clear, I really did like the both the front and back (inside) covers. It's not Ordway's fault that Cassaday has made these characters for us, or me anyway. A lot of fine artists haven't done the Silver Surfer as well as Jack Kirby, or Dr. Strange as well as Steve Ditko.
Here's hoping we get #16 someday soon.
RATING: 3/10. No sir, I didn't like it. |
