Century Babies and Multiversal Snowflakes

Planetary #27 released this week, a few dinosaur years after the penultimate issue, and a little piece of comics history is finally complete.



Planetary is science fiction at its very, very best. A Warren Ellis creation, the comic has unique takes on life, death, souls, the universe, micro/macro scale realities and a number of other concepts, ably supported by a good plot which is simple to understand. A known superhero hater, Ellis has taken classy digs at most superheroes imaginable, in fact the villains are a highly skewed version of the Fantastic Four. Also included are several classic fictional characters in their familiar forms or as obvious inspirations, ranging from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond. It's not unlike League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in a way.

The basic premise of Planetary is that the title is the name of an organisation of "mystery archaelogists" who are always looking out for weird stuff to save and protect as they wish to ensure that the world stays strange because that is how it is supposed to be. And indeed, over the series, it gives food for thought over a good number of things which we take for granted, or worse, don't even bother contemplating. And just like Transmetropolitan, Ellis makes sure that it never gets too heavy and there are more than sufficient doses of action and humour. The characters are unique and typical of Ellis, although they do fall into the clearly defined roles of "the cool, aloof hero", "the all action star", "the maverick young 'un", "the megalomaniac arch-enemy" etc etc. The main character, Elijah Snow, is recruited into it (and more, but that would be a spoiler). Snow is also a "century baby" - people who were born on January 1, 1900 and all of whom are gifted with powers and functional immortality (pretty sure Midnight's Children was an inspiration). Another concept at the the heart of the series is the snowflake shaped structure of the multiverse where every facet is a 2-D universe. Quite interesting, that.

Planetary also has one of the best Batman one-shots ever. It's a pity that Ellis is so allergic to superhero stuff. The very few superhero related stuff he has done (and I have read) are top draw.

It's one of the comics every comic reader must read otherwise their lives will be sadder for missing out on them. It's as simple as that.