I never got into Planetary while it was running, despite my admiration for both Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. I remember buying the first trade when I started investigating Warren Ellis's work (I was just getting into Vertigo, and I had enjoyed The Authority). For some reason Planetary didn't grab me, but Transmetropolitan did, and I later sold the trade. So now that the series is finally done, I thought I'd give it another go. I've got all four trades, and plan to read one a week, starting next week. Is anyone interested in reading along, or have read it recently enough that you'd enjoy discussing it?
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I would definitely follow along on a discussion, but I don't know how much input I would have. I don't want to commit to re-reading it, and then never doing so.
I have all of the issues, including the Batman, JLA, and Authority crossovers. I will make it my goal to at the very least discuss, and at the very most, re-read and discuss with you.
I loved Planetary when it began, but fell off the train somewhere between the gang slowing down the output and a couple of years I had to give up buying new comics.
I'd love to read alonga this. I always wnated to finish it, but will have to try to put together the books. The library only has 'crossing worlds', and I have vol 2 somewhere and will have to acquitre the rest wherever I can. In the middle of all that, I'm going on a long trip to Ireland shortly and that'd disrupt things too.
So is it 4 regular volumes + the 'Crossing Worlds' collection of Crossovers? 5 vols in total?
Yes, that's right. But Crossing Worlds is out of print right now, so I wasn't planning to read it. I suppose I could try for an interlibrary loan copy, just to be complete. Naturally the whole idea of those crossovers makes me a bit reluctant to start with!
Assuming I can get my hands on a copy of Crossing Worlds, where in the sequence should it be read? I'm assuming that it's probably out of the main Planetary continuity, but it's just a guess. Some of you have read those stories: what would you recommend? Here's what one Planetary site lists:
Planetary Preview: Nuclear Spring
1: All Over The World
2: Island
3: Dead Gunfighters
4: Strange Harbours
5: The Good Doctor
6: It's a Strange World
7: To Be in England, in the Summertime
8: The Day the Earth Turned Slower
9: Planet Fiction
10: Magic and Loss
Planetary/Authority: Ruling the World
11: Cold World
12: Memory Cloud
13: Century
14: Zero Point
15: Creation Songs
Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta
Planetary/The Batman: Night on Earth
16: Hark
17: Opak-Re
18: The Gun Club
19: Mystery in Space
20: Rendezvous
21: Death Machine Telemetry/ The Consultation
22: The Torture of William Leather
23: Percussion
24: Systems
25: In from the Cold
26: Untitled
27: Untitled (series epilogue)
From what I've read on the internet just today, the crossovers all 'count' even though they are kind of set in alternative worlds and different publishing arms.
I thought at the time that the Planetary people lived on the same Earth as the Authority, but it looks now like that isn't the case. Good thing too.
I recently got into Planetary in the form of the trade collections, and really enjoyed them. I’ve read them all and have them at my fingertips. I’ll follow along and comment when I have something to add.
I also thought originally that Planetary was same Earth as Authority, but no. Planetary itself has to be one of the best written and drawn stories in a long time. Re-visiting the pulp heroes for one thing was a great idea and done in a much better way than some other pulp revivals. The first time we meet Snow in that weird diner hooked me and Jakita Wagner, well, what can you say? Plus an evil F.F.
Just read the first 2 vols of Whedon-Cassiday's X-Men, and the art there is wonderful, so all the more keen to start reading Planetary. I enjoyed it in my first readthrough of half of it in mothly format, but it didn't really hang together as a complete story in my head, so it'll be good to experience it as a comics-novel, complete with that long-delayed ending.
Glad to see so much interest. I'm going to start on Vol. 1 tomorrow, but it's the only one I brought with me to the beach this week. So you should have plenty of time to receive Vol. 3-4, Figs. I did place an interlibrary loan request for Crossing Worlds on Wednesday. So with any luck I'll have it by the time I start Vol. 2, and can insert those stories into the reading order as the list up above suggests.
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