Dave-El's Book Report: The Planetary Omnibus

Before I get to the object of today's post, I want to take a moment to catch up on whatever the hell is going on with Neil Gaiman.

As I wrote about here last year, Gaiman's reputation took quite a hit as multiple allegations were made that he had sexually assaulted women.  

In the intervening months since that post, the picture has not gotten much better for Neil Gaiman. 

Gaiman and his estranged wife, Amanda Palmer, were sued in federal court last month for alleged sexual assault and trafficking by Scarlett Pavlovich, one of the women who made those allegations last year.

Gaiman has produced several text messages with Pavlovich that he says refutes her accusations that her sexual encounters with Gaiman were not consensual. 

Whatever case Neil Gaiman may make in his defense that the cases against him of sexual assault never happened or were actually consensual, it seems the world has come to the conclusion that Gaiman is now persona non grata.  

Projects associated with Gaiman have been cancelled or curtailed all over and even past works, like DC's successful Sandman trades, have become pariahs in the marketplace. 

I'm covering this ground because the book I'm writing about today was written by a once very popular British writer whose rep was ruined by sexual impropriety.

When artist John Cassady died last year,  I realized I never completed reading Planetary, the signature series he created with writer Warren Ellis and so I put the Omnibus on my Christmas list which Andrea got for me.  

Planetary is an organization that exists in a world like our own but all the weird shit that goes down in genre fiction (comic books, sci-fi novels and movies, etc) really does happen but it's all being suppressed and hidden which represses the growth and development of human kind. 

Planetary is on a mission to investigate phenomena associated with alien invaders, mutated lizards, super powered beings, ghost detectives and more.

Their motto: "The world is strange. Let's keep it that way." 

At the core of the narrative is the Planetary field team:

• Elijah Snow, a 100+ year old curmudgeon dragged from self imposed exile to rejoin the world. He has cyrogenic powers that uses in the (excuse the pun) coolest ways.  
• Jakita Wagner, a leather suited femme fatale with super strenght and speed
• The Drummer (no other name), a beatnik with the ability to talk to machines and information is his super power. 

Elijan Snow is the book's center, his wonder at new things to discover and his anger that there are forces in this world who seek to hide these wonders for their own greedy and nefarious purposes.  Elijah is very much a grump gus who tends to infuriate anyone around him immediately but there is no denying his dedicationj, his pursuit of justice, justice for a Planetary member long assumed to be dead and justice for a world kept too long in the dark.   

This book is inventive and thought provoking, a complex and multi-layered journey through a multiverse of possibilities and wonders, of secrets and conspiracies.  

The omnibus includes the Planetary series that ran for 27 issues from April 1999 to October 2009 plus 3 specials that crossed over with The Authority, Justice League and The Batman. 

The two team specials do not do a lot for me but the Batman issue is a bit of fun as Ejijah, Jakita and the Drummer visit a Gotham City that is in a multiversal flux where Batman keeps shifting personas from page to page or even panel to panel. Like from Adam West TV Batman to Frank Miller's dystopian Dark Knight. 

All in all, Planetary is a wonderful display of the terrific talents of Warren Ellis and John Cassady. 

While I knew of Cassady's sad fate from his passing last year, I was somehow unaware of what was up with Warren Ellis. 

Nothing good it seems.

In June 2020, Warren Ellis was accused of "sexual coercion, manipulation, gaslighting and other forms of emotional abuse".

Ellis responded to these accusations that he had not considered that others would see him as having "a position of power and privilege.  I have hurt many people that I had no intention of hurting. I am culpable. I take responsibility for my mistakes. I will do better and for that, I apologize."

While a number of women consider that Ellis has been contrite and genuinely apologetic for his actions, the damage to his rep is considerable enough that he has not had any new comics work published in years.  

Future editions of Dave-El's Book Report will include another graphic novel from Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips and I've got Patrick Stewart's memoir on tap as well.