Planetary, why is Fantastic Four the villain?

[Kid Kyoto]

Just a thought...

Planetary is about rediscovering, reintroducing and reinterpreting all sorts of pop culture madness from Japanese monster movies to James Bond to the pulps to Victorian penny dreadfuls.

their arch-enemy is the Four a Fantastic Four analogue who want to destroy/hide/control all these wonderful things.

So why them?

There's a meta text comment in Planetary about comic books and entertainment and I think it could be comment on the stagnation of mainstream superhero comics. Lee and Kirby did a good job. But since the 60s almost every comic has followed in their footsteps. Planetary's struggle agianst the FF could be a symbol for the larger struggle to get American comics out of their rut of spandex & capes.

Is there anything to this?

[K'Nort]

Or he asked to write FF and Marvel said no.

They also did a villian Avengers in Authority so there may have been a larger master plan that they weren't able to bring together.

[Expletive Deleted]

They also did a villian Avengers in Authority so there may have been a larger master plan that they weren't able to bring together.That was Millar.

[The Adventurer]

And Ellis got to write Fantastic Four. Ultimate Fantastic Four. And it wasn't very good, like all his "legacy character" work.

[Donald M.]

Just a thought...

Planetary is about rediscovering, reintroducing and reinterpreting all sorts of pop culture madness from Japanese monster movies to James Bond to the pulps to Victorian penny dreadfuls.

their arch-enemy is the Four a Fantastic Four analogue who want to destroy/hide/control all these wonderful things.

So why them?

There's a meta text comment in Planetary about comic books and entertainment and I think it could be comment on the stagnation of mainstream superhero comics. Lee and Kirby did a good job. But since the 60s almost every comic has followed in their footsteps. Planetary's struggle agianst the FF could be a symbol for the larger struggle to get American comics out of their rut of spandex & capes.

Is there anything to this?

Possibly. I'll tell you what, right or wrong it's an intriguing notion.

[Kid Kyoto]

While bumming around this World Wide Super Infohighway we have today I found this site:

http://home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/pageMain.htm

Which agrees with my theory and adds the point that in comics we have groups like the FF or the JLA running around doing great things but then keeping them from the rest of the world. Why haven't superheroes cured cancer? Or given FTL ships to NASA? Or shared (insert wonderful thing here)? Snow mentions that when they go to Four Voyager's Plaza.

We as fans know why, because then we would have significantly different world and comics try to be our world+superheroes. But it is a weakness comic universes have.

[K'Nort]

That was Millar.

Yeah, that's why I said they. In case it was more a Wildstorm editorial idea.

[DDX]

All the other types of pulp fiction but superhero comics are pretty much dead; all comics except superhero ones are of strictly limited readership. A version of one of the canonical premier superhero teams being the force of evil suppressing all the other forms being interepreted in Planetary sort of makes sense.

[Paul McEnery]

It's about corporations stealing creators' work and parasitizing it.

The huge example is Marvel stealing from Kirby.

Hence FF.

And the movie just goes to prove the point.

[Tobias March]

Which agrees with my theory and adds the point that in comics we have groups like the FF or the JLA running around doing great things but then keeping them from the rest of the world. Why haven't superheroes cured cancer? Or given FTL ships to NASA? Or shared (insert wonderful thing here)? Snow mentions that when they go to Four Voyager's Plaza.
.

In the Holmesian issue of Planetary Ellis makes an explicit reference to H.G. Welles' The Open Conspiracy which alledges that vast leaps in technology are being made, yet the average individual is being left in the dark.

Super heroes in Ellis' eyes are members of a similar 'open conspiracy'. They have vast powers but don't actually make the world a better place. They just maintain the status quo. This is the idea behind The Authority - what if they decided to remake the world?

The Fantastic Four are an obvious converse to that -- they were Kirby's 'imaginauts', would seek out strange new worlds, but the knowledge they gain is Reed's. It is not shared with the world. There is no sinister dimension to this in the Marvel comics, but Ellis just put his own spin on this scenario and the result was a machiavellian Four. See Terra Occulta:JLA/Planetary for a more direct elabouration of the ideas behind Planetary.

Nice question.

[Alpha to Omega]

It's about corporations stealing creators' work and parasitizing it.

The huge example is Marvel stealing from Kirby.

Hence FF.

And the movie just goes to prove the point.

Except there was no theft as Kirby knew he was doing work-for-hire.

[Mr. Croup]

I can remember where I read it, but the Four was supposed to represent how the popularity of Marvel in the 1960's and 70's overshadowed DC.

[kane]

Super heroes in Ellis' eyes are members of a similar 'open conspiracy'. They have vast powers but don't actually make the world a better place. They just maintain the status quo. This is the idea behind The Authority - what if they decided to remake the world?


In Superman or other books it is often said, that it is better for the humanity the super heroes do not too much. The humans should develop without the help of super beeings, who do the work for them.

[Chris Thomas]

Interestingly, as mentioned above, the 'planetary/jla' crossover (not really a crossover, I guess) has a different take on this concept

a few SPOILERS below--if you haven't read the 'terra occulta' crossover:

the 'bad guys' in that one were the planetary team itself (snow and the rest.) and the jla (in slightly different manifestations) are out to stop them. really, mainly just bruce wayne.. the other 2 biggies are along for the ride.

It details the fact that snow and planetary have basically 'exploited' several superpowers in order to make themselves more powerful. for instance, they use the atom's science for surgery, and the flashes speed force to create a messenger/delivery service--and more stuff like that.

but, in my opinion, that 'crossover' is the opposite of the original planetary--in other words, they are suppressing the emergence of superheroes in order to serve the general populace. the only evil part is that they 'hold all the patents' so to speak.

[Frank]

I read a great theory a few years ago: around 1999 Warren Ellis was asked to revamp Marvel in a 12-issues series. Reading the first few scripts, the editors felt there was not enough fighting and super-heroes so they nixed the idea, right?. So Ellis takes the idea elsewhere and front it as something that will make people discover the Wildstorm Universe. What we see really is not much anything Wildstorm but three "archeologists" if you will showing us every icons in every fictional Worlds with Marvel concepts being feathured prominently there. In the continuing Ellis styles` fashion like his other Marvel work "Ruin" it`s pretty much a dark rendition of most characters and concepts and these three people little by little discovering there`s a great conspiracy behind it.

Now pictures if this was really the MU. Ellis deconstruct everything. He`s asking why such and such things happened, why these characters are doing what they did. Like why with all the great knowledge they`ve gained over time, with the great World they visited, the great toys they found and have ammased...the Fantastic Four kept all of it for themselves and never let the population have access to it to ameliorate the conditions of mankind? That`s what The Four in Planetary are all about. That`s why they`re villains. But in that Planetary book they`re sinister to the bone and that`s it, right? But you would transpose this idea to the good guys FF, they would have a good reason to do it. Plus if you remember they made every efforts possible so that every paranormal, superhuman elements have been estinguished. All in all a great reason for that would be that the FF(The Four in Planetary) have done all of it so that they are getting rid of everything that is so out-of-the ordinary so to hide the Planet Earth from..something. Something that is coming to the Earth to destroy it. Like a big extraterrestial freak with a big purple helmet.

As for the equivalent of light-haired immortal Elyja Snow at Marvel? How about Ulysses Bloodstone?

[Tobias March]

As for the equivalent of light-haired immortal Elyja Snow at Marvel? How about Ulysses Bloodstone?

Which makes me all the more excited for Next Wave, given that Bloodstone's daughter is involved.

Never heard that before, that's a fine idea.