posted 11-15-2001 02:44 AM               

Remember how cool I said Planetary: All Over the World is? There’s lots more fun to be had in The Fourth Man, as pieces fall into place and the book’s central conflict comes into view. Ever since he joined the Planetary organization, Elijah Snow has helped uncover the secret history of the world – but there a few private mysteries he’d like to solve. What is Planetary’s real mission? Why do others seem to know about his life than he does? And who is the Fourth Man that bankrolls and orchestrates the team’s adventures? By the end of this book, he finds out – and when he does, the rules of the game change completely.

Ellis does his usual fine job with characterization and dialogue this time out, using flashbacks to explore the history of the Planetary field team (including Elijah’s predecessor, Ambrose Chase) and their relationships with each other. There are the bitter, sarcastic one-liners (no one does cantankerous like Warren Ellis) but also a lot of warmth. There’s one shot of Ambrose holding up his daughter in which he says, “World, this is my daughter. I want you two to be good to each other. Because it’s a strange world out there, and you both need all the help you can get.” It’s a great line, one that sums up the wonder and optimism that are a part of this world, regardless of the craziness of its more twisted corners.

The overall plotting of individual chapters is perhaps a notch below All Over the World, although the ramping up of the overall plot more than compensates for this. In at least one chapter, Ellis went a little too far with the metafictional commentary for my tastes. The opening chapter is a commentary on the evolution of British comics writers from the 80s through the end of the 90s, especially the work that either provided the inspirations for or was a part of DC Comics’ Vertigo line (including Ellis’ own Transmetropolitan, reviewed elsewhere on the site). While there are interesting elements here, and a few important bits of foreshadowing and overall arc advancement, the underlying story is a bit thin in comparison to other chapters – the Planetary team don’t seem like part of the story, but merely commentators on it.

Chapter 10, “Magic and Loss,” is essentially a retelling of the origins of DC’s Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman, and the bad ends that these analogues come to. At first, I thought this was merely Ellis displaying his well-known distaste for the superhero genre. Rereading it, though, I realized that Ellis had stripped each story to its essence, putting in as pure a form as possible the reasons why those characters are the icons they are. So when the characters meet a bad fate at the hands of the Four, we realize that they have taken away something special. If you’ve never heard of Superman or Wonder Woman, the chapter works fine on the literal level; but Ellis is able to take the emotional responses he expects his audience to have and funnel that back into the story. I’m still not sure if this chapter works within the context of the book – in the preceding and subsequent chapters, things are heating up quickly, so “Magic and Loss” is either a welcome interlude or an unwelcome distraction. I still have not decided.

These are small quibbles, though – this book lives up to the standard of its predecessor. I couldn’t wait for the paperback edition to come out, so I bought it in hardcover four months ago – and it was worth every penny. On top of the great dialogue and plotting, John Cassaday, Linda De Puy and David Baron are again at their best. I ran out of superlatives in the last review, so I’m doubly screwed here. But the book is worth the price of admission for Cassaday’s facial expressions alone, on top of which you get his tremendous pacing, awe-inspiring design, fantastic covers, and amazing action visuals, plus the vibrant atmosphere of De Puy and Baron’s colors. Quite a deal if you ask me. So quit wasting your time here, and go read this book.

posted 11-25-2001 01:19 AM               

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At first, I thought this was merely Ellis displaying his well-known distaste for the superhero genre. Rereading it, though, I realized that Ellis had stripped each story to its essence, putting in as pure a form as possible the reasons why those characters are the icons they are. So when the characters meet a bad fate at the hands of the Four, we realize that they have taken away something special.

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I'm wondering if there's some connection between the comic characters Ellis is modeling his own characters after were chosen with some specific ideas in mind, or feelings toward the characters specifically.

I say this because The Four, modeled after Marvel's Fantastic Four (something that, FF fan that I am, I didn't get at first -- go figure), are the clear villains of the piece, and the Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman characters in "Magic and Loss" are pure and innocent (heck, one of them's a baby). Then you've got the Hulk-based character in All Around the World, who's kind of a twisted monster destined for destruction.

I'm not sure if Ellis is going for a clear-cut Marvel/DC split here, and I'm reasonably certain he's not making value judgments on either company's properties, though I'm sure that's possible. Rather, he might be making some sort of commentary on Golden Age versus Silver Age, but I'm not well-versed enough on GL history to know the answer. Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Supes, GL and Wonder Woman were all destined for heroism from the start, whereas Bruce Banner and the FF, while ultimately heroes, were hideous freaks of nature created by humankind's attempts at dominion over nature, which it seems is a goal well within The Four's mission statement. At any rate, I'd like to see his take on, say, Captain America.

posted 11-25-2001 01:35 AM               

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Originally posted by Kevin Ott:

I say this because The Four, modeled after Marvel's Fantastic Four (something that, FF fan that I am, I didn't get at first -- go figure), are the clear villains of the piece, and the Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman characters in "Magic and Loss" are pure and innocent (heck, one of them's a baby). Then you've got the Hulk-based character in All Around the World, who's kind of a twisted monster destined for destruction.

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I think there is something to the use of the FF as villain anlogues, as I alluded to in my All Over the World review. The FF are collectors of knowledge, and yet they don't seem to do a whole lot to improve the lives of non-superheroes. Now, obviously, the reason for this is that companies that maintain superhero universes want to keep them as close to the 'real world' as possible, but I think that Ellis is pointing out the absurdity of looking for heroes in such artificially constructed worlds while suggesting a less-positive way of looking at the FF.

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Rather, he might be making some sort of commentary on Golden Age versus Silver Age, but I'm not well-versed enough on GL history to know the answer.

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The GL origin Ellis parallels here is Silver Age -- the original, Golden Age Green Lantern was not a member of a galactic police force. And while I don't think he's saying DC is better than Marvel, he is taking advantage of the fact that DC heroes were created as fairly flawless heroic archetypes, while Marvel heroes had that aura of freakishness and fallibility about them. The thing is, as people have pointed out, that the DC heroes are flawless archetypes made them less interesting than the flawed, more 'human' characters of the early Marvel era. So there's a certain irony there. But stripped down to the core, there's a greater sense of the awesome and the wondrous in the origins of these three characters, which Ellis gets across well.

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Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that Supes, GL and Wonder Woman were all destined for heroism from the start, whereas Bruce Banner and the FF, while ultimately heroes, were hideous freaks of nature created by humankind's attempts at dominion over nature, which it seems is a goal well within The Four's mission statement.

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What do you mean, destined for heroism? Not to derail the thread, but at the very least GL and WW made choices in order to gain their powers and assume their roles as heroes.

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As for me: Well, as much as I'll always love the purity of Superman's heroism, you gotta admit, it takes a special kind of hero to go on fighting the good fight knowing that there was a time when he was just a regular guy without any special powers. Superman and the Green Lantern were (here I go with this word again) destined for heroism; Ben Grimm chose it because it was the right thing to do.

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posted 11-25-2001 01:52 AM               

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The FF are collectors of knowledge, and yet they don't seem to do a whole lot to improve the lives of non-superheroes.

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Well, they did save the world (twice) from a celestial planet-destroyer who devours planets whole, but we'll just put a pin in that for the time being.

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At the very least GL and WW made choices in order to gain their powers and assume their roles as heroes.

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I guess what I'm pointing out is that it's easier to make the choice that gains you the powers than it is to make the same choice after you've had the powers thrust upon you.

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In many versions of Superman, he didn't get his powers until later in life.

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I was actually thinking after I made the post that Superman wasn't the greatest example, since he very well could have made the choice to use his powers for not-so-pure purposes.

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The difference between Marvel and DC in the 60s is that Marvel would play up the angst of a Ben Grimm, while DC would have its characters act heroic without any doubt or second thought.

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And like I said, I really like the idea of a character who does the right thing without pause -- it gives me something to live up to, and I like characters who are heroic and just by their nature. And if I were to write superheroes, I'd write superheroes like these, or at least these would be the ones closest to my heart. But I think I admire more the guy who makes the choice to do the right thing even though he has the second thought. When someone chooses to be heroic even when that heroism doesn't come naturally, when in fact it's kind of pain in the butt to have to be a hero -- well, that really impresses me.

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In the modern era, I don't think there's any distinction between the companies on this score.

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Agreed here, but I think since Ellis is aiming for the origins of the heroes, those points in the characters' histories are all that's really relevant.

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The thing is, as people have pointed out, that the DC heroes are flawless archetypes made them less interesting than the flawed, more 'human' characters of the early Marvel era.

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posted 11-25-2001 02:18 AM               

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I guess what I'm pointing out is that it's easier to make the choice that gains you the powers than it is to make the same choice after you've had the powers thrust upon you.

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I'd say both choices are equally hard -- choose whether or not to accept the power, knowing the responsibility that comes with it; or choose whether or not to use the power you have responsibly. Do I become a cop, and take on that extra authority but also the extra danger? Do I use my intelligence to profit myself, or others? Neither one's an easy choice.

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I certainly don't agree that a flawless archetype is less interesting than an "everyday" character; I think writing for flawless characters might require a bit more skill, but those characters still have to live in and interact with a world that might not be so flawless, and there's your conflict.

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I dunno -- if there's no internal conflict, I'm not sure you get real drama. The interactions you mention are only interesting if we think they might poke some hole in the character's perfection. It's why Kurt Busiek's Samaritan is more interesting than the early 60s Superman is -- both are selfless, noble characters, but there's a kernel of doubt and weakness -- of humanity -- in Samaritan's nobility.

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Well, they did save the world (twice) from a celestial planet-destroyer who devours planets whole, but we'll just put a pin in that for the time being.

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That gets right to the heart of the issue, and is probably more on topic for a discussion of this book -- comic book superheroes tend to preserve the status quo. They fight off the bad guy who wants to conquer or destroy the world, but they don't use their amazing abilities and knowledge to make a permanent impact on people's lives. They don't end wars, they don't stop famines, etc. They often justify this with some kind of 'normal humans have to do it for themselves' rationale, which just reinforces the distance between the heroes and the life of the average guy.

posted 11-25-2001 02:39 AM               

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They don't end wars, they don't stop famines, etc. They often justify this with some kind of 'normal humans have to do it for themselves' rationale, which just reinforces the distance between the heroes and the life of the average guy.

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Yeah, and Ellis and Millar took this avenue in The Authority, but The Authority still wound up dealing primarily with planet-killers. In the FF's defense, I'd say that, in a world where there's famine, poverty and planet-devourers, I'd definitely ask the super-people to take care of the hundred-foot-tall guy with the big purple G on his chest (how stupid was that?) so that I could safely make it to my job at the local food bank. Certainly, it's nice to see superheroes address more ground-level problems, but in a world full of supernatural and superhuman threats, I'll take all the protection I can get. Don't blame the heroes for the state of comics over the years, or the threats their writers have thrown at them, and don't say they're less than noble because they're too busy dealing with alien invasions to volunteer at the Humane Society.

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I'd say both choices are equally hard -- choose whether or not to accept the power, knowing the responsibility that comes with it; or choose whether or not to use the power you have responsibly.

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posted 11-25-2001 03:34 AM               

Yeah, superheroes in the 1960s and (especially) after were pretty self-involved, and the whole soap-opera thing got annoying after a while. Hell, I was an X-fan in the early 90s, so I'm well aware of how self-obsessed superhero comics are capable of being. But Marvel in the 60s also showcased the notion that regular people are just as capable of being heroic as someone who was built to be heroic. And no matter how many flaws came with it, that was a beautiful thing.

We should be in a constant state of re-examination and revision when it comes to our heroes, both on the page and in real life. But while we should always be careful not to give cart-blanche canonization to individuals with flaws, we should also be careful not to ignore virtues when we find flaws. I'm not saying Ellis is necessarily doing this with The Four, but when you do what Ellis is doing, you come dangerously close to throwing out the baby with the bathwater, or at least inadvertantly encouraging your readers to do so.

posted 11-25-2001 04:13 AM               

Now, as to the more specific point as to whether Ellis is being fair to the FF, I can see where you're coming from. I disagree, but as I said, it may be because I never liked the FF to the degree that you do. I do think Snow's point in All Over the World raises a very valid critique of the FF and similar superheroes and the way we treat them. Reed Richards is shown as having the down time to do research and make fantastic discoveries; if Marvel isn't willing to show Richards share the benefits of those discoveries, then to a degree, Marvel loses the right to call Richards a hero, and we should start looking elsewhere for tales of heroism. At the least, we should start questioning our acceptance of the ground rules Marvel and DC set up to maintain their superhero universes.

posted 12-06-2001 12:41 AM               

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Originally posted by Dave Thomer:
So I don't think it's fair to say that Ellis isn't following his own rules -- he's doing a multitude of things at different points, and leaving that to the reader to determine.

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I'm always in favor of making the reader work for his supper, and I'm also all for bringing up questions that may not have easy answers, or indeed have answers at all. But even given Dave's points, I still see a number of superhero analogues being used for a number of purposes, and a set of FF analogues used as the Evil Bad Guys. Now, probably that means the FF was the best choice for Ellis to use given the point he wanted to make about superheroes, and I can go with that. And you might even say that Planetary exist as FF analogues as well, and that The Four embody everything potentially harmful about superheroes or the FF and Planetary embodies everything potentially noble, but the fact remains that The Four are almost exactly like the FF. The woman is invisible. They got their powers in the exact same way. They're called The Four. (Hey, at least they use a more modest nomenclature than the FF.)

Now, given all this, you can't tell me that Ellis isn't somehow trying to make a comment about the FF specifically. If you're going to say he's not, then I think he's just pulling a fast one on his readers. I'm not sure you can say that they have the same origins, the same powers, the same gender ratio, the same basic character types and are extremely similarly named, but because one is good and one is evil, we shouldn't be quick to draw connections between the two.

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Reed Richards is shown as having the down time to do research and make fantastic discoveries; if Marvel isn't willing to show Richards share the benefits of those discoveries, then to a degree, Marvel loses the right to call Richards a hero, and we should start looking elsewhere for tales of heroism. At the least, we should start questioning our acceptance of the ground rules Marvel and DC set up to maintain their superhero universes.

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Well, Richards was characterized as being kind of addlebrained when it came to everything but science and superheroing, so you could use that to color him either as someone so brilliant that he didn't really live in the real world, or as as someone so emotionally dead that he can't see the impact of his discoveries. I prefer to view that as a colorful character trait more than a reason for the failing of a hero. Heroes can be fallible, but they're still heroes. They still save the world.

And in his defense, Richards did use a lot of his discoveries to fight bad guys, and he also went on a lot about the doors of discovery that his research could open up. He never tried to keep it from anyone, he just got bored easily and moved on to new projects as he finished the old ones (I'm not saying Ellis is saying any of this, by the way, I'm just trying to explain Reed's character a little more).

And if you're going to complain about FF members being self-involved, there are plenty of other things to complain about, from Sue Storm's obsessions with designer fashions to Johnny Storm's libidinous cravings, and the fact that he often seemed more interested in fixing his car than making the world a better place. Don't get on Reed Richards' case because he sought knowledge; get on his wife's case because she sought new shoes.

posted 01-14-2002 11:51 PM               

What do you think about the rest of the story, though? I think Chapter 11's James Bond/Nick Fury homage was rather well done, especially as we got to see some scenes of a younger Snow in action. I'm less sure about the Ambrose Chase story -- it certainly adds a certain tension to things, and lays on a heavy layer of foreboding, and introduces Chase as a pretty nifty character. Hmm. Now I'm wondering why I'm not so sure about it. Do you think the self-referential nature of the cliche about black people in science fiction stories absolves the story of falling into that cliche?

And for the record, when my kid is born, I'm cribbing Chase's introduction.

posted 01-19-2002 11:42 AM               

That got me thinking about the first two films. Sam Jackson's character served as Purina Raptor Chow even after he made a number of contributions (which, I think, were later rendered null and void by the raptors, causing the white people in the movie to have to fix things themselves), but in the second film, a teenaged black girl pulled some pretty heroic (if pretty cheesy) moves and lived to tell the tale.

But then, there's always Blade (I've never read the comic, but I'm pretty sure Wesley Snipes is a black guy; otherwise that joke in Passenger 57 wouldn't have made sense). And I guess Spawn was a black guy too. (Granted, his white best friend wound up providing for his wife and daughter after he got himself killed and made a deal with the devil, which is arguably a foolish and irresponsible move if the devil doesn't look like Elizabeth Hurley, but hey, it's a start.)