Rating: 
Summary: Great stuff, but prior knowledge required.
Review: Continuing the trend of revisionist tales based on comic book company universes that was begun with Alan Moore's Miracleman and the Watchmen, and Frank Miller's Batman: Dark Knight Returns; Warren Ellis and John Cassaday's Planetary gives the trend an interesting X-File-ish spin. While I enjoy the series and recommend it to any long-time comic book fan, I have to say that, like Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come, you really have to have been reading comics for some time to get the most out of the book. How many people would know that the ghost of the police officer damned to act as a spirit of vengence in Planetary #3 is both a homage to John Woo's Hong Kong action films as well as a update of DC Comic's Spectre? I must say Ellis recasting the Fantastic Four in such a sinister light is really refreshing. Includes the very hard to find Planetary preview/revisionist view of Marvel Comic's the Hulk which appeared in Gen13 #33. People who enjoy this series should also check out Ellis and Bryan Hitch's excellent work on The Authority #1-12, (oft referred to as the JLA or Avengers, "finally done right")the first eight issues of which will soon be reprinted in The Authority: Relentless trade paperback.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Read Especially for the older comic book fans.
Review: Did you ever read comics back in the 80's? The larger than life stories... the classic Hulk, Doc Savage, alternate worlds, monsters and aliens?Then you will truly appreciate and love this trade. Boy, did Ellis and Cassaday bring back memories. And yet with a fresh spin. It is one of those few trades you can read over and over again as it has quite a number of subtleties in the art and dialogue that you do not notice in story the first few times around.
Rating:
Summary: Didn't want to stop reading, didn't want it to end!
Review: I know I'm reading a great graphic novel when I'm torn between wanting to read it straight through to the end in one sitting and forcing myself to take it slowly to make it last as long as possible. This is one of the great ones. Planetary is sort of a cross between the X-files and Allen Moore's *League of Extraordinary Gentlemen*, retaining the "Truth is out there" paranoia of the former and the basic premise of the latter (extraordinary humans brought together by unknown "boss" to solve mysteries). Instead of drawing from 19th century Victorian literature (a la Moore in League), however, Warren Ellis instead delves into Nuclear Age comic book-mythos: 1940s Doc Savage-type supermen, Monster Island, a vengeful, supernatural ghost-cop and a lost, inter-dimensional spaceship requiring willing humans to pilot it back home, respectively. As a previous reviewer mentioned, Ellis re-casts alot of comic book characters into the mix, few of whom fare too well in this X-Files-esque world(Doc Savage doesn't age,sleep ,eat or presumably go to the bathroom for over 50 years; the Hulk is buried in a 5-mile deep hole till he dies 40 years later; Godzilla, Gidhra and Mothra are all worm food; and the meeting between heroes of 2 dimensions a la Justice League/Justice Society ends with all but one member dead.) Chapter One introduces us to Planetary's version of Mulder and Scully - one a surly, hundred yr old cold manipulating newbie to the group with a mysterious past; the other a butt-kicking, one-dimensional, A-typed personality whose in it soley because it keeps her from boredom. The group is rounded out by the crazed Drummer (who serves as the wacky yet technologically proficent "Lone Gunman")And it just keeps getting better! I look forward to more from this series!
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting idea flatly carried out
Review: I like the premise behind this book, which I won't get into since 22 other people have already fleshed that out, as I usually like Ellis' ideas. Yet plans and their executions are two different things entirely (think episode 1). Now I will admit that most of the classic characters encountered in "All over the world and other Stories" were lost to me and I had to look them up online after reading, but that doesn't change my opinion upon reading them with this knowledge. The fact remains that the dialogue is poor, character development ZERO (minus a bit by Elijah Snow), and stories only brushed over instead of developed. This treatment of the individual plots made them seem so cheap. As for the idea that Ellis has good ideas but poor(er) execution, check out Mek where the central idea is cool but it comes off as cheap and clich?. Also to be noted here is the fact that Planetary was already done by The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The subjects differeent, basic idea the same though. Approach this book with a taste for fairly shallow, quick, entertainment, not a taste for high adventure, stellar writing, or deep character and other development.
Rating: 
Summary: Amibitious, yet underdeveloped
Review: I'm a fan of Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series, so I thought I'd try out Planetary, based on some strong recommendations. The art and the plot are relatively strong: expansive and wildly imaginative. What seems to have been forgotten was character development. With the exception of the enigmatic Elijah Snow, the other two main characters are bland stick figures. I was unable to identify and uninterested in them. Because of this, Planetary comes off as somewhat pedestrian. I'm sure the character development progressed over the course of the series, but this book by itself just isn't all that intriguing. I suggest you try Transmetropolitan if you're looking for someting a bit more innovative.
Rating:
Summary: Cross your fingers
Review: If Ellis manages to finish this series and pulls off what he's hinting at in this book and its sequel, this series will be equal to Talbot's Adventures of Luther Arkwright. (Some wag named Don Ersperm said Talbot wrote the pinnacle.) This is top-notch insanity by one of the most focused brains in comics. The art is science fiction Art Nouveau, which makes it utterly unlike anything else in comics. Nobody comes close to Cassaday in illustration in comics. I really hope DC publishes the final package in one of those oversized hard cover volumes that Marvel's making now.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshed My Faith in "New" Comic Books
Review: If you haven't picked up a comic because of what it became in the mid 90's, pick this one up. It's been about 3 years since I last dabbled in comic books. Now I find what I read to read is up to par with what I enjoy afterI leave a comic book store.
I consider myself an avid reader and this was my first encounter with Warren Ellis. Some may compare him with Grant Morrison but he is completely his own being.I think that great writers complement each other's work and in this case, I concur.
YOU SHOULD REALLY BUY THIS BOOK, if you like great storytelling and wonderful art.I regret not buying this book earlier and am now on a mission to buy every single issue of this series.
You may have heard comparisons to this an other things but be warned.You cannot begin to describe how amazing Planetary is.
The story is fluid and the charecters seem to have a sense of who they are.The creators of this series have an incredible imagination and the story has much foder to keep the reader in tune til the very end.YOU SHOULD REALLY PICK THIS ONE UP.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent series - if only they came out more regularly
Review: Perfection must take time. Warren Ellis' "Planetary" series are certainly the best comic books I've read in a long time(and that's saying something). And John Cassaday's art is simply superb. If only they could produce issues more regularly. Not since Alan Moore's Swamp Thing have I seen majesty and claustrophobic conspiracies dealt with so marvelously. Ellis has created three wonderful main characters - but it's not really ABOUT the characters (not yet, anyway...). It's about mining the depths of popular culture for the mysteries that underlie some of our great 20th century icons. These people are archeologists of mystery. What if Godzilla and Mothra were real? Wouldn't someone want to cover it up? What if Superman really came to Earth? Wouldn't our long distance space tracking stations have detected his spaceship and sent someone there to grab the Kryptonian infant when he landed? What if it turned out that John Woo actually based his characters on real Hong Kong cops? And the pop-culture references go on: Wonder Woman, Little Nemo in Slumberland, the giant ants from "Them", the Hulk, Doc Savage, the Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, Captain Marvel, Hellblazer, the Fantastic Four...
"Superheroes in the real world" is a cliche. But make no mistake, this is not the real world. And it ain't X-Files for superheroes either (well, not really). Instead it is a world as much full of wonder and majesty as it is full of darkness and danger. Hey, if Buffy's Joss Wheedon and the amazing Alan Moore both like this book enough to write introductions for it - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!! Buy it already.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Work All Around
Review: Planetary, a team of superhuman archelogists, is a uniformly excellent series, and an interesting take on the superhero. Warren Ellis, who has stated on more than one occassion he doesn't care for the superhero genre, weighs in with his take on the field, with vaguely familiar characters dancing in the backgrounds of his stories. There are a lot of treats to reading Planetary. One is Ellis' sick, twisted imagination, where a group that looks vaguely like Grant Morrison's JLA is suddenly on an emergency mission of genocide, or where the Fantastic Four is re-imagined as a group of Nazis (which does get down to answering the question on why Reed Richards' inventions never seem to help anyone but himself and his family in a rather nasty way). Part of the fun is to try and guess who Ellis is ripping on at any given moment. Another treat is the story itself. Dealing with the exploits of the Drummer, Jakita Wagner, and the amnesiac Elijah Snow as the three encounter odd phenomena after phenomena. And despite being rather formidably powered, the trio rarely gets physically involved. It's not why they're there. They're there to put together the pieces behind a grand conspiracy, and though most chapters can easily stand alone, the added effect of reading all six at once adds to the whole in ways unseen and unappreciable any other way. A final treat is artist John Cassaday. This book is clearly as much about his excellent visuals as it is Ellis' writing, and his re-imagining of the looks of classic and recognizable characters adds to the fun, as does his detail work. ...
Rating:
Summary: Easily Warren's Greatest Trade Paperback out there...
Review: Planetary,planetary. What more shall I say. Warren Ellis has honed in on the blueprints to pay homage to past historical events of fiction, whether from graphic literature or films and does it with his creative excellence that he is so well respected for. Furthermore his scripts are accompanied by phenomonal art executed by the great John Cassaday. Their work compliments each other graciously. As the first six issues of a series that will only seem to get better,start the ride here and enjoy cloud 9 til the very end. I did,so join in on the fun or be left missing out.
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