On September 9, 2024, Eisner Award successful comedian artist John Cassaday handed away on the too-young age of 52. He was broadly mourned by his business friends and followers, who by no means labored with or met Cassaday, have misplaced any new fruits of his nice expertise. Earlier than he grew to become an artist, Cassaday studied movie in faculty. As soon as you realize that, his drawing type actually clicks into place. Cassaday usually drew big photographs (each in large and normal panels), the type a film display calls for, and his characters had detailed, photorealistic faces. It is no shock he broke into comics through the mid-90s, when that type was taking off. If I might examine his work to a fellow artist, it will be Bryan Hitch (“The Ultimates,” “The Authority”).

Simply as Hitch broke out working with author Warren Ellis on “The Authority,” Cassaday teamed with Ellis for the sequence “Planetary,” printed at WildStorm (a DC publishing imprint) from 1999 to 2009 throughout 27 points. Studying “Planetary” from starting to finish, you may see Cassaday refine his ability from subject to subject because the type turns into extra distinctive and the line-art extra assured.

What’s “Planetary”? It is a comedian that would’ve solely come into existence on the cusp of a brand new millennium, as a result of it is premised on wanting again on the earlier one. 25 years later, it is a story that precisely rejected the ’90s consensus that humanity had reached the top of its historical past and as an alternative mentioned there was nonetheless extra exploring to do in addition to digging for artifacts. 

Cassaday did loads of work for Marvel Comics (his 24-issue run on “Astonishing X-Males” with Joss Whedon from 2004 to 2008 is kind of beloved), however “Planetary” will go down at his greatest comedian. Funnily sufficient, the e book’s foremost villains are modeled on Marvel’s first unbelievable household of 4.

The premise of “Planetary” is that every one the pulp fiction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries — from science-fiction to fantasy, from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Jules Verne to Edgar Rice Burroughs to Bram Stoker — truly occurred. The protagonists are Planetary, the identify for 3 superpowered archaeologists: Elijah Snow (who can freeze individuals the place they stand), the speedster Jakita Wagner, and super-hacker known as The Drummer. With limitless funds from a mysterious “Fourth Man,” it is their job to file and doc all of the wild tales of days previous.

“Planetary” builds up a mythology (with out straining itself, because of its quick run), however it features like a non secular anthology. Challenge #2 is about Japanese Kaiju movies, then subject #3 jumps to a John Woo-ish motion story a few Hong Kong supercop. The comedian does not simply pay homage to those tales, however digs into the anxieties that had been animating them.

Challenge #7 of “Planetary” is about the “British Invasion” of comics within the Nineteen Eighties, when writers like Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano, and Neil Gaiman came to visit the pond to make darkish and difficult comics. Naturally, Cassaday’s cowl is styled after Gaiman’s “The Sandman.”

DC Comics

Ellis, a Brit himself, concludes that his fellow comedian writers had gone a bit nuts and cynical as a result of Margaret Thatcher was PM. The following eighth subject, about ’50s monster films like “Them!”, says these creatures had been the outcomes of human experimentation. The U.S. authorities was full of hardline anti-Communists searching for a weapon, however they solely made monsters. These American monster flicks sometimes featured beings created by atomic testing; People had been afraid of annihilation by the gadget their very own authorities (by way of J. Robert Oppenheimer) first invented. 

You’ll be able to’t talk about twentieth century pulp and pass over superhero comics. That is much more true in the present day than it was in 1999; “Planetary” was forward of the curve in satirizing the Marvelous home of concepts. (I am positive it being printed by the Distinguished Competitors did not damage, however the sequence shouldn’t be in a fanboy pissing contest, I promise.)

Challenge #6 introduces Planetary’s rivals in discovering the multiverse’s mysteries. Generally known as the 4, they’re astronauts who took an area flight in 1961 and walked away with unbelievable powers. Sound acquainted?

The 4 are led by mad scientist Randall Dowling, who has “a listing of disciplines so long as your arm.” (Although not like Reed Richards, Dowling’s powers are about controlling his thoughts, not his physique’s matter.) The opposite three are Jacob Greene (the ship’s pilot who grew to become an enormous inhuman factor), William Leather-based (Dowling’s chief enforcer, who can fly and shoot power beams), and Dowling’s lover Kim Süskind (who can flip invisible — since even gentle passes by means of her, she’s blind).

Not one of the allusions in “Planetary” are delicate and even probably the most novice comedian fan can inform the 4 are presupposed to be the Improbable 4. To tie in actual historical past, “Planetary” attracts on how America’s rocketry and area journey applications had been largely spearheaded by Operation Paperclip recruits like Wernher Von Braun; Süskind is explicitly mentioned to be the daughter of a high-ranking Nazi scientist. 

DC Comics

The characters are, naturally, additionally used as a tool to discover Marvel Comics’ cultural affect. Challenge #10, which follows parodies of Superman, Inexperienced Lantern, and Marvel Girl, has all three heroes murdered by the 4. A mirrored image of how, for a time, Stan Lee’s Marvels left the extra classical Justice League within the mud?

Whereas each Planetary and the 4 contemplate themselves explorers, the latter need to hoard the data and secrets and techniques they uncover. They intend to maintain the world as it’s and have spent many years murdering to take action. Fairly much like how Marvel Comics retains an iron-gripped copyright on its characters, superseding the precise artists who created their money cows, huh?

Since Cassaday’s defining comics are and can eternally be “Planetary” and “Astonishing X-Males,” it is painful that his legacy runs the danger of being sullied by his collaborators. Since 2020, it has been revealed piece by piece that — since “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” all the way in which as much as the reshoots on 2017’s “Justice League” — Whedon had created a number of poisonous workplaces, bullying actors and fellow writers. (Most infamously, he fired Charisma Carpenter from “Angel” after she grew to become pregnant and “disrupted” his story plans.)

In 2020, it got here to gentle that Ellis had a protracted historical past of manipulative habits, utilizing his superstar inside the business to groom dozens of girls (lots of whom had been making an attempt to begin a profession in comics and noticed Ellis as a mentor). Ellis’ accusers reported in January 2023 that, even after assembly with him to debate accountability, he did not not take the steps they requested.

Cassaday’s work is sadly intertwined with these two males. (He even directed an episode of Whedon’s TV sequence “Dollhouse,” titled “The Attic.”) I can not blame individuals who cannot get previous Whedon and Ellis’ involvement in these comics and so won’t ever learn them, however it’s unhappy that Cassaday’s important artwork will at all times carry an asterisk by means of no fault of his personal. I feel this stands as a reminder that, as in movie and tv, no one individual is answerable for a comic book. Sure, Ellis and Whedon’s writing of those two sequence is inextricable, however Cassaday’s art work is not any much less integral.

That is my favourite cowl of “Astonishing X-Males,” from the sequence’ second subject.

Marvel Comics

The blocking is ideal, and the character detailing is so sparse even these components really feel like extra unfavorable area. The blue coloring is an on the spot moodsetter, particularly as a result of Cassaday drenches all the picture (not simply the background) within the shade. Cyclops’ eye beams peek out much more so as a result of it is just like the pink pushing towards the power of the blue. Whereas we will not see Scott’s eyes, Emma Frost’s icy gaze pierces ours. This is not only a cool cowl both, it is one which makes you ask questions concerning the story inside. Is Emma blinding Scott? Does she have a secret eeeevil plot? Or is she a voice of purpose Scott must preserve him from unleashing his worst self?

This cowl is all Cassaday. Comics journalism/criticism’s worst behavior is treating the author as the first creator of a comic book and generally even neglecting to credit score the artist. Cassaday’s drawings converse for themselves about how essential a task an artist performs in making a comic book.

In case you’re nonetheless ready to make the leap: “Planetary” is out there in 4 commerce paperback volumes and a single hardcover omnibus version. It can be learn on digital studying service DC Universe Infinite.