Planetary v. 1-3: So, I started (and, until the final issue/trade come out whenever, finished, for all intents and purposes) on the Warren Ellis/John Cassaday collaboration that I'd read a great deal on, and eventually I bought all three trades of the series. From the looks of it, it might be a while before the whole thing is finished.
It's an interesting series. Since the premise is that the main characters are "archaeologists of the impossible," looking over the secret history of the 20th century, one of the more notable features is that, especially in the initial issues, the main characters are really little more than observers a lot of the time. The early stories are mostly just them going to one themed site, learning the story of what happened there (usually a macabre/sinister twist on an archetypal story), remarking "my, how interesting!", and then leaving. Not that Ellis and Cassaday don't generate some interesting ideas, scenes, and concepts, because they do: things that stick in my mind include the ultimate computer from the first issue, the classic rant by the disgraced superhero against "John Constantine" (standing in for his creator, obviously), the fate of "Superman," "Wonder Woman," and "Abin Sur," and the revelation of the identity of the mysterious capsule from space in the last issue. It's often just that the concepts and ideas are really more interesting in the abstract than anything that happens in the actual issue (in the first issue, for example, the league of pulp heroes faces a wave of superheroes from within the computer-generated reality, and fight to the death to stop them, but the superheroes end up taking over anyway; it's also a kind of warped JLA/JSA crossover; but I find pondering that idea much more interesting than the actual issue). 90% of this series would be completely indecipherable for anyone without an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of global popular culture in the 20th century, although that's perhaps unavoidable. I find the later issues of the series a lot more involving, once the series as a whole gets a real driving plot, although the characters remain pretty unremarkable.
Supreme: The Story of the Year: In which Alan Moore writes his own All-Star Superman; and, since it does not feature the art of Frank Quitely, it is automatically superior (also, it's by Alan Moore).
Once upon a time, Alan Moore made comics dark and interesting; then, he was struck by the fact that everyone was trying to be like him, and, in a move similar to that South Park episode that rails against the overuse of profanity on TV, disavowed his earlier influence and began writing lighter pieces that celebrated the stuff he had earlier torn down (Kurt Busiek once wrote that the only valid reason to deconstruct something is that one might gain a better understanding of how it works and then reassemble it). This is a really fun story, although, while Planetary requires a lot of estoric knowledge about pop culture, this series really requires encyclopedic understanding of the history of Superman (and DC Comics in general) to get maximum enjoyment; mainly to understand and fully appreciate the "back-issues" of old Supreme stories that are at the centre of each issue of the series. The dissolution of the Allied Supermen of the America, for example, is replete with mentions of the end of the Golden Age of superheroes, Dr. Wertham, Cold War paranoia, and the fate of the DC Big Three in the years between the Golden Age and the beginning of the Silver Age. Since I have a pretty good understanding of this (from Wikipedia, mainly), this isn't a problem.
While each issue is fairly standalone (my favourites were the back-to-back stories about the search for "Supergirl"/Suprema and the romantic history of "Superman"/Supreme [complete with pitch-perfect recreations of 60s Imaginary Stories about Supes marrying "Lana/Lois", "Wonder Woman", and that mermaid]), the series as a whole has an major story threading throughout that took me completely by surprise when it finally manifested in the final issues; the way Moore tied the whole thing together was pretty cool, although not particularly climactic. To reinforce how un-Watchmen this is, the story ends with Supreme, Suprema, Professor Night, Glory, and the rest of the Allies reaffirming their mission to serve the public.
I'm one of those readers who vastly prefers the post-Crisis Superman to the pre-Crisis version, but it's easy to see the attraction of the freewheeling pre-Crisis period. There are some really imaginative bits here, as Moore plays around with established lore: the Tower of Infinity, from the Big Bang to the end of time, for example, and the soul realm that the Allies venture into to save Professor Night. I thought it was terrific; I'll be picking up the next volume in short order.
