Planetary

If the great achievement of Watchmen was to bring psychological realism to the improbable notion of costumed super-heroes, the achievement of Warren Ellis' Planetary is to dissolve the barrier between our reality and the sphere of the super-powered without compromising the weirdness of the uber. Drawing on the high paranoia of postmodern classics like The Crying of Lot 49 and the reality-meddling of Dick, Ellis creates a secret history in which versions of Doc Savage, the Shadow, Fu Manchu, Sherlock Holmes, Godzilla, and various other famous characters coexist and interact. In one of the title's most brilliant maneuvers, the Fantastic Four have their echo in an inscrutably villainous group known only as The Four, who apparently became the "secret chiefs" of the planet a long time ago. The four-member Planetary team (our heroes) in turn echo The Four. The distinction between the ideologies of the two groups is subtle: while the Planetary team act as historians and conservationists of the bizarre (their motto is "It's a strange world...Let's keep it that way"), the Four horde and exploit wonders. "We're adventurers, my crewmates and I," one of the Four tells us, "on the human adventure. And you can't all come along." Ellis himself walks the fuzzy line between these positions, dropping just enough hints about the big picture to make you believe there is one, but not enough to let you see it.

The first 18 issues have been collected in three paperback volumes.