"All the World's My Planetary" by Ryan Riley

Imagine a universe where the Fantastic Four are the malevolent secret masters of the Earth instead of the "World's Greatest Superhero Team". A universe where the Human Torch is the son of the Shadow and the grandson of the Lone Ranger. Where an expedition to the Moon was executed over a century before the Apollo missions by firing a manned pod from a cannon tunnel a mile long. Where the ghost of a betrayed cop in Hong Kong reappears to exact violent justice on criminals that prey on the innocent. If any of the scenarios I just described intrigue you, then you're the kind of person that would probably enjoy Planetary.

Written by Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan) with art by John Cassaday (Astonishing X-Men), the last issue of the Planetary series came out couple of years ago, but Wildstorm just released its last collected edition in hardcover in March. The entire series is now collected in the following editions:

Planetary Vol. 1 - All Over The World and Other Stories
Planetary Vol. 2 - The Fourth Man
Planetary Vol. 3 - Leaving The Twentieth Century
Planetary Vol. 4 - Spacetime Archaeology (just released)
Planetary - Crossing Worlds (a compilation of the one-shot cross-over books Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World, Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta and Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth)

Planetary follows the exploits of the Planetary Group, an organization dedicated to uncovering the secret history of the world. They investigate instances of the strange & unexplainable all across the Wildstorm universe in the hopes of finding documents and artifacts that can benefit all of humanity. The main character of the book is Elijah Snow, a century-old man with cryonic abilities (he freezes stuff) that learned his investigative skills from none other than Sherlock Holmes. His colleagues are Jakita Wagner, a woman with enhanced strength, speed, toughness and a "pathological fear of boredom", and the Drummer, a peculiar savant who can communicate with and manipulate technology of all kinds.

Don't expect to see too many original characters in Planetary outside of the main characters, because that's not what this series is about. Ellis and Cassaday take established characters (or character archetypes) from many genres, including comic book superheroes and villains (the aforementioned FF-based heavies), pulp novel heroes (Axel Brass is a less-than-subtle analog of Doc Savage) and classic sci-fi/fantasy novels (the aforementioned Holmes, Dracula, etc.) and seamlessly weaves them into a single fantasy world. The end result makes for, at the very least, some very interesting reading. Tales of Elijah's first forays into the unknown have him recalling adventures from finding a secret city in Africa that is straight out of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel to confronting Dracula himself, freezing him in his tracks and kicking the frozen crotch right off him. During his later excursions the team uncovers mysteries like an island that produced monsters not unlike one would find in a Godzilla film and the remains of a secret concentration camp in the U.S. where suspected communists and other undesirables were vivisected in an attempt to create superhumans.

Warren Ellis' storytelling seizes upon the best aspects of more mainstream entertainment fare such as the Indiana Jones movies and the X-Files TV show and brings them into a Sci- Fi/Superhero setting in Planetary. Ellis is an expert at bringing out a reader's inner conspiracy theorist, and you get the feeling that government spooks with super-powers isn't all that far- fetched an idea. Another strength Ellis demonstrates time and again in this series is his ability to effortlessly integrate old-school adventure tales with more modern stories while maintaining a consistent storytelling voice. The art is as extraordinary as the writing; John Cassaday, perhaps best known for his sublime work on Joss Whedon's run of Astonishing X-Men, masterfully brings to life Ellis' esoteric characters and plot concepts.

The team of Ellis and Cassaday work so well together they make even a gimmick tale like Planetary/Batman worth reading, and the main hook of that story is that the Planetary crew encounter many different versions of Batman (including the campy Adam West version and Frank Miller's Dark Knight) as a man they are pursuing rotates them through different realities. Seeing Jakita get spritzed in the face by Adam West with a spray can labeled "Female Villain Repellent" is a nice nod to the 1960's Batman TV series and is worth the price of the book on its own merit.

Planetary is arguably Ellis' finest comic work to date, and definitely the best-drawn thanks to Cassaday. It's the perfect comic for fans that appreciate intelligently written stories and enjoy reading a variety of genres.