Ellis is one step closer to Ruling the world
Warren Ellis is one of those writers that if you haven't read one of his comics by now your either new or you read the wrong comics. Warren Ellis pumps out likely the most amount of comics yearly then any active writer. The dude is quite prolific.... ask anyone.
Planetary and The Authority are two of his Wildstorm babies he would eventually abandon because of all the work he does at Marvel and Avatar. Planetary was the slightly older of the two and it was the one with more writing woes with the huge gap till its completion.... but that is unrelated to this review. The Authority would become the JLA of Wildstorm universe (WSU). Both series being his babies, both needing exposure at the time and him creator of both, why not make a cross-over book? This is what that is.
This is a self contained story where you need little to know knowledge of the WSU. Ellis makes sure to introduce all the characters and I don't think we missed out on any of their names. Ruling the world is about policing the police. Planetary serving as the organization that has to look over The Authority (who is uber powerful). It is a poetic, sci-fi story with epic splash pages. Overall the ending did nothing for me.
Phil Jimenez' art is wonderful. I've been a fan of his art since Grant Morrison's The Invisibles. He maybe most famous for his run on Wonder Woman or just his work with Grant Morrison, like New X-Men. This book artwise rivals any "Marvel" style art at the time.
Speaking of Marvel, this seems like one of those books that you look at and think... wow training grounds.... Ellis now at Marvel, Jimenez going back and forth between the big two... I for get where Andy Lanning is now, but I know the last few years he was at Marvel. Ultimately all I am saying is, for the Marvel guys who love art, you can give this a shot. I know it doesn't have Spiderman and Deadpool, but it is just exciting. The talent is guys you know even if the characters are not.
Overall, this is a nice book to introduce yourself to Ellis' WSU characters. The story was not as mind blowing as some of his other stuff, the universe of the WSU is more trippy with the ideas of "The Bleed" and so on. The art was great, battles where epic and at the end I wanted to read more.
4/5 Stars
Cheers
- Silkcuts