Planetary: Crossing Worlds
August 1st, 2008 by MartinPlanetary: Crossing Worlds is good, universe-expanding stuff.
Basic premise here is that there are 196,833 parallel universes. (How do they know the exact number, exactly?) Planetary and the Authority both deal with these universes on a fairly regular basis. The first story here is a Planetary/Authority crossover, where they deal with some other universe’s bad guys who look suspiciously like other versions of some of the Authority characters. The second story takes place entirely in another parallel universe, one in which the Planetary folks are the bad guys (and also “control” the world), and Batman, Superman and Wonderwoman are little more than two-bit vigilantes. Elijah Snow also looks suspiciously like Lex Luthor. The final story is a Planetary/Batman crossover, but the interesting thing about it is that we visit a bunch of (3 or 4) different Batman Universes, with a different version of Batman in each one. Totally fascinating.
I really liked this TPB, and thought each story got progressively better as the book went on. You don’t really have to know anything about the plots of Planetary or the Authority to “get” these stories, but knowing the characters is probably a pre-req for total enjoyment. And enjoy it you will.