Since Every Comic Book And A Half Is Being Made Into A Movie ...
With most of the major traditional superheroes already portrayed in film, some of them extensively , Hollywood looks to be mining some of the less culturally iconic titles and graphic novels to find new subjects for next summer's action thriller. Wanted made over fifty million dollars at the box office- unless it very quickly tanks, it's likely to prove to be a significant success. Hellboy has not only one, but two movies.
With this in mind, I have a modest proposal. Planetary. Written by Warren Ellis and drawn by John Cassaday, Planetary is almost without a doubt my favorite comic series. To paraphrase the epic plot very, very loosely, Planetary is about a small group of adventurers investigating the secret history of the twentieth century. Along the way, a massive number of references to the popular culture of the twentieth century are made, from Godzilla to Sherlock Holmes to the Fantastic Four. Nominally part of the Wildstorm Universe, Planetary rapidly became a more or less independent, stand-alone series.
The comic begins with Jakita Wagner, a representative of the Planetary Corporation meeting Elijah Snow in a diner along a non-descript road somewhere in the US Southwest. He is inducted as the Third Man in the field team of the Planetary Corporation, which is headed and funded by a mysterious 'Fourth Man', who may be a woman- who, as Wagner says, 'may be Bill Gates, may be Hitler'. No one knows.
It becomes clear as the team begins their investigation into the unusual that there are huge gaps in the known history of the century, or rather, that someone is covering up a vast invisible history for their own ends. It is also soon made apparent that Elijah Snow in particular is a man with a mysterious past and deep secrets of his own, that he is a man determined, by any means necessary, to rescue the world from the mundane. To understand and protect a strange world, a world that he is determined to keep strange and wonderful.
Conceived as a trilogy, it seems to me that the first film would have to introduce the characters- although it would not necessarily be a full origin narrative, as many of the mysteries of the characters and the Planetary Corporation are best left for a little later. Along with establishing hints of the vast mysteries of the world, there is also the mystery closer at hand. Who is the Fourth Man? What is his, or as it may very well be, her agenda?
Sadly, my image fu is weak but I thought it might be a tiny, tiny hint of a possible teaser.
Just a few thoughts.