The slow burn build-up hasn't helped. It wasn't intentional, because I think Ellis just lost interest in the title, but everyone kept expecting better and better things, and generally getting better and better issues when Elis could be bothered doing them. And then... the last issue. Pah.
There's this:
Signs of Life!
Issue 27, the "epilogue" issue of the series, has finally been completed. Ellis, in a June 10th Bad Signal, stated the following:
Almost ten years to the month that John Cassaday and I had our first conversation at San Diego about creating a new series: I have just completed and delivered the full script for PLANETARY #27, the final issue of the series.
I am now going to get drunk and find something to have sex with. I'm home alone, so the chinchilla has a right to look nervous.
Done. Never ask me anything about it again. DONE.
-- W
which is from here:http://home.earthlink.net/~rkkman/frames/index.html
and script:
Written, delivered, and the first page of script looks like this:
PAGE ONE
Pic 1
Three page-wide pics: The Planetary Building, NYC, in the afternoon sun, like a bright glass needle poked into the middle of Manhattan:
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- RUSH TRIALS OF THE SO-CALLED "ANTI-CANCER" TREATMENT DEVELOPED BY THE PLANETARY ORGANISATION -
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- NEW YORK OFFICES OF THE PLANETARY ORGANISATION TODAY DEMONSTRATED A CHEAP ELECTRICAL LEVITATION SYSTEM WITH APPLICATIONS IN -
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- NEW ORLEANS, THE PLANETARY ORGANISATION'S "SUPER- FABBER" FOR GENERATING INSTANT TEMPORARY SHELTERS -
Pic 2
INT. CORRIDOR: people rushing both ways down the corridor, carrying files, stacks of paper, tablet computers, busy busy busy...
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- LEGAL CHALLENGES TO THE PLANETARY ORGANISATION'S "LIFE STATIONS," COMMUNITY DEVICES THAT PROVIDE WATER, BASIC PROTEIN, HEATING AND LIGHT FOR FREE -
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- TOWARDS THE END OF ITS NINE-MONTH VOYAGE TO MARS, CARRYING, MOST FAMOUSLY, THE PLANETARY SOCIETY'S "QUNET" DEVICE FOR INSTANT COMMUNICATION ACROSS DEEP SPACE -
JAGGED (NO TAIL)
- PLANETARY SOCIETY'S "HYPER-COLLIMATION" SHEETS, CARBON FABRICS THAT BECOME BOMBPROOF SHIELDS -
Pic 3
INT: BIG LECTURE HALL: where the DRUMMER addresses a room full of techies all holding tablet computers - behind him, a wall-size flat-panel display of computer file folders, arranged almost like the petals of a chrysanthemum:
DRUMMER
- INTO FILES TEN THOUSAND TO TEN NINE HUNDRED NINETY NINE. THAT'S THE TWENTY PERCENT MARK.
DRUMMER
ONE YEAR, TWENTY PERCENT OF THE RANDALL DOWLING DATABASE EXPLORED.
DRUMMER
ELIJAH'S GOING INSANE OVER THIS. I'M KEEPING YOU COVERED, BUT, SERIOUSLY, DEPARTMENT HEADS, YOU NEED TO CONSIDER HIRING MORE BODIES -
So the script was finished a year ago to the day, today. Where be the comic?
I still liked my idea (and not just because it was my idea) as a better ending: Snow was actually Randall Dowling, who had copied Snow's form (as a gooey rubber shape-shifter) and stolen Snow's memories to better effect his infiltration of Planetary, before dumping Snow's body in a pit somewhere (which would have been much more the Four's style). But the memory dump hasn't quite worked. Snow's sheer bloody-minded character embodied in those memories repeatedly over-rides Dowling's personality leading to Snow's residual personality forcing Dowling to kill himself. More tragic, more heroic, and an explanation as to why the Four kept Snow alive after they captured him (they didn't keep him alive, they replaced him with a spy).
Anyway... the earlier issues are good so at least we'll always have Paris in the springtime.
