![]() Cassaday also plays here with the contrast between light (Brass, at the top of the page) and shadow (the masked vigilante at the bottom).įinally, the last page gathers different moods: we have the cheerful joy of Brass and his victorious men, and then we have a tired and almost saddened Elijah Snow. ![]() Symmetry, dynamism and plenty of details turn this into an unforgettable scene. There is another anthological illustration: Brass and his men fighting against demonic creatures. The masterful composition, the intensity and the horror of this sequence are undeniable. There is a remarkable double page spread which shows Doc Brass fighting against arachnid creatures, half-spiders, half-men, surrounded by monstrous fetuses of this unnatural species. There are several pages that are presented as actual pages of a pulp book, even with yellow and worn-out paper. Nevertheless, that is not the only artistic exploration that deserves its own recognition. And artist extraordinaire John Cassaday recovers the mythical dimension of Brass / Savage in an amazing cover quite reminiscent of the old pulp novels. As we have seen in the first issue of Planetary, Doc Brass is an alternative version of Doc Savage, the Man of Bronze, perhaps the quintessential pulp hero. In “The Good Doctor”, British writer Warren Ellis pays homage to the popular pulp novels from the 40s. The heroes of yesteryear/ Los héroes de antaño In 1999 the Hark Corporation is one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies, but also one of the most sinister and dangerous. That’s another example of how the heroic nature of the progenitor can completely disappear in just one generation. Anna Hark, the daughter, takes her father’s money and inventions and turns it all into a corporation “in the Western mold”, and she quickly grows rich in America. ![]() In the 40s, Brass and Hark were close allies, however, as we saw in the first chapter, everyone dies violently except Axel Brass. Whatever happened to Doc Savage, The Shadow or Flash Gordon is as much as a mystery to the new generations as one could expect, after all, new readers are interested in new characters, or at least in new interpretations of the classic myths, but it’s very rare to see new readers revising material published before their parents were born.Īnother important aspect in this conversation is the Hark Corporation. Brass comes to the following conclusion “We crisscross the world, making it right, making it strange, and the people never see our coming or our going…”, which in a certain way is a metatextual reference to the origins and ends of the heroes that were popular more than half a century ago. And the latter shares with the former updates about the lives of the heroes of yore, such as Jenny Sparks or John Cumberland. And what better way to understand the world’s secret history than by asking directly to one of its protagonists? That’s how “The Good Doctor” (September 1999) begins, as Elijah Snow asks Axel Brass a number of biographical questions.īrass shares his memories with Snow. The world has a secret history, a hidden past, something that can only be unearthed by the Archeologists of the Impossible. Forget everything you were taught in school.
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