Some decent clothes, unlimited room service, time on my own, a platinum card in my pocket. Either I've gone insane, or they poisoned the food, or...or it's for real. Don't know which scares me more... 
- — Elijah Snow
Planetary #1 is an issue of the series Planetary (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1999.
Synopsis for "All Over the World"
Elijah Snow, a man as old as the 20th century, is recruited from a meaningless existence to be the third man of the organization known as Planetary. Joining Jakita Wagner, the lovely and leather-clad, super-strong team leader, and The Drummer, a technophile who can tell machines what to do, Snow learns that Planetary's goals -- funded by a mysterious fourth man -- are to uncover the secret history of the past century, wherever that quest may take them. Snow's first mission is to investigate an artificial cavern hidden in the Adirondacks, where (according to documents recovered from the KGB) it was to be the last known destination of Doctor Axel Brass, an adventurer and extraordinary man.
While on the way to the Adirondacks, Jakita explains to Elijah about Doc Brass. He was born on January 1, 1900, who shares the same birth date with several other unusual individuals. By his thirties he was a genuine renaissance man of his time. He dealt with things that no one outside of his group knew about. Things history never recorded. Brass then mysteriously disappeared in 1945. Upon entering the cavern, Elijah and Jakita find a trophy room containing unusual objects such as "The Hull of Charnel Ship" and "The Murder Colonels". They then walk into a room, where to their surprise encounter a crippled Doc Brass still alive, awake, and standing guard over an interdimensional snowflake, a quantum computer created by Brass and six associates near the end of World War Two.
Brass explains to the two that he and his allies of his era had taken on the responsibility of protecting the world, and in 1945 they designed a massive quantum computer that performed calculations through the Multiverse, which is represented in the form of a theoretical snowflake existing in 196,833 dimensional space. Doc Brass and his team had wanted to use the computer to help them build a perfect world as it enabled them to literally code the future of the world. That awesome invention also proved their undoing, as the computer opened a doorway into our reality from a parallel one. Through it came another group of super-beings, their own universe on the verge of destruction, to battle for supremacy in ours. "We saved the world that night," recalls Brass. "Only I survived." Unable to switch off the computer, Brass watches over it to make sure no one else comes through... for more than 50 years.
In the end, Brass is escorted away by Planetary's medics as Snow question Wagner if their organization got what they wanted which Jakita simply replies that they did uncover Brass' quantum supercomputer and a secret base, making everything worthwhile.
Appearing in "All Over the World"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- Axel Brass (First appearance) (Flashback and main story)
- Lord Blackstock (First appearance) (Dies) (Flashback only)
- Hark (First appearance) (Dies) (Flashback only)
- The Spider (First appearance) (Dies) (Flashback only)
- The Aviator (Single appearance; dies) (Flashback only)
- Edison (Single appearance; dies) (Flashback only)
Antagonists:
- JLA Analogues (Single appearance; dies) (Flashback only)
Other Characters:
Locations:
- The Adirondacks
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- This issue is collected in Planetary Vol. 1: All Over the World and Other Stories.
Trivia
- Dr. Axel Brass is based on Doc Savage, the legendary Man of Bronze. Doc Savage was a mainstay of a generation of pulp novel heroes, the heroes that predated the modern super-hero genre launched by Superman in 1938.
- The Spider is based on The Shadow and The Spider[1]. His background is later elaborated in Planetary #22.
- Hark is based on the oriental archetype villain Fu Manchu.
- Lord Blackstock is based on Tarzan. His background is later elaborated in Planetary #17.
- Edison is based on the All-American genius inventor Tom Swift.
- The government agent Jimmy is based on Operator No. 5[1].
- The other-dimensional invaders vaguely resembles the Justice League of America, specifically the original line-up of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter.
- The threat to the invaders' universe is a reference to the Crisis on Infinite Earths.
- Doc Brass who believes that the year is 1970 "or thereabouts" is likely a reference to the resurgence of Doc Savage stories around that time.
See Also