Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta

Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta is an Elseworlds one-shot comic book written by Warren Ellis, with art by Jerry Ordway (as opposed to the usual Planetary artist John Cassaday).

The story is set in a slightly different variation of the Wildstorm Universe, as outlined in "Planetary" and shows a confrontation between versions of both Planetary and the JLA-analogue of the Wildstorm Universe (who was previously seen in "Magic & Loss""Magic & Loss" in "Planetary" #10] ).

Differences

There are differences from the Wildstorm Universe:

*Ambrose Chase didn't die in 1997 as seen in "Planet Fiction" ["Planetary" #9]
*Planetary is acting in the role of The Four, seizing materials that they can exploit for their own ends
*Wonder Woman was not killed but the space-based laser was used by Jakita Wagner to wipe out Themyscira. Their costumes are almost identical though.
*Superman was not a non-human alien who was killed by William Leather when he landed on Earth, instead he looks like Clark Kent and has similar powers. The Kents were killed by Planetary along with the rest of Smallville so they could steal the Kryptonian craft.
*Batman was never hinted at. He follows the main history except Elijah Snow is the one who killed his parents.
*Green Lantern was previously a non-human "Blue Lantern" who had the lantern embedded in his chest but here we see a Hal Jordan like figure in a tube along with other Green Lanterns.
*Flash was never hinted at but was captured and dissected (in a scene reflecting the dissection of the "Blue Lantern")

Plot

The JLA-analogue group (Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman) meet in secret at Wayne Manor, avoiding Planetary’s surveillance. Wayne has managed to hack into Planetary's computers and thinks he can break their world domination.

Wayne has been sponsoring Julius Erdel's time research because of it could be used as a weapon against Chase. Chase had previously killed a Gabriel Walker because of the potential of his "time gauntlets" (note Walker Gabriel was the second Cronos and he stole a pair of time gauntlets from John Fox, the Flash of the 27th century [ [http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/fox.html Flash (27th, 853rd Centuries) - John Fox ] ] ). Problems occur because Erdel has got drunk and started the machine. It drags through an alien visiting the Cretaceous and draws the attention of Chase.

After throwing him into the machine they take his dropped mobile portal generator and make their way to the Moon. Superman dies almost as soon as they arrive and so there is a showdown between Jakita and Diana, and Snow and Wayne. Both men have been studying each other for twenty years and so have developed counters to the expected attacks, so the outcome of their battle is not as clear cut as Snow thought it might be.

Publication

It was published in 2002 and collected in the 2004 volume "Planetary: Crossing Worlds" (ISBN 1401202799).

ee also

*List of Elseworlds publications

Other JLA crossovers include:
*JLA/Cyberforce
*JLA/Avengers

Notes

References

*comicbookdb|type=issue|id=8393|title="Planetary/JLA: Terra Occulta"

External links

* [http://changingthetimes.alternatehistory.com/bookreviews/planjla.htm Review and analysis]
* [http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/2002-post-crisis-reviews/c-review-2002.php?topic=planetary-jla Review at the Superman Homepage]