
Warren Ellis posted the finished cover to issue #27 of Planetary on his website, along with the cover he stated that the issue's art and lettering had been completed and it had a tentative shipping date of October. This will be the final issue of the the oft-delayed series, with the first issue having shipped in April of 1998. Ellis has stated that one of the reasons the series has been long delayed is due to John Cassaday’s other art commitments taking priority over Planetary, because they pay more money. Cassaday completed a twenty-five issue run on Astonishing X-men during the series’ life-span.
The series is Warren's ruminations on the genre of superheroes, with each of the early issues focusing on different groups or ideas, from the funeral of a John Constaine stand-in (complete with a Miracleman pastiche) to an issue devoted to Monster Island (from the Godzilla films). The villains of the series have been revealed to be a group called the Four who received super-powers after a spaceflight, in an obvious reference to the Fantastic Four. It has seen collected release of the first twelve issues in the Absolute format, but is currently out of print, it is unknown if DC/Wildstorm will re-issue or re-package the series in a new Absolute format.