C-23 #6
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeC-23 #6 earns its place in comics history not because of anything in the C-23 story itself, but because of what is bound into the back of it: the Planetary Preview, the very first appearance of Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the Drummer — three characters who would go on to anchor one of the most critically acclaimed series of the WildStorm era. Warren Ellis and John Cassaday used this eight-page story to introduce their central premise of 'mapping the secret history of the 20th century,' deploying a Hulk analogue named David Paine to demonstrate, in miniature, exactly the kind of genre-archaeology the full series would practice across 27 issues. Because the preview appeared simultaneously in two host books — this issue and Gen 13 #33 — the question of which constitutes the 'first' appearance is genuinely contested among collectors and catalogers, making both issues historically inseparable twins. The characters debuted here would eventually be nominated for Eisner Awards, integrated into the post-Flashpoint DC Universe, and cited as foundational to the 'widescreen' storytelling movement that reshaped superhero comics at the turn of the millennium.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
C-23 was created by Jim Lee and Brandon Choi in collaboration with Wizards of the Coast as a tie-in to a collectible card game, written by Jeff Mariotte with art by Alexander Lozano, and edited by John Layman under editor-in-chief Scott Dunbier. The Planetary Preview bound into its sixth issue was an entirely separate, editorially distinct production by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday, functioning as a promotional teaser for WildStorm's forthcoming series; Ellis had formally pitched Planetary as early as November 1997, and the September 1998 flip-book strategy — seeding the preview inside two existing Image titles with different readerships — was the marketing vehicle chosen to build anticipation ahead of Planetary #1's April 1999 cover date. The issue was dedicated to Adam Kubert, a detail recorded in the GCD for the C-23 portion of the book.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Elijah Snow, Jakita Wagner, and the Drummer, all three core Planetary field team members, in the Planetary Preview flip-book bound into the back of this issue.
- The Planetary Preview is an eight-page story written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by John Cassaday, establishing the premise of the Planetary organization as investigators of the '20th century's secret history.'
- C-23 #6 shares its first-appearance distinction with Gen 13 #33 (also September 1998), which carried the identical Planetary Preview flip-book; both were on sale the same week.
- The host series, C-23, was created by Jim Lee, Brandon Choi, and Wizards of the Coast as a tie-in comic for a collectible card game, written by Jeff Mariotte with art by Alexander Lozano.
- The issue went on sale September 16, 1998, per Grand Comics Database records; Scott Dunbier served as editor-in-chief, with John Layman as editor.
- The Planetary Preview story features David Paine, a character who functions as an analogue of Marvel's Incredible Hulk, with the in-story year of 1962 deliberately echoing the Hulk's real-world publication debut.
- The Planetary Preview was later collected in the trade paperback Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories Vol. 1, and is also included in The Planetary Omnibus hardcover, which collects the full 27-issue run plus crossover one-shots.
- The characters introduced here — particularly Jakita Wagner — have since been integrated into the mainline DC Universe, appearing in the 2023–24 Outsiders series written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly.
Cast · 3 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Planetary #[1] (2000), Wildstorm #5 (2000), Planetary #1 (2001), Absolute Planetary #1 (2005), The Planetary Omnibus #[nn] (2014)
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