Captain Planet #1 Review

I have never watched Captain Planet. 

I know what he looks like. I know of his catch phrase “Earth. Fire. Wind. Water. Heart. With their powers combined, they summon Earth's Greatest Champion: Captain Planet.” That's about the extent of what I know about him. When this review copy found it's way into my inbox (courtesy of David Pepose), I thought to myself “I've been enjoying Space Ghost so much that I have to give this a try.” 

I shouldn't compare this to Space Ghost, so I'll just get my comparisons out of the way quick:

• Space Ghost and Captain Planet are about protecting the “little guy” or the strong protecting the weak

• I could definitely see the Planeteers coming together as a found family similar to the way Space Ghost, Jan, Jace, and Blip found their family

• Pepose seems to be planting seeds (get it?? I'm sorry.) on some lessons for readers to learn in future issues of Captain Planet, like finding where you belong, being yourself, etc. Space Ghost and crew learn these lessons too!

Now that I have laid those out, we can look at Captain Planet without holding the first issue of a comic to the standard of what I feel is one of the best books on stands right now.

This issue is pure setup - but it gets you the information you need. We are introduced to Gaia the elemental guardian and Captain Planet - Gaia, using what seems to be some mystical power, contains Captain Planet into 5 rings and sends them off to the chosen Planeteers. The Planeteers - Kwame Aboagye from Ghana, James Wheeler from the good old US of A, Linka Aleksandrovina from Russia, Gi Seung-Hyun from South Korea, and Ma-Ti Yañez from Brazil are each shown, with some context as to why they were chosen to wield the elemental power they were given. In my research, these characters have the same first names as the original show, and their home countries are either the same or similar to the TV show as well. One difference noted is that James Wheeler is from Detroit in the comic, but is from Brooklyn in the show. I imagine that what seems to be a focus on the auto industry is driving that change (I'm sorry again.)

Each of these characters seem so very different, and I think that's what's going to make this an enjoyable book. I hope to see Pepose put these characters at odds with each other, but ultimately come together to prevail. This issue sets the stage to accomplish just that.

Interestingly, Pepose shows the importance of conservation, as is expected in a Captain Planet Book, but doesn't shy away from some of the negative impacts we've seen - like loss of jobs and mining for lithium, used in electric car batteries. In no way does Pepose propose that protecting the Earth isn't valid, but certainly reminds us of the real challenges of keeping the environment clean and safe.

The pencils by Eman Casallos are well done. Casallos is given ample opportunity to show his chops in this first issue because we're taken all over the world and the characters are in wild, element-related situations that call for floods, fires, and more - all of which required Casallos to draw larger-than-life scenes. And he delivered those scenes in droves. There was plenty of action in this issue, all of which was dynamically drawn. Facial expressions were well done, but probably where the most improvement was requires.

The colors by Jorge Sutil were good - I appreciated the bright palette choice, and I think the elemental nature of Captain Planet calls for those bright colors. I think the color choices seemed as if they were based around the geographic location of the page - meaning the Brazil pages had warmer colors while the Russia pages had cooler colors; that was a nice detail.

The letters by Jeff Eckleberry checked all the boxes: layouts on the page flowed well and didn't block any key art, very clear reading order on each page, packed with changes to font based on situation and character, and full of sound effects. I love sound effects. One area that I felt was lacking is emphasis when characters are shouting or speaking with emotion. Rather than simply bolding the text, I'd like to see some modifications done to the speech bubbles to carry more weight.

Captain Planet #1 did what a first issue needs to do - introduce characters, set up a plot, and showcase what you can expect from the creative team. It was definitely a solid start and I expect a quality book moving forward. 

Captain Planet #1 is on sale Wednesday May 7th, 2025, published by Dynamite Entertainment, with a price point of $4.99.