The Drummer is a character in
Warren Ellis and
John Cassaday's
Planetary comic book. Planetary is about a group, that are "
archeologists" of the lost history of the world. The comic has a
superhero/
conspiracy feel to it, and brings back the old history of
superbeings.
Drummer, or Drums, is one of the four agents that makes up the main
conspiracy archaeologists of
Planetary. The Drummer is not a codename, as quoted from Chapter One,
All Over the World, "First name,
The, second name,
Drummer." Drummer's appearance is rather normal, with long hair, sideburns, and a goatee and his age can't be much more than twenty. His clothes are nothing too strange. Drummer also is or puts on an act of partial
insanity. The kind of insanity where someone can function perfectly well, but their mind isn't clear(my best example would be
Brad Pitt in
12 Monkeys). Drummer is also known fondly as Planetary's monkey(Chapter Eight,
The Day The Earth Turned Slower).
Drummer seems to have the ability to see and read any type of
information. Carrying his
drumsticks, he normally taps on datalines to get
computer information. So far it hasn't been shown that there is anything that he can't
crack into. One theory behind why he uses the drumsticks is that the
vibrations make them more receptive to his delving. The Drummer also acts as a
anti-surveillance device, no
bug will work in a five meter radius to him(Chapter Two,
Island). He also seems to be able to
record data, like a
video camera, and store it into computer records(Chapter Four,
Strange Harbours).
However, Drummer's abilities aren't limited to electronic data. In Chapter Seven,
"To Be In England, In the Summertime", he shows the ability to also
read magic. When asked how he can read magic, he gives this simple explanation:
Snow: You can see magic?
Drummer: Sort of. Magic's just signal, just information, and that puts it in my ballcourt.
It's like.. you've seen me playing computer games?
Snow: Yeah.
Drummer: So you've heard me talking about cheat codes. Things that I can say to the computer that alter things in the game enviroment.
Magic words.
Magic is the cheat codes for the world.
Sending a signal to reality's operating system, see?
The Drummer was also on the mission where
Ambrose Chase died(Chapter Nine,
Planet Fiction). One of the other interesting things about Drummer is that when Chase turns his
reality distortion field on a wide radius, Drummer suffers some sort of
pain in his head. It seems that whenever the natural information flows that he recieves are turned off, it seriously hurts the flow of his mind. One can wonder that if turned off for long periods of time, if Drummer would go
insane(more insane?). Drummer cried as Chase died in his arms.
When
Elijah Snow's memory begins to come back to him, Drummer has quite a drastic change in attitude to Snow(Chapter Twelve,
Memory Cloud). Instead of being the one who jabs jokes at Snow's age and such, he suddenly becomes deathly afraid and quiet. As part of the fact that both Snow and Drummer had known each other for some years. Snow even picks on him, instead of
Jakita Wagner, because he knows he can pressure Drummer.
The next upcoming issue of Planetary is supposed to reveal more history behind The Drummer. So this writeup will probably have more info soon.