The Four are a group of fictional supervillains from the comic book Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday. They are roughly analogous to the Fantastic Four from Marvel Comics, especially in terms of powers. They gained their powers when their rocket-ship intersected The Bleed and the Snowflake. They are enemies of Elijah Snow and the other members of Planetary. Much like Planetary, they love to explore the strangeness of the universe, but they exploit it and keep it to themselves. Their headquarters in New York is reminiscent of the Baxter Building, full of their treasures, weapons and technology. Their influence and power is so great, they covertly control the world and have managed to kill nearly every emerging super-being on their planet. Planetary has been spared, as Randall Dowling finds their actions amusing.

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• Dr. Randall Dowling was also involved with an American concentration camp called Science City Zero built in the 1950s that experimented on political dissidents. Through Science City Zero, he has connections to the Hark Corporation. He is distantly related to the Dowling Gang, enemies of the Dead Ranger, a Lone Ranger analogue who was the father of William Leather's adoptive father. He is an anologue of the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards, and possesses none of the morality or humanity of his counterpart. His powers have recently been revealed. His mind spreads out and colonizes the minds of anyone who gets within one hundred feet of him. The full implications of this power are unknown, but this "stretching" of his mind is the analogue to the flexibility of Mister Fantastic
• Kim Süskind is the daughter of a Nazi rocket scientist, and Dowling's lover. Suskind may be named after real-life physicist Leonard Susskind, who is considered the father of String Theory (Ellis often uses themes of advanced and experimental physics in Planetary). She is the counterpart of the Invisible Woman and can generate force fields and become invisible. She is described as the most dangerous of the Four, capable of popping peoples' heads, and has threatened to castrate her enemies. Her physical apperance appears to be based on the X-files character of Dana Scully.
• William Leather is a daredevil who apparently killed someone close to Elijah Snow onboard the Nautilus. He has also apparently met John Stone. He seems to be the most active member of the Four, often venturing along with their clean-up crews to take care of any problems. William Leather's mother Miriam was the wife of an analogue of The Shadow and one of the Century Babies named Bret Leather (the son of the Dead Ranger). However, Miriam cheated on Bret with a loanshark, the real father of William. Cheated of the awesome powers Bret Leather would have passed on to his son, William joined Dowling. Leather was recently captured and placed in Planetary custody. Snow blinded him while questioning him. Given Leather's regenerative capabilities, it may be assumed that this is temporary. Leather is the counterpart of Johnny Storm, the Human Torch and can fly, generate destructive energy bursts, and surround himself with an aura of what appears to be blue flame. He can also regenerate from injury and possibly has some degree of super-human strength.
• Jacob Greene was a fighter pilot during World War II who flew secret missions for the Allies. As of this writing, he had been stranded in space to remove him from consideration without killing him by Elijah Snow. Snow had been plotting this to the surprise of his teammates. Greene was transformed by the Bleed into hulking, rock-like being similar to The Thing. Unlike the other three, Jacob Greene appears to be a straight-forward killing machine, used on missions with the objective being simple destruction.

unfortunately there are counter parts to these four in the real world... they are the four spritual elements possesing people who are destined to save the world .... but in doing so they will lose there lives. remember us for it is us who will save you. us

Ellis is presumably commenting on the selfishness of the Fantastic Four in withholding their technology and research from the people of Earth. Ellis also seems to be criticizing the military-industrial complex responsible for the Fantastic Four by playing up the role of Nazis in the scientific planning and Dowling's involvement with Science City Zero.

It is noteworthy that recent issues of the Fantastic Four have focused on them making the world "better", and exactly how Reed Richard's inventions have been made public.

In one issue, the Four eliminate a group of characters analogous to Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern, who it is suggested would have made Earth a better place. It has been suggested that Ellis is commenting on how Marvel's characters, with their flaws and foibles, became more popular in the Sixties than DC's more idealistic and cheerful characters.

In the Planetary/JLA cross-over Terra Occulta, Planetary actually took the role of the Four, displaying the same selfishness and thirst for power. Snow has repeatedly been warned that his desire to destroy the Four could drive him to be more like them.

Ironically, starting in 2004, Warren Ellis began writing Ultimate Fantastic Four, where such commentary is muted, if present at all.