By Doug Moench, Mike Ploog, Tom Sutton, Herb Trimpe, Frank Chiaramonte, Virgil Redondo, Rich Handley & various (Boom! Studios)
ISBN: 978-1-60886-990-9 (HB) eISBN: 978-1-61398-661-5
The most effective and long-lasting exploration of human ambition failing and dystopia resulting is not the last 40 years of global government, but rather a film franchise built upon a seminal French science fiction novel released in 1963 – Peirre’s Boulle’s satirical La Planète des singes. A former secret agent and engineer, Boulle earned major accolades as an author. Your entire family has probable seen his other Oscar-winning blockbuster, never realising semi-autobiographical La Pont de la rivière Kwai was David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai…
Originally translated in 1964 as Monkey Planet, his other epic became – after a major rewrite by screenwriter Rod Serling – 1968 US movie sensation Planet of the Apes. It inspired four sequels and – from September to December 1974 – a television series which lived on in reruns and reedited TV movies for decades to come, an animated series, books toys, games, a home projector pack, records and comics.
… And that’s all before Tim Burton’s 2001 remake and the 2011 reboot of the still ongoing franchise…
There have been many comics adaptations, beginning with two manga interpretations (1968 & 1971); a 1970 Gold Key movie adaptation and assorted international versions. In 1974 – no doubt thanks to the impending TV show – a Marvel Magazine continuation, combining serialised comics adaptations of the movies, features and articles began. When Marvel abruptly cancelled PotA in December 1976 the franchise lay fallow until Malibu Comics picked it up in 1990 (reprints, new stories and franchise mash-up Ape Nation). Other companies also added new material over the years and much of that history is covered in erudite Introduction ‘Gorilla Warfare – and Tales of Terror’ by expert/editor/fan-addict Rich Handley…
This first monster compilation gathers a wholly new addition to the mythos, scripted in entirety by Doug Moench (Batman, Werewolf by Night, Moon Knight, Master of Kung Fu), who alternated these trenchant tales with two other Apes strands: “Future History Chronicles” and expanded comics adaptations of the five original films, which are the subject of a separate, future, review…
When Marvel secured the comics rights (also fully covered in Handley’s prose piece) they undertook to fabulously and fantastically expand upon the premise via a fantastic procession of scenarios. The most significant dealt with the much-strained friendship of two teens: a human named Jason and chimpanzee Alexander. They had grown up together in an idyllic integrated community of apes and humans, guided by benign spiritual leader The Lawgiver, but when the saint vanished on a pilgrimage, the garden of Eden began to rot…
The storyline had been devised by Gerry Conway, but his schedule couldn’t handle the increased workload and Moench took it all on. Initially, Terror on the Planet of The Apes was illustrated by Mike Ploog (Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, Man-Thing, Kull the Destroyer, Frankenstein’s Monster, Weirdworld, The Spirit), who produced some of his very best work up to #19 – his longest continual run on any strip – after which Tom Sutton (Vampirella, Doctor Strange, Western Gunfighters, Grimjack, Star Trek) took over.
Sporting an August 1974 cover-date and on sale from June 25th of that year, Planet of the Apes #1 blended photos and articles with Part 1 (of 6) of an adaptation of the 1968 movie plus all new ape-ventures set at a time when humans were still sapient talkers and lived in notional harmony with equally erudite orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas. That’s where this book – re-presenting Terror on the Planet of The Apes stories from PotA #1-4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 19-20, 23, 26-28 – starts off, following a Photo intro message.
Chapter One ‘The Lawgiver’ introduces best friends Jason and Alexander who witness chief Peacekeeper Brutus (a gorilla chosen by The Lawgiver to safeguard everyone until his return) leading a murderous lynching and burning raid on the human sector. Despite being disguised by hoods and robes (this was a time when the Ku Kux Klan was constantly in the headlines for terrorising African Americans emboldened by Civil Rights successes), the youngsters see gorillas murder Jason’s parents in the opening gambit of a scheme to make their kind the dominant species on Earth. In Chapter Two’s ‘Fugitives on the Planet of the Apes’ the witnesses’ attempts to expose the atrocity lead to Brutus murdering his own wife and framing Jason and Alexander for the deed.
After they spectacularly escape the city, another recapping Photo Intro segues into ‘The Forbidden Zone of Forgotten Horrors!’ as Jason and Alexander spy on Brutus’ terrorist base and are almost caught. This prompts another murder spree that the Peacekeeper blames them for. Wounded and scared, in ‘Lick the Sky Crimson’ they head for the radioactive wastes of the Forbidden Zone in search of The Lawgiver and encounter weird mutants, bizarre machines and monsters. These terrors thrive in a buried city run by a gestalt of giant bottled brains calling themselves The Inheritors. Worst of all, the chimp realises his human friend is becoming a vengeance-hungry savage in many ways the equal of Brutus…
The power of mutual hate is further explored after Photo Intro 3 leads us to ‘Spawn of the Mutant-Pits’ where hideous drone-slaves pursuing them clash with gorillas Brutus has set on Jason’s trail. Inker Frank Chiaramonte supplements Ploog’s inspired pencils as they butcher each other, before Jason & Alexander are captured by the Forbidden Zone’s hidden overlords and despatched to ‘The Abomination Arena!’ to fight fresh terrors beside a surviving gorilla…
Another hairsbreadth escape leads them to the captive Lawgiver and a lucky rescue/breakout in a stolen flying craft before Part 4 details their flight, crash and rendezvous with ‘A River Boat Named Simian’. Here largely film-inspired antics take a big broad pause as we see how other parts of the Planet of the Apes recovered from Armageddon. Brutus strikes a deal with the cerebral Gestalt Commanders: securing futuristic tanks, energy weapons and drone battle fodder in return for destroying the Lawgiver’s city and civilisation. It’s a deal neither side intends to honour but in the interim the fugitives he’s actually intent on eradicating are recuperating thanks to river traders bringing unity to scattered communities.
Daniel Boone-inspired orangutan ‘Gunpowder Julius’, his human pal Steely Dan and a feisty, gloriously rowdy crew of frontiers-folk do much to soothe the poison brewing in Jason’s soul, but the healing halts as soon as Brutus’ forces catch them all celebrating. Launching a devastating assault kills many and instantly reignites the hate in the human’s heart…
Shot from Ploog’s pencils, Part 5 ‘Malagueña Beyond a Zone Forbidden’ sees the survivors encounter a happy band of ape and human Romani with Jason distracted and then beguiled by a beautiful young woman. Jealousy and hot heads might have led to catastrophe and damnation, but the duel for her hand is interrupted by Brutus and his multispecies army in ‘The Planet Inheritors!’, resulting in a deadly stand-off until Julius thrashes Brutus in a vicious personal duel…
With the Peacekeeper a prisoner, Jason, Alexander, their wise patriarch and Malagueña set out for the integrated home city, blithely unaware of how much has deteriorated since they’ve been gone. Now humans are second-class citizens and although many apes are unhappy with the tyranny of gorillas, trouble is brewing and will boil over ‘When The Lawgiver Returns…’
This dramatic point sees the true plans of both Brutus and Gestalt Commanders explosively exposed prior to Terror on the Planet of the Apes Phase 2 opening with the introduction of a new character in ‘The Magick-Man’s Last Gasp Purple Light Show’. Although seemingly defeated, Brutus escapes punishment and flees, with incandescently enraged Jason following him back into the wilderness to extract true justice. Along the way he meets archaeologist/ philosopher Lightning Smith, a human whose pursuit of the secrets of the Ancients has unearthed a stockpile of pre-disaster wonders and a lot of woolly misconceptions about the masters of science who once ruled the planet…
“Lightsmith” and faithful companion Gilbert (a mute but fully sapient gibbon) seek further revelations – including the location of legendary stockpile of lost wonders “the Psycho-drome”. Proselytising technology at every stop, they take Jason under their wing, ultimately bringing him to their secret mountain home in ‘Up the Nose-Tube to Monkey-Trash’. The base is a masterful example of acerbic satire, eventually revealing to us, if not the players, the last days of human hegemony. Meanwhile Alex and Malagueña have been tracking Jason, but sadly catch up just as savage, primitive “Assisimians” attack Lightsmith, leading to a shocking show of salvaged wonders and the obsessive hatred of tribal shaman Maguanus…
Brutus has not been idle: once again duping the Gestalt Commanders and taking their last technological armaments to end Jason and anyone else in the Peacekeeper’s way. The tyrant finally finds him as Maguanus’ minions are besieging them, and a tenuous double-dealing truce drives our beleaguered heroes into new territory to face ‘Demons of the Psychodrome’ (art by Ploog & Tom Sutton).
Tragically, the answers Lightsmith hungers for almost destroy him as the truth of the psycho-drome exposes an extraterrestrial component to the Ancients’ downfall and a terrifyingly patient ‘Society of the Psychodrome’ (Sutton art) waiting for Earth to be pacified for them…
As Jason, Alexander & Malagueña scrape from calamity to clash to catastrophe, Brutus almost claims total victory by stealing enough nuclear missiles to exterminate all humans. Thankfully he doesn’t know how to use them and when Jason once more foils the plot in ‘Messiah of the Monkey Demons’, an atomic inferno apparently ends the alien threat…
However, a new menace appears when The Lawgiver’s devoted young apprentice is co-opted by another technological faction to survive the fall of man. As our stars – safely transported a vast distance away whilst the nukes went up – cavort in snow for the first time, ‘Northlands!’ (art by Herb Trimpe & Virgil Redondo with tones by Rudy Mesina) sees them meet ape Vikings and witness another crime of ignorance and bigotry before heading back south in an ice-riding dragonship…
Waiting for them is seemingly unkillable Brutus, the last remnants of The Inheritors’ forces and new threat The Makers. These human holdovers are kidnapping gorillas to make cyborg slaves and their unleashed ‘Apes of Iron’ seem likely to control the world, However, as seen in last chapter ‘Revolt of the Gorilloids!’ (Trimpe & Virgil Redondo) Jason and his allies won’t go down without a fight…
Frustratingly, the saga stopped there and remains uncompleted, but in postscript ‘Still Apey After all These Years’ Handley offers more information and partial closure with his efforts to share Moench’s unpublished last scripts. He also posits what might have been had the author been allowed to complete the saga abruptly curtailed when the magazine was cancelled without warning. It left three separate story strands… well, stranded…
Also of interest is a section on unique permutations of Marvel UK’s weekly Planet of the Apes iteration (ask your grandad about “Apeslayer” and see the reaction …or just google it).
This first volume closes with a ‘Full colour painted cover gallery’ of issues #3, 4, 13, 17. 19 & 23 by Bob Larkin, #14 & 26 by Malcolm McNeill and #11 by Gray Morrow – all seen sans logos and livery.
In equal parts vivid nostalgia and crucial component of current comics expansion, this compelling and lovely treat is pure whacky fun no film fan or comics devotee should miss… and there’s more to come…
Planet of the Apes ™ & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Stories and illustration ™ & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.