The expected tricks come into play as we learn more about this world.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marc Guggenheim
Art: Alvaro Lopez
Colors: Alex Guimaraes
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
What They Say:
WAR FOR THE PLANET! Once, the citizens of Ape City believed they were alone in this world, the only sentient creatures left. But Cornelius and Zira’s trip to the Forbidden Zone with the human Nova has revealed a world of violence beyond their borders. Now, an army of gorillas is on the march – and they aren’t the only factor vying for control. Don’t miss the series finale-where the connection to Taylor’s journey finally comes full circle!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Planet of the Apes is one of those core properties as a kid growing up in the 1970s in seeing the movies broadcast on weekends on TV, having the playsets and action figures, and then understanding their context more as I got into my teens and an adult revisiting them. There’ve been a number of comics over the years but they never caught on all that well for various reasons, though I’m always game to give them a try. This series brought in prolific writer Marc Guggenheim as he looks to tell a story from before the original film. The has him paired with artist Alvaro Lopez and colorist Alex Guimaraes who give this a pretty good feel that in some ways captures the color palette of the original works, the ape designs, and just the kind of emptiness of the world pretty well. It feels authentic while also realizing that the original is pretty much a nature-based work with little to stand out beyond the apes themselves.
With this being the final issue of this storyline it all has to wrap things up so that the original movie story can play out. It’s interesting in what it does while still being largely both action-oriented and predictable in a lot of ways. Cornelius, for example, finds where Jarl and his gorillas have been keeping a slew of Gibbons captive as a kind of second-class labor group of sorts. It takes a bit of work but he’s able to convince them that they can’t just sit there and take it and that they have to push back when the opportunity arises. It’s a good sequence but also an interesting one to see from Cornelius considering how he was in the film/story and the wariness of doing anything to change status quo overall while still wanting to learn and research more.
That said, the fight dominates as the gorillas go against Ivana and her group from their surprise attack and there’s bodies falling and some tense moments until the Gibbons show up to change the tide of it. What the book has to do, and was obvious would do since introducing Ivana, is to be able to put things in a different place for this area with the gorillas jailed and the Gibbons in charge. But it also has Ivana doing her best to protect the humans there by altering Zira and Cornelius’ memories along with Lucius so they can return safely to Ape City without revealing everything. But because she’s seen bits of the future, she also knows that the underlying feelings are still in both of them and that will help with what will come with Taylor and their larger journey to the past. It’s all pat and neat as you’d expect but it’s effective in what it’s doing and comes together well.
In Summary:
Beware the Planet of the Apes does some nice expansion overall but plays in the tough area of taking place in the weeks before the first film, so there are certain inevitable moments. Which is fine but I’m hopeful that we can get an exploration of more of the world in general and away from this specific place – though I suspect that there may be some hard limitations on what they can do with the license. There’s a lot of potential here but it’s going to have to figure out what it really wants to be in other books. This one was fun and I enjoyed the take on it – and the use of the previous works as flashbacks of sorts – and it leaves me hopeful.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: April 17th, 2023
MSRP: $5.99
