Planet of the Apes (Curtis/Marvel) #29



Ah, the final issue of this incredible run. Of course, scripts for #30 had already been completed, Moench was planning as far ahead as issue #60, and there's no indication that sales were lagging. Rather, at this point, APJAC Productions/20th Century Fox significantly increased its licensing fees (though we don't know how much or why), making the continuation of this series unprofitable for Marvel, and thus it was cancelled quickly and without warning. Oddly though, if anything, POTA was becoming a less sought after commodity at this point, with the movies finished, the TV series cancelled, and the animated series merely limping along. The toys and licensed products had been selling well since the film revivals a year earlier, so maybe that was enough of a reason for Fox to feel it had something it could exploit here. Of course, neither Fox nor Marvel could have foreseen what would be happening less than a year from now -- that Star Wars would redefine mainstream media's idea of and preferences toward Science Fiction, utterly replacing POTA as the mainstream Science Fiction legacy series that appealed to all ages and was known in all households across America. POTA would never again achieve the level of profitability and noteworthiness it had experienced from 1974 to 1976. So, I have to assume, this series wouldn't have lasted that much longer even if Fox hadn't raised the licensing fees. Oh well.

And, as an odd side note, I have to wonder how the Brown/Watson POTA Annuals, based upon the TV series and published from 1975-1977, continued in spite of Fox's new greediness. Perhaps they were more "off the radar"?


"Future History Chronicles V: To Race the Death-Winds"
writer: Doug Moench
art: Tom Sutton
grade: B

This works nicely as the final published installment of the Future History Chronicles because the primary cast of four characters finally comes together this time around, with Starkor and Greymalkin and Alaric and Reena finally making peace and finding comradery with each other. Sutton's visual premise for this issue, with them engaging in hot air balloon dog fighting, was pretty fun too, as was the band of environmental extremists/anti-industrialists in top hats and British accents riding giant frogs they found waiting for them on the ground.

However, as usual in Moench's scripts for this title these days, there were moments that made little to no sense:

- Alaric and Reena making up: Their fight in the previous chapter had felt so inevitable, so irreconcilable, that I found it upsetting how easily they made up and moved on in this one. Yeah, real married couple fights feel inevitable and irreconcilable a lot of the time and end up seeming silly with the light of day (I was actually really impressed with how authentically Moench captured that), but this reconciliation felt way too easy and entirely dependent upon Reena letting down her guard and conceding her faults with Alaric remaining blameless. Sometimes the way Moench writes women really bothers me.

- So they rise above the deathwinds in order to survive but, upon encountering a lightening storm above, let out gas from the balloon and drop below. Wouldn't that take them right back into the deathwinds?

- The fall: Our protagonists fall out of a hot air balloon and land comfortably on the ground. No clear indication is made of how high up they were from the ground, but they clearly weren't right above it. Later in the issue, they jump from a small cliff that appears about three stories tall and Greymalkin explains that they'll be safe because the vines are soft. You can't tell me that hot air balloon was less than three stories up from the flat, hard ground they ended up falling upon.


Sutton's art -- I feel the same way I always have about it. It's gorgeous, meticulous, and extremely difficult to follow.


Supplemental features:

- Two random full page drawings by Pat Broderick, the second of which seeming disturbingly homo-erotic as a naked muscular barbarian male with emphasis on his butt cheeks is brought, bound and gagged, before cruel ape overseers.

- Three articles by Samuel James Maronie. Not sure why they felt the need to replace Jim Whitmore with this new guy, but I don't like his energy as much. His articles lack Whitmore's enthusiasm and feel a bit insulting as they take pages upon pages to tell us things about POTA that we already knew. His first article, "10th Anniverary of the Planet of the Apes" tells the cursory story of how/when the five films and two TV shows were released. I guess this might have been news to someone, but certainly not someone who'd read previous issues of this very magazine. The second story is a thoroughly uninteresting bio on Kim Hunter, which is disappointing considering how lively she is. Tell us something about her as a person or (gasp!), you know, interview her. Finally, he interviews Richard Zanuck, the head of Fox Studios at the time. It's a perspective Apes fans hadn't previously heard but, as anyone who's seen his interviews on the subject since now knows, Zanuck doesn't seem to have much understanding of nor appreciation for the Ape franchise beyond its profitability.


And that's it. The end. If I didn't have the unpublished scripts and finished pages for four remaining Moench stories in this series, I'd feel pretty empty at this point. Instead, we can still look forward to my reviews of "Forbidden Zone Prime," "Future History Chronicles VI: The Captive of the Canals," "Journey to the Planet of the Apes" (starring Derek Zane), and the final scripted chapter of Terror on the Planet of the Apes, "Toomeet the Makers."

Reviews coming shortly...

And now the first of three unpublished Doug Moench scripts intended to be used in upcoming issues of the Curtis/Marvel POTA magazine:


"Future History Chronicles VI: The Captive of the Canals" (unpublished)
writer: Doug Moench
grade: A

(Thanks to Rich Handley and to Hunter's Planet of the Apes Archive for making this script available online)


In Doug's note to Tom Sutton at the beginning of the script for this issue, he notes: "Hubris or not, I think this is the most imaginative one yet," and I agree. All along, it seems the primary appeal of these "Future History Chronicles" stories has been in finding one outlandish sci-fi visual around which to build a story, from a city on the sea, to a marine animal controlled as a submarine, to a series of interlocking ships forming a larger city on the sea, to a cathedral on the sea, to airship dog fights. That tradition continues this time with the Sexxtann, a six sided fortress with a jungle in the middle and a 41 story tall canal system running throughout (and you really need to read the script to fully appreciate the imaginative power of this setting). However, there's a lot more to this one as well, as Moench works to infuse great imagination and symbolism into this structure and into its final fate. This is a story about industry attempting to prove it can dominate the wild (which, as Moench so astutely notes in this script, is the entire reason why mankind has front lawns), nature's superiority to man (depicted via the amphibians who comfortably exist both within and outside of the Sexxtann whereas its inhabitants cannot, and playfully seeming to scoff at their seriousness/self-importance), new civilizations blindly repeating the mistakes of the old (African industrialized society living within the Sexxtann scoffing at the errors that first world industrialized nations made, leading to their demise, all while making the same kinds of errors born of hubris, fear, and hatred of those who they perceives as threats), and noble savagery and the danger of blind fear (though Moench has beaten this final theme to a pulp by now).

I feel like this story was virtually perfect until we got to Her Midgitey, an oversized simple-minded ape that the Industrialists of the Sexxtann had experimented upon. For the third time, Moench puts the spotlight on a noble savage who is unnecessarily killed as a result of man's inhumanity to man. In fact, it's a virtual replay of the savage that cared for Lightsmith a few issues back, nursing him like a mother and then killed by our protagonists because they foolishly believed she was kidnapping him. The exact same thing happens to Her Midgitey when she takes Greymalken in this one. Her final moments were touching, but the final twist at the end, in which we realize that "Her Midgitey" = "Her Majesty" and that she'd been the leader of the environmentalist ape tribe we met last issue until the Industrialists caught and experimented on her, feels unnecessary, not all that shocking (we could easily infer she was from that tribe, though not that she was their leader) and pretty much upstages the other impressive themes running throughout this story.

It's fascinating to read this issue in script form. I expected to enjoy the story less as a result but was instead surprised to see just how clearly Moench envisioned the visuals on the page and how pure and undiluted his concepts came across here. It must have been frustrating for Moench to constantly depend upon artists to filter his ideas onto the page. Surely, Sutton's art, while amazingly detailed, was never as clear as what Moench envisions here. Funny. I'd always assumed the visual concepts had been Sutton's (or whichever artist was working with Doug at the time), but this might be the best visual of the entire series, and it comes all from Moench. Moench does mention at the beginning of the script that the writer providing page layouts is a new style being required from Marvel (Archie Goodwin's idea?) as opposed to the traditional Marvel style in which writer and artist created together, but this still invites doubt as to how many of the great visual premises of this series came from the artists working with Moench.

Similarly surprising to me was the fact that this script contained no straight dialogue. Moench's stories carry a definite signature, both in dialogue and in narration, but there was no dialogue nor narration here. So how does it get added later? Is the finished art sent to Moench so that he can then write a script for the letterer?

Whatever the case, having the opportunity to read Moench's pure script was an absolute pleasure and a rare opportunity to understand how the man really envisioned and created. I wonder if most of his scripts were this strong and were merely diluted by artists who didn't have the time or imagination to properly translate his ideas.


Minor details:

- It's interesting that the Sexxtann is not destroyed in the end, but instead must work hard to balance the water both inside the walls of the Sexxtann and in the lake now in the middle of it. Whereas the Industrialists put the jungle in there to prove they could dominate over nature, now they must literally achieve balance with nature, constantly working their pumps to balance the levels within and without.

- Of course, that ruins some of the message of this story. If the purpose in making the Industrialists resentful descendants of Second-World African Nations was to show that they could repeat the First-World Nations' mistakes even while scoffing at them -- they didn't. The Sexxtann still stands and so does the civilization within it. This is hardly a clear microcosm of the apocalypse that has ravaged the planet and hurled civilization back into the stone age.

- I feel like Moench tried to play up the skin color of the Industrialists a bit too much. If he wasn't going for a racial message, what was the point? Why would Alaric and friends never have seen a black human before?

- A misfired flamethrower can break the whole complex (specifically gouging out an entire chunk of wall)? How would the physics of that work? Wouldn't it melt or disintegrate the chunk instead of pull it out? And surely, if the Industrialists' flamethrowers could do this to their own walls, I have to believe they would have known this and been more careful about using them within the walls of the Sexxtann.

- The name "Sexxtann" is just terrible. Moench claims it is derived from being six sided and making a weird homage to Exxon, but even he seems to imply he's aware the primary connotation readers will have is with the "sexx" part. Also, WHY make a nod to Exxon? Yes, they're a big industry, but in what way do their business practices specifically relate to that of the Industrialists in this story? It's a very very weak connection, resulting in an outright terrible name.

- Speaking of names, I'm still not sure why this series was ever called "Future History Chronicles." Nothing about this series suggests that it's specifically further in the future than "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" unless it's supposed to be the same civilization of apes and humans, and it can't be anyone's history chronicles if the entire civilization perished in Chapter 5, save for four characters (only two of which can procreate together). Then again, "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" ceased to be an appropriate name for the series roughly seven chapters in when Brutus' reign of terror in Ape City came to an end.


In conclusion, AWESOME story full of tremendous potential, only slightly upstaged by a repeat of Moench's noble savage theme.

"To Meet the Makers" (unpublished script)
writer: Doug Moench
grade: C+

(Thanks to Rich Handley and to Hunter's Planet of the Apes Archive for making this script available online)


I'm assuming the title of this final installment in the "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" series was supposed to be "To Meet the Maker," and not "Toomeet the Maker," which is what is written at the top of the surviving script.

I've been awaiting this final "Terror" story with much apprehension because, from the time I read issue #4, I knew that I was in love with this series and would never want it to end. It's precisely why I saved this, the final installment in the largest (and my favorite) ongoing series in the magazine, until last. I suppose that, in this light, it would be incredibly difficult for a script to live up to my expectations. Still, I can't help but thinking that we were better off ending with the previous chapter, as this one is far more flawed and even exposes some weaknesses in the general direction of the series that might not have come to our attention otherwise.

There are the obvious problems, like Smashore, the new cyber-enhanced albino gorilla antagonist who literally shoots missiles out of his belt, lasers out of his finger tips, and death beams out of his eyes.

There's our being invited to laugh along with Lightsmith as his bumbling attempts to pass himself off as an expert nearly result in the death of the Lawgiver, and laugh even harder as he attempts to cover this up afterward.

There's Jason's odd behavior in this issue that Moench seems to see as character evolution, with his initial utterly meaningless confrontation with Brutus at his jail cell (neither character grows or is further revealed at all through this potentially heavy interchange), his ultimate decision that he owes Brutus an apology (Wha..huh??), and that odd final moment where Brutus is free and laughing maniacally in the storm while Jason stares at him, realizing he is free again, and just seems...alone. I just don't get it. We've all been waiting to see Jason grow as a person, but this progression made no sense to me.

And, of course, we have the abrupt resolution to the story of young Thaddeus, the idealistic youth who risked everything to try to save the Lawgiver. While his luck had taken a tragic and moving turn in the previous issue, this one utterly discards him and makes his entire sacrifice irrelevant. The Lawgiver just gets better, abruptly and for no apparent reason beyond the sound of explosions outside. Thaddeus' sacrifice was meaningless, and even this pathetic fact could have been moving if given attention in the issue -- but it isn't. Thaddeus just dies -- arbitrarily, without having made ANY contribution to the series, and without any attention having been given to his passing. We've mourned the loss of savages, mutants, and monsters in this series, but the passing of a mere child who was trying to selflessly help others goes almost entirely unnoticed. I truly hope Moench had envisioned giving some attention to Thaddeus' passing in the next issue.

Finally, considering that Gunpowder Julius and Steely Dan (our only likable supporting cast members at this point) have served their purpose, show no signs of progressing as characters, and only seem to be hanging around (temporarily) for nostalgia at this point, I really wonder what momentum this series would have had beyond issue #30. Surely both the addition of "The Makers" and the escaping (again) of Brutus feel like desperate attempts to create new conflict and rekindle momentum as well. As much as I have truly enjoyed the ride more than not, I still feel like the series has never really recaptured that energy it had at the beginning before progressing too far too quickly and solving all the initial conflicts of the series in the span of only the first seven installments. A certain momentum was lost at that point, and I'm not sure we ever got it back. At least issue #28 felt like it was headed back that way. Intended or otherwise, it was a strong send-off to the series. This issue was not.


The minor details:

- Really, what's the appeal of "Lightsmith?" Is he supposed to be that bumbling mad professor type, because he's even less useful and his sense of pride makes his bumbling idiocy a lot less forgiving.

- Moench missed a major opportunity with that old man who remembered caring for Jason when he was a child. There was Jason's opportunity to connect with someone again and find a sense of family once more. I think that could have been a powerful external device for driving Jason towards the path of healing/enlightenment.

- Yeah, I think anyone who would have read this issue would have immediately known the secret behind the hooded figures who tried to execute Alex's parents. The symmetry with Jason's past experience was too perfect; it had to be humans committing the same atrocity that Brutus and his followers had committed in the first issue. A little too over-the-top unsubtle (and unlikely) in its tidiness.

- What is the goal of the inheritors? Why did they want Ape City before, and why DON’T they take it now? And did "The Makers" create them? I assume Moench would have gotten around to explaining these things down the line, but explanations would have been the most appropriate in this story.

- Dan and Julius trying to drop a rock on Smashore and failing miserably while Jason is left as the frustrated bait – okay, that was cute. Sort of makes up for the other stuff in this issue.

- I expected Moravius to be a little more noble in his dealings with Jason. He lost his temper awfully quickly whereas I would have hoped he'd give Jason a little more benefit of the doubt for having so recently lost his parents at the hands of the previous occupant of his office. Of course, if he were perfect, that wouldn’t leave much room for Jason to be the potential long-term hero of this series.

- What happened to that sense of newfound leadership and peace we saw Jason begin to develop last issue? It seems like Moench sets him back to square one in terms of rage and lack of direction in this story.

- What’s with Malaguena’s “feeling” that Jason and Alex are suddenly in danger, and why does everyone accept it at face value?

- Another random connection between POTA and Moench Electric Warrior (published ten years later): both series feature a discovered ancient underground library from the reader's modern day.



So, all in all, an issue I'd rather forget. Not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but definitely an "in between" issue that shouldn't serve as a bookend to the series.

Summary of Planet of the Apes Vol. 1 (Curtis/Marvel)
(1974-1977)

Overview: Dazzling artwork from some of the industry's best, solid Doug Moench scripts, and some tremendously fun characters and concepts that took the basic premise of Planet of the Apes and charged boldly into strange new territory with it. For the more traditional readers, Moench served up some really solid adaptations of the films that often added a lot of new depth via narration and added dialogue, and for those looking for a little more excitement, Moench provided the following ongoing storylines that took both the basic sci-fi premise and racial disharmony theme into wild new areas of imaginative fancy: "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" was the main series which strived to balance some strong characterization with far out new lands and civilizations beyond Ape City. "Future History Chronicles" focused more on introducing one new whammy of a visual sci-fi concept each issue that would leave you breathless. The Derek Zane stories were designed to be more cinematic in scope -- action and visual intensive with less reliance on narration and dialogue. The articles content was never as strong, but it does present a genuine glimpse into Planet of the Apes fandom at its height (1974) until right before its decline (1976).

Worthwhile To Read?: Absolutely, even if you're not a Planet of the Apes fan. If you enjoy good science fiction/fantasy, then you will be entertained.

Key Issues/Highlights?: #1-6 and 8-11 are probably the strongest issues, containing the first (and best) story arc for "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" and the awesome stand-alone "Kingdom on the Planet of the Apes". The unpublished "Captive of the Canals" also wowed me.

Worth Re-Reading?: Truly all of it. There's one story in this entire run that I wouldn't consider worth reading (#22 -- "Quest for the Planet of the Apes") and even the issues only containing film adaptation installments (#7, 16, 18, and 25) are quality in their own right (well, maybe not #25).

Also Worth Noting: The second Marvel volume "Adventures on the Planet of the Apes" was just a reprint of the film adaptation content from the first volume. Additionally, this was the third Planet of the Apes comic publication (Gold Key's "Beneath the Planet of the Apes" film adaptation was first, and the Power Records series of film adaptations was second), but this was the first volume to contain original stories, and thus I've dubbed it "Vol. 1".

This volume includes: Planet of the Apes (Curtis/Marvel Magazine Format) #1-29, as well as the unpublished Forbidden Zone Prime, Captive of the Canals, Journey to the Planet of the Apes, and To Meet the Makers.

Planet of the Apes (Malibu/Adventure Comics) #2



"Escape!"
writer: Charles Marshall
pencils: Kent Burles
inks: Barb Kaalberg
letters: Clem Robins
Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ulm

grade: C+


Issue #2 is still an amateur comic, with poor art, awkward pacing, writing that clearly thinks it's better than it is (at one point, Alexander begins crying in reaction to another character's speech, and I can't figure out how the hell the speech was moving to him), and a lack of rich characterization, but this issue did win me over in one respect -- the teaming of Grunt with Simon, the orphaned boy. I see real value to this friendship, true give and take, as Grunt can protect Simon, Simon can teach Grunt, and both have good reason to hate the gorillas. This single aspect of the story won me over, and it also borrowed and enhanced upon two favorite concepts from Moench's POTA run -- the orphaned human and the noble savage. I'm really looking forward to their continued adventures.

As for the rest -- bleh. It was stilted, overly dramatic and overly inflated with a false sense of purpose/meaning, and it depended upon too many coincidences to boot. Still, if one aspect of this story could win me over in a major way, I have to believe there's hope for the rest.


Plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence: The gorillas are hunting humans like deer, Alexander narrowly saves his group from murderous mutants by conveniently finding a "auto seal" control panel at the last moment that was apparently there the whole time, Simon is found by the gorillas, is saved by Grunt, and begins reading The Hobbit to Grunt, Alexander and the gang find a group of Apes who have been locked in the old Ape Management complex ever since Caesar's revolution and frees them, they defeat the mutants, Coure delivers her child, Alexander feels a renewed sense of purpose, a prophet tells them that their city "faces its darkest hour," and they head back for home.


Definitely not a quality series yet, but Marshall is certainly trying, and he seems to be passionate about what he's doing. Now if only he could make his ideas work as well as he apparently thinks they're working so that we can be in tears along with Alexander next time around.

Planet of the Apes (Malibu/Adventure Comics) #4



"Battle"
writer: Charles Marshall
pencils: Kent Burles
inks: Barb Kaalberg
letters: Clem Robins
editor-in-chief: Chris Ulm

grade: C


Some things have improved with this issue. Marshall's writing is getting a little more competent, though the pacing is still rushed and awkward. Meanwhile, so much of Burles' art is still virtually impossible to follow, and so many other scenes make odd choices of how to depict the action (example: a panel after Simon shouts a threat at the guards, they are still looking off as if they haven't noticed him yet, and a panel later, we are told they ran off), but he finally gets in a few truly good panels, like the one with Grunt on page 17. Striking stuff. Oh, and Simon still looks like a girl, perhaps Patty Smyth specifically.

So, still lots of logic problems in this issue:

- Why does Simon know or care about Ollo having apes kill other apes in the arena battle? He wasn't there, and that certainly shouldn't trump the killing of his mother in his own mind.

- How does Simon know Grunt's name?

- Simon teaches Grunt to sign all in one (possibly two) evenings, and Grunt suddenly knows enough to concoct a plan with him.

- Really, the entire plan consisted of distracting ONE guard. How the heck was only one guard defending the city?

- How could they be sure the guard would randomly want to take and hurt Coure's baby?

- How did Coure manage to keep a hive of hornets docile and quiet under a cloth until it was time to unleash them on the guard?

- Upon seeing Grunt, Ollo's men proclaim "He doesn't leave here alive," yet Ollo specifically ordered them to bring Grunt and Simon back alive. For a gang of soldiers who get tortured and killed for disobeying orders in the slightest, you think these guys would be more careful.

- When the heck did they contact and assemble all the apes that are suddenly behind Alexander during the invasion? Wouldn't rallying the entire city behind Alexander have been kinda' a bigger and more important aspect of the plan to depict than the distracting of a single guard?

- How is Alexander, a wishy-washy and self-doubting drunk of a leader (as depicted in the first issue) a better fighter than Ollo one-on-one? Doesn't it stand to reason that a single-minded ape obsessively driven to obtain power would spend more time training in such things than Alexander would?

- So how/when did Alexander's forces get all the weapons, and how did that prevent the already armed gorillas from fighting back? Where were they while all of this was happening? Surely, they're not going to pick up and leave just because Ollo got his butt kicked in hand-to-hand combat. Toss him a gun and keep fighting back.

- Help me out with the ending. In what way is Alexander possibly the greatest of Apes (even trumping Caesar)? He had the guts to execute a plan concocted by someone else to undo the damage that his own irresponsible absence caused.


So yeah, still definitely not a tight issue. I don't find these characters anywhere near as interesting nor as great as Marshall does, and I have to say that it's just a tad egoistic to have a monument built to your new protagonist after only four issues with others asserting he's an even greater ape than Caesar was. Sure, Marshall. You tell yourself that.


minor details:

- Dr. Moto is back. He's playing a very stereotypical sadistic torturer, but even stereotypical master torturers are fun.

- Burles succeeds in making Max charming in this issue, especially as he silently struggles with trying to care for the infant Joshua. That little exchange of looks as Max tries to feed him was priceless. If only the art on every page could be this clear, purposeful, and evocative.

- Further clarification is given that a first plague wiped out all household pets prior to Conquest, and a second one deprived the humans of speech and higher cognitive functions after Battle.


Plot synopsis in one ridiculously long sentence: Simon catches the gang up on what Ollo has been doing, Ollo and Dr. Moto torture the gorillas that ran from Grunt last issue, Simon and Grunt come up with a lame plan to retake Ape City, they execute the plan, Grunt gets to defeat Ollo, then Alexander and Ollo face off in front of everyone, Alexander wins, Ollo is banned from the city, and the statue being built to honor Aldo is revised to look like Alexander, and Vonar the sculptor suggests that Alexander might be the greatest Ape of all.


I was truly hoping that, with the end of this story arc, we'd move on to a new cast of characters, but with Alexander assuring us that Ollo will be back, and with Dr. Moto on next issue's cover, I'm relatively sure we're stuck with these characters for a while yet. Oh well.