The Stop Button

I love the way Moench plots the original story. It opens with a title suggesting the heroes on the run will end up in the Forbidden Zone then he does everything he can to keep them out of it.

Moench also gets a lot of mileage out of the diversions (they do end up in the Forbidden Zone) and he shows a real understanding of pacing. He’s able to convince the distractions will work, even with the title forecasting the plot developments.

Plus, he’s got Ploog art. And the Forbidden Zone proves to be full of creatures for Ploog to render… though Ploog on the apes is more than enough.

On the adaptation part, Moench finds a good sequence of the movie to summarize and he turns Zira into the installment’s protagonist. Again, the pacing helps a lot.

But Tuska can’t differentiate between apes. The story frequently becomes unnecessarily confusing.

CREDITS

Terror On the Planet of the Apes; writer, Doug Moench; artist, Mike Ploog. Planet of the Apes, Part Two: World of Captive Humans; writer, Moench; penciller, George Tuska; inker, Mike Esposito. Editor, Tony Isabella; publisher, Marvel Comics.