I wonder how Moench’s original story would have gone without Tom Sutton. The setup is great–a divided city (gorillas against orangutans); only the city is a giant ship. Sutton has an amazing two page spread establishing the ship, though his background details on regular panels show the crazy setting too.
Without Sutton, Moench would have been left with a somewhat wordy story. With him, it’s a phenomenal look at ape politics in isolation. Twelve issues in and Moench is making Apes more thoughtful and stimulating every time. Even if he does make all the gorillas pirates in this story.
The backup adapts Escape From the Planet of the Apes, which has a lot of comic moments in the source film. For the art, Rival plays up the comedy. The installment looks like a political caricature.
The style works though.
Moench does a good job adapting, keeping the comedy beats.
CREDITS
City of Nomads; writer, Doug Moench; artist, Tom Sutton. Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Part One: Upward To the Earth; writer, Moench; artist, Rico Rival. Editor, Archie Goodwin; publisher, Marvel Comics.