As far as expansive mythology goes, Planet of the Apes doesn’t have much. The standards repeat themselves very quickly. But Beckho and Hardman manage to repeat one of those very same standards and hide it all until the final reveal. They raise all sorts of other possibilities–this issue of Cataclysm, almost against itself, has a lot of adventure to it–and then reveal something extremely logical.
The writers keep their three way split. Zaius gets his own subplot (having his wife school him is awesome), Zira gets her own and then Cornelius–with Dr. Milo along–gets a third. There’s also Zaius’s son, who figures into the Cornelius plot; he’s not a lead, but he’s close.
The only real problem is an art one and penciller Damian Couceiro–with Mariano Taibo ably inking–can’t fix. The chimps look alike. I kept confusing Cornelius and Milo.
Otherwise, it’s fine stuff.
CREDITS
Writers, Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman; penciller, Damian Couceiro; inker, Mariano Taibo; colorist, Darrin Moore; letterer, Ed Dukeshire; editor, Dafna Pleban; publisher, Boom! Studios.
Carey really needs to work on his cliffhangers for Risk. He passes up an interesting one–the protagonist’s wife wondering about him talking to a woman in his sleep–for a common one. Supervillain fight leading to an explosion, the standard, in other words.
Robinson gives the series a really simplistic finish, but doesn’t even finish the series. He’s continuing it–this issue is the first without a sensational hard cliffhanger and instead he goes with a lame soft one.
With a couple exceptions, it’s one of the better 2000 AD progs so far.
Well, Tomboy finally gets a proper name.
So if Peter can’t date Mary Jane, who can he date? Kitty Pryde, of course. Kitty Pryde? Why Kitty Pryde? Presumably because she’s age appropriate and is a superhero too.
Bechko and Hardman continue their setup for the first Planet of the Apes movie with… well, I guess it’s kind of a post-disaster story. They’ve introduced all of the primary apes from the first movies, except maybe the nasty gorilla from the second one, and are doing a mundane prequel.
Mike Carey’s got one big problem with Suicide Risk… he’s doing a new realistic superpowers series and everyone’s been doing those series for almost a decade now. The shades of Powers and The Boys don’t reflect on Carey; they’re just inevitable at this point.
Robinson gets in a lot more backstory–both for the lead, Tyler, and the principal and the nurse–and only skims over a little in the present action. He’s bringing things to a close, perhaps a little hurriedly, but he’s got some nice scenes to make up for it. Five Weapons is a comic about action where the most interesting scenes are the talking about action. Very odd.