Category: Planet of the Apes
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It’s strange, but the best thing about Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Direction so far is Rachael Stott’s artwork. And her artwork isn’t particularly good. She does okay with people in action sequences, less with the spaceship stuff, but her talking heads are particularly interesting. She doesn’t go for photo referencing the cast…
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So did Boom! cancel,Cataclysm, did the writers quit or did the license go away? Something obviously happened. This issue jumps three years ahead of the previous one, then another five years from where it opens. Bechko and Hardman follow Professor Milo (from the second movie) so they can avoid having to have Charlton Heston appear.…
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Big reveals, small reveals. Along with the biggest of them all–the twelfth issue is the finale, something I didn’t realize. Bechko and Hardman have always have problems with their Apes series because they’re direct–sort of direct–prequels to the first movie and they still haven’t really got everything set up. The ape society is still too……
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Maybe killing the talking human is why Cornelius doesn’t remember her when Chuck Heston shows up, but it’s hard to say. But she doesn’t die this issue, just gets her throat slit. Meaning maybe her vocal cords are damaged… which seems like it’s been in an Apes comic somewhere before. The problem with this issue…
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I can’t believe I’m going to make this statement–Bechko and Hardman are playing too loose with Apes movie continuity. I don’t even like the movies. But they’ve got a talking human here eight years before Charlton Heston shows up and Cornelius sees and hears her. Kind of changes things up. As an issue, of course,…
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The story arc, so far as it involves the ape expedition to the valley–I’m liking Bechko and Hardman not getting locked into actual titled arcs–comes to a close. There are a lot of surprises. One of them is somewhat confusing, as it either should have been clear and wasn’t due to the art or it…
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It’s funny how the Zaius subplot is actually where Bechko and Hardman have the most problems, even though it’s mostly a talking heads subplot. They’re keeping the Zaius subplot… well, it’s kind of the soil. It feeds into the other two plots and presumably could make major changes for them when they all collide. But…
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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…
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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. There’s action, sure. There’s a…
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Are you kidding me? The grand reveal is so obvious I had it figured a page into the sequence. Bechko and Hardman–and I know I’ve complimented them on their adherence to Apes movie mythology–try way too hard to bring everything together with Cataclysm. They fail, most obviously, because they leave it with it with a…
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Boom! needs better editors. Maybe they just didn’t want to piss off Hardman, who’s very high profile even if he is just writing the book, but someone should have–strike that one, needed to–tell he and Bechko not to fake a subplot. The issue opens with the revelation of a great conspiracy. The issue’s big moments…
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With Cataclysm‘s second issue, Bechko and Hardman run into a predictable problem. They’re explaining something about a licensed property. In this issue, the reader learns why the ape civilization changes so much in the original Apes movies. So what? They don’t create any memorable characters–even returning cast like Dr. Zaius isn’t used as the protagonist;…
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Corrina Bechko and Gabriel Hardman come up with something unexpected here in Cataclysm. Historically, Planet of the Apes comics have one big problem–there’s not enough material from the movies to translate into a serialized narrative. Bechko and Hardman have a neat solution–a disaster. Not just any disaster, but one tying into the movies’ canon. Sort…
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Bechko and Hardman wrap things up quickly, maybe even getting their Apes series in a place where a sequel might not be pointless. The issue itself concentrates, with the exception of the good chimps ambushing the gorillas with science, on events cursory to the battle scene. There’s the discussion of the leaders, there’s the follow-up…
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Bechko and Hardman have a difficult task this issue. They need to make the humans sympathetic, but the humans’ stupidity gets in the way. The writers fail and basically prove what the bad apes always say–man is an animal. There’s only a little action, at the beginning and the end, but I can’t remember what…
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Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a lame movie, but the comic book adaptation–while it contains the same lame plot, weak Gold Key writing and art–is still a little better. Why? Because the comic is much shorter than the movie’s ninety minute or whatever running time. Artists Alberto Giolitti and Sergio Costa–the script writer…
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I really like the Laming art a lot. He brings personality to the apes during their conversations, lots of pensive thoughts and so on. He deserves a much better script. Bechko and Hardman continue their boring political history. Exile really does fell like a history lesson, except the Planet of the Apes doesn’t have an…
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Exile on the Planet of the Apes has way too much to do with Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman’s last series, Betrayal on the Planet of the Apes. There’s a little synopsis of the ground situation, post–Betrayal, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t go into all the characters who the reader’s supposed to remember. Marc…
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Well, I guess Betrayal does change some things to make the ending more in line with the first movie. All apes can be scientists–doctors–but I don’t think there were any chimp doctors in the first movie. I think they were still stooges to the orangutans. Humans are banned from the city. Those two changes about…
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I wonder if Betrayal got four issues because Hardman agreed to do four issues. There’s not enough story for four issues; there’s probably only enough for two. Bechko and Hardman are introducing all these characters–or, if they’ve introduced them before, they’re now giving them more page time. But there’s still the pointlessness. So what if…
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The second issue of Betrayal has fantastic Hardman art and still no compelling story. Bechko and Hardman seem to think setting a comic near the original movie is enough, but they’re ignoring the years of Apes comics before this one. While truly original content is off the table, the Ape prison introduced here is a…
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It’s almost like a mantra… there are no new Planet of the Apes stories to be told, regardless of title, creator or company. Betrayal is no different. There are pro-human apes, anti-human apes and a conspiracy against either or both. It’s the way Apes comics have always been. Except the art. Gabriel Hardman brings professionalism…
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Eh. For the first time, Gregory’s Apes is completely “eh.” I never thought of him as ambitious, but this issue lacks ambition to the degree he’s just churning to get a comic out. Maybe because Boom!’s got a dollar issue next, it doesn’t matter. It’s the last issue before an imposed “jumping on” point. But…
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I wish Gregory–and Boom! in general–were more forthcoming. About halfway through the issue, I started wondering if Apes was more a relaunch than just a prequel. Meaning, even though it’s set 1,200 years before the first movie, maybe the movie isn’t going to be precisely how it works. The movie’s got a cheap, limited set.…
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Most of Magno’s art is too good for a Planet of the Apes comic. He clearly takes a lot of time and care creating the comic’s setting. So when he has a bad panel, it’s striking, especially since it’s usually something inexplicable–like drawing a character bad when one panel before it was fine or good.…
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Even with Fowler back, nothing can stop Revolution from having a lousy finish. O’Brien introduces a fighter pet gorilla. He just shows up. Maybe Templeton planned a second limited series from his point of view… I’m glad he never got around to telling that bad story. This issue is loose with the characters. O’Brien was…
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Swell, Templeton brings in Kent Burles (from the Adventure series) for the backup. Burles’s art is still bad. Worse, Templeton’s script doesn’t have any action, so Burles is doing talking heads. It’s incomprehensible. But it does explain there are multiple lawgivers (which doesn’t make much sense) and there’s something with the development of ape society.…
The Stop Button 