Cruisin’ with the Apes
It’s certain that when Pierre Boulle wrote his satirical novel, MONKEY PLANET, that he had no idea that his little book would spawn an entire sub-industry of films, toys and comics. It was an unlikely premise, astronaut gets trapped on a planet ruled by intelligent apes, but something about it captured the imagination. The novel, similar to Swift’s GULLIVER’S TRAVELS, was more of a satire and expose of society than an action tale. Enter Hollywood. Producer Albert Jacobs and various screenwriters (including Rod Serling at one point) took that basic premise and created something powerfully unique and enduring while jettisoning much of the social satire that made the book unique. With the first movie, PLANET OF THE APES, it was obvious that there was a major hit and, with the sequels that followed, a virtual cash cow for the 20th Century Fox studio. Strangely, though, it would be several years before anyone really started to capitalize on the popularity of the movie series.
In this day and age of aggressive cross marketing, it is impossible to think of a new movie coming out with a horde of merchandizing tie-in’s from Happy Meal toys to books to bed sheets to band aids to toys to shampoo to whatever can have a brand name slapped onto it, merchandizing is everywhere. Even films that prove to be commercial and critical flops (can you say BATTLEFIELD EARTH?) have a level of merchandising tie-ins that exceeds what appeared during the original film series run. One of the few areas that usually caught onto such popular items, the comics market, didn’t catch the ape frenzy until 1974 when Marvel Comics published the first issue of PLANET OF THE APES, a black and white comic in their new magazine size format. Even Gold Key, which usually adapted any movie into comics, missed the boat with the first movie and only published one Ape comic. That was MOVIE COMICS #30044-012, which adapted BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES and, with its photo cover and insert poster, is one of the rarest and most valuable of the Apes comics.
But the Apes invasion really began with the announcement of the upcoming PLANET OF THE APES television show. Suddenly, there appeared to be a market for the Apes material and Marvel, looking for titles for their rapidly expanding b/w magazine line, jumped on the franchise and released the first of 29 issues in August, 1974. Over it's life, the magazine would not be a spectacular success but it would become one of the longest lasting of the Marvel magazines. Each issue included a comic adaptation of the Apes movie (moving chronologically from PLANET to BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES) plus additional comic strips by various talents. One of the best of the second features was "Terror on the Planet of the Apes" which was entirely written by Doug Moench and drawn originally by Mike Ploog and then later by Tom Sutton. This particularly feature was really the heart of the magazine as it allowed the creators to go wild with their vision and explore areas of the Ape universe that had never been seen before. Taking place after the events of BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, "Terror" followed the adventures of Jason (a human) and Alexander (a chimp) through the world beyond the cinematic background of the movies. The art by Ploog and Sutton would be some of the finest they would create in their careers. Mike Ploog, taking advantage of the b/w format, would quickly move to producing richly textured pencils which would be published as he drew them with no inking whatsoever. Sutton, known for his wild designs would let himself go free and produce artwork far and beyond what had been seen in such comics before. The only problem would be that their work was so incredible, so inventive and so detailed that the reader could not be guaranteed of an installment in each issue. But when they did show up, they were great!
Unfortunately, the same could not always be said of the adaptations of the movie. It must be remembered, though, that this series was published during the 1970's when it was not possible to simply plop a tape into a machine and watch a movie whenever you wanted it. This was still the era of only four or five television stations and if you didn't like what was on, that was your tough luck. So, in an effort to relive the magic of favorite movies or shows, one had to rely on book novelizations or comic book adaptations. The Marvel adaptations were adequate, if uninspired. Legally blocked from using Charlton Heston's likeness, the comic did as well as it could with the material they had. The adaptations were written by Doug Moench (actually, Doug wrote all of the comic strips in the Marvel magazine) and art was handled by a variety of artists from George Tuska to Alfredo Alcala to Rico Rival to others. As such, each had their own way of interpreting the visual aspect of the movies which led to some widely unequal installments. Still, it was the only place one could read or experience the movies outside of the novel length adaptations which were never able to live up to Boulle's original.
But all good things must end, and Marvel's great b/w experimentation folded in the late 1970's taking PLANET OF THE APES with it. (Only SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN survived the rampant cancellation making it to 235 issues and until 1995.) The movie material was later colored and used by Marvel in their Book and Record series which combined a 7x10" comic (usually about 20 pages long) with a record providing narration with character and sound effects. It was the first appearance of PotA in a Marvel color format. All of the movies were represented with the strange exception of CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
Then Marvel went to the Ape well again. At about the same time that issue #11 of the b/w magazine hit the stands, Marvel started reprinting the movie adaptations as a regular comic. This series, called ADVENTURES ON THE PLANET OF THE APES, only lasted 11 issues and just long enough to reprint the adaptations of the first two movies. Apparently, Marvel felt that customers would be more likely to shell out a quarter for PotA rather than the high cost $1 for the magazine. (Ah, those were the days!) Being strictly reprints, they added nothing to the stories and are not particularly interesting except to completists.
From 1977 until 1990, there were no Apes comics. The films had long come and gone and, despite an ever growing fan and cult base, no new comics were published. Until April, 1990, when a small publisher named Adventure Comics created a small sensation with their publication of a new PLANET OF THE APES comic. The issue sold extremely well for the small company (based largely on the cover by Dale Keown) and went back for reprinting twice. The interior art and story left much to be desired however but it was still successful enough to keep the series going and inspire several run offs. (The most bizarre of which was a teaming of PotA with ALIEN NATION, another adaptation that was selling well for Adventure, and which has to be read to be truly believed.) One of the most interesting of which was a reprinting of Moench and Ploog's TERROR ON THE PLANET OF THE APES in its own title. The art was not colored or updated so very little was different from the previous Marvel printing but it remains a unique curiosity of the same material being published by two different companies. The quality of the Adventure books were generally very low and they are much criticized today. Still, they were the only place one could read new Apes adventures and proved that there was still a market for the material.
Enter Hollywood. Rumors of a new Apes movie had circulated for years. At one point, a new movie was considered but eventually it was decided to start anew. Arnold Schwartzenegger was once announced as being interested in the movie but eventually dropped out. Finally, acclaimed director Tim Burton signed onto the project and announced that this would be an entirely new movie and not a remake. Scepticism abounded particularly with the signing of Mark Wahlberg as the human lead. In 2001, Burton released his version of PotA to the public who received it in a lukewarm manner at best. This version owed very little to either the original novel or the first movie but is instead a mishmash of plots, themes and lines from both along with new material. Despite the fact that this movie stayed closer to the original novel's ending (for which it was much criticized), it failed to find its audience. Not the stunning critical or commercial success, no further sequels have been announced or planned.
But the comics were a different matter. Merchandising king, Dark Horse Comics, quickly produced their own comic adaptation of the movie and started pumping the market with new series and titles. Again, the quality of the material ranged depending upon the creative teams involved. The books have proved to be fairly successful but it is not certain how long this new version of PotA will survive before passing into the Forbidden Zone of cancellation.
In the end, PotA continues to be popular with comic fans and is likely to continue to experience revivals over and over again. It is a powerful concept that holds much fascination for many people and whose popularity grows every year. Which means that, for the truly addicted, one will probably only have to wait a short while for another group of PotA books and merchandise to hit the shelves once again. The Lawgiver says that "Ape shall never kill Ape" and it appears that they can never kill our desire to read more adventures on the Planet of the Apes!