Thursday 8 January 2015

1990: PLANET OF THE APES Issue 1 (Adventure Comics)




From 1990: the first issue of Adventure Comics' PLANET OF THE APES run.

This black-and-whiter, which marked the first time the Apes had appeared in comics since Marvel had let the license go in the 1970s, launched a lengthy run of Apes comics... many of which I've never read (copies are surprisingly AWOL from the back issue and bargain bins) but I recall looking pretty crappy at the time.  

Adventure (a pre-Ultraverse Malibu imprint) also dabbled with reprints of some of Marvel's POTA stuff.  I recall trade paperback reprints of the first two movies (that never seem to resurface today) and a four-part TERROR ON THE PLANET OF THE APES run (which I posted here).  

They were also responsible for the bonkers APE NATION (see here) crossover with ALIEN NATION (BTW: The first issue of the APES/ STAR TREK crossover is now on sale... and great fun).  

This first outing came semi-wrapped with an outer printed on pink paper.  For some reason, my scanner can't fathom that colour and so they've reproduced differently than the originals.  

The first image above is the front cover without flap.
The second is with flap in situ.
The third is the back-of-the-flap with a nice piece of Apes art. 

2 comments:

  1. In January last year I finally got around to reading the original POTA novel in e-book form - it was fascinating how a lot of the book's themes were used in the 1968 film and Zira, Cornelius, Zaius and Nova all appear in the novel which I didn't realise. The novel also has TWO twist endings - I already knew the first one as POTA was Radio 4's Book At Bedtime in February 2005 (in the same week as my birthday) but the second twist got me - I didn't see it coming at all.. I'm not sure about that POTA comic being "all-new, all-original" - in the bottom image they are wearing the clothes from the films and TV show which isn't very original.

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  2. I only have one issue of the Malibu/Adventure POTA, which I bought by mistake when trying to find the Titan UK Apes comics. Perhaps I may look for the graphic novels on eBay.

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