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By Jason Bourgeois
Happy Halloween, everyone. Over the past few years, Marvel has celebrated the month of October with several projects around their hit series, Marvel Zombies. Miniseries, a crossover with Ash from the Evil Dead movies, and variant covers galore, transforming many characters into zombified versions.
For this year, they have another zombie series coming out, but they've also decided to try another version of the Marvel Universe populated by all-different versions of their characters. This time, they're not going with a horror theme though, and instead we are given the bizarre alternate universe of the Marvel Apes.
This project all started decades ago, after a fashion. Back in the 50s and 60s, at DC of all places, it was noticed that monkeys sell comics, so in the age when often the cover would be devised first to draw as much attention as possible, they would often find ways to tell some sort of story with a simian in it. And there was truth to the statement. Talking monkeys sell comics. Whoda thunk it?
Monkeys in comics have a long history since then, and always have some level of popularity, even to the point where DC tried an event a number of years ago where the JLA were all turned into simians in the crossover of annuals called JLApe. The monkey movement sort of quieted down after that series of stories never did that well.
More recently, a piece of artwork showing Captain America as a monkey, with the title Marvel Apes, was shown to Marvel, and fans, at a convention. With the success of Marvel Zombies, and alternate versions being big at the moment, with the added monkey factor, the silly bit of art that was associated with nothing at all, was met with excitement and enthusiasm.
People at Marvel kept the idea floating around, and as these things do, eventually someone had an idea for it, and now, the very first issue has finally fallen into stores. And the second issue too, actually, but whatever.
The story is about perenial loser Marvel super...hero, and I use that term loosely, the Gibbon. His abilities are pretty much completely summed up by his name. He looks like a gibbon. That's it. He's been kicked around by life, but is utterly useless as a hero, and not much of a person either, as it's hard for a monkey man to fit into society. Even in New York City. To make ends meet, he's given his time over to some researchers who are studying super-types, to figure stuff out. One of them is looking over the Gibbon when things go wrong, sending him and her to an alternate Earth where, yes, everyone is a simian.
The roles are understandably reversed, in a world where the Gibbon blends in, and even saves the day shortly after arriving, and the very human scientist is now the freak that everyone fears. They encounter this new Earth's versions of familiar characters, with Spider-Monkey, and the Ape-vengers.
The story is odd. There aren't a whole lot of laughs, and they're playing it mostly straight, outside of the painful monkey puns. There's an odd twist with the Invisible Woman of Earth-Ape, and things take a very dark turn as ape justice pulls the story to a close.
The art is well done, although a bit on the cartoony side, but that may be mostly due to the subject matter. There's only so much you can look at every familiar character you know now with monkey faces, and covered in fur. The story is well written, but like I said, it's weird. This is not the tone I would've expected to see in a book called Marvel Apes, and that might be good. I'm not sure yet.
I like giving the Gibbon a bit of a spotlight, and having him find a place where he belongs, but the darker side of this is just a bit jarring. It's certainly nowhere near the brilliance of Marvel Zombies, although you knew full well there would be a body count, and hefty heapings of darkness in that title. The tone we get with Marvel Apes would be like if you picked up Marvel Zombies and got a goofy comedy romp.
Overall, for now, I think I like it. The short backup stories in the back fleshing out the history of this strange, new world are a lot of fun, and drawn by the always-a-pleasure-to-see Barry Kitson. My full judgement will have to wait until the end, but for now, it's not bad. If people out there can put up with, or like, silly ape names, and an unexpected tone, I'd definitely give the book at least a look-through. This is a tough book to recommend, but it's nowhere near bad enough to say stay away from. It's an odd little book.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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