Planet of the Apes Archive, Vol. 1: Terror on the Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes Archive #1

by Doug Moench, Mike Ploog (Illustrations), Tom Sutton (Illustrations)

Longtime fans can now experience the previously uncollected classic Terror on the Planet of the Apes, which follows two friends—man and ape—on the run from the law.

Experience the legendary Terror on the Planet of the Apes, collected for the first time ever, and remastered in prestigious archival hardcover. This classic series follows two friends—man and ape—on the run from the law.
Renown writer Doug Moench (Batman), the visionary co-creator of DC Comics’ fan-favorite villain Bane and Marvel’s Moon Knight, joined forces with legendary artists Mike Ploog (Ghost Rider), Tom Sutton (Doctor Strange), and Herb Trimpe (Incredible Hulk) in this timeless tale of two unlikely friends coming together for the adventure of a lifetime.

Genres: Comics, Science Fiction, Comic Book

400 pages, Hardcover

First published August 22, 2017

About the author

Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok. Moench has worked for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and many other smaller companies; he has written hundreds of issues of many different comics, and created dozens of characters, such as Moon Knight. In 1973, Moench became the de facto lead writer for the Marvel black-and-white magazine imprint Curtis Magazines. He contributed to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk (continuing on the title when it changed its name to The Hulk!) and Doc Savage, while also serving as a regular scribe for virtually every other Curtis title during the course of the imprint's existence. Moench is perhaps best known for his work on Batman, whose title he wrote from 1983–1986 and then again from 1992–1998. (He also wrote the companion title Detective Comics from 1983–1986.)

Moench is a frequent and longtime collaborator with comics artist Paul Gulacy. The pair are probably best known for their work on Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, which they worked on together from 1974–1977. They also co-created Six from Sirius, Slash Maraud, and S.C.I. Spy, and have worked together on comics projects featuring Batman, Conan the Barbarian and James Bond.

Moench has frequently been paired with the artist and inker team of Kelley Jones and John Beatty on several Elseworlds Graphic Novels and a long run of the monthly Batman comic.

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The original great stories but so difficult to read as the art is so detailed and busy in black and white.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those crazy melting pot-boilers that can only come out of the comic-book industry. Talking apes, eye-stalk aliens, cybernetic-mutants, nature and evolution run amok! If it isn't one thing, it's clearly going to be something else. In the end, this is a non-stop, action-adventure that honestly leaves nothing behind, untouched or twisted out of recognizable identity. It may sound like this is nothing but a hodge-podge mess, and it kind of is. But to be honest, this is fun and entertaining as long as you approach the material as a kid and ignore all the absurdities of this impossible patch-work reality. I admit that I'm likely a little biased, and this certainly isn't something for everyone, as I originally read most of this volume as a little kid who was obsessed with the Planet of the Apes film franchise. There's also the possibility of making comparisons with the classic Kamandi (see: Jack Kirby's Kamandi Omnibus) series from the mind of Jack Kirby. This has a similar feel and texture and it's clear that there was some cross-pollination going between Kirby and the Planet of the Apes camps. If you love talking apes and can suspend your disbelief, this just might be for you.

[Greg Trosclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

These were some of the first comic book stories that I ever read and hold a very sentimental place for me. That being said they are also some of the funniest stories told during the old Planet of the Apes magazines run. I was overjoyed to see that Boom Studios reprinted these stories in a deluxe hardcover format. They almost take me back to the 10 year old reading these stories in the back of the Drug Fair in Richmond Virginia. I almost wish someone would pick up the tales of Jason, Alexander and the rest for a few more crazy tales. Fun read. The reproduction looks nice too.

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been a Planet of the Apes fan since the early 1970s, when I watched Escape from the Planet of the Apes, I was mesmerized by the makeup and the costumes and the absolutely escapist story. I own the original classics on video, DVD, and Blu-ray. Of course, when I visited my favorite comic book site, I decided to check out Planet of the Apes offerings, I noticed that they had the Archive which collected old POTA comic issues and published them in gorgeous volumes.

I was unfamiliar with the artist, Mike Ploog, but the other artists, Herb Trimpe, and Tom Sutton are very familiar to me. Don't even get me started on Doug Moench. His Moon Knight remains a standout title along with his long stints on Batman, Detective Comics, and Deathlok. I loved those books, so when I realized that this book was available, I decided to check it out. I was not disappointed. Moench can still write riveting melodrama, heart-pumping action, and comic book characters that seem real.

The story titled, Terror on the Planet of the Apes, mirrors the original titles Beneath, Escape, Conquest, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The stories were intense and laudable. Here, Jason is on the run because he caught terrorist apes murdering his parents, but it turns out the ape titled Peacekeeper is the leader of the hate for human cabal. When Brutus, gets confronted by his wife, she is murdered, and the death is also pinned to Jason. His best friend, Alex, an ape, flees with Jason.

Needless to say, that Alex usually becomes the target of Jason's animosity and growing bigotry. I was loving the way this story was going and then it had to end. Thankfully, there are more volumes. Yay!

[José Cascales Vázquez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ha envejecido mal. Diálogos forzados y poco creíbles, un humano irreflexivo, impulsivo y un poco imbécil. Historias del pasado que me ha costado terminar.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a blast! Moench seems to be making it up as he goes, in all the right ways, making for a surreal and wild ride through some crazy set-ups. Human and ape buddy team of pioneers named Steely Dan and Gunpowder Julius? Giant telekinetic brains? Cybernetic gorillas: Gorilloids? Then there's the art: Mike Ploog and Tom Sutton? Hell, even Herb Trimpe looks good here (probably due to inks by a Redondo). I wish the movie sequels or remakes were half this fun.

[B.A.G. Studios · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is probably the reason this franchise survived.
Comics are a huge part of the continued history of Planet of the Apes prior to Tim Burton’s remake. I’d contend this, an original, long-form story with stuff never before seen with Apes, is to blame and to praise.
Granted, it’s not my personal favorite. For my tastes, this is a bit disjointed, a little “Episode of the Week”, and occasionally very repetitive (more so than just being an older style of comic writing, I’m mostly used to that by now). But in general, this is imaginative, it’s unique, and above all else, it’s fun. Not a page-turner in the classic sense, this took me a couple weeks to get through. But an investing read that kept me guessing, and I’m still guessing, I guess, aren’t I?
It’s such a shame these never got finished. It’s an even greater shame nobody cares anymore and it’s still not getting finished even though Marvel has the copyrights again. But their corporate synergy would never allow them to, as Boom! did, have both timelines simultaneously. It’s a miracle the comics aren’t all MCU tie-ins, honestly…

I can’t really give an overview of any kind because each issue is so spastic in terms of plot. But a few similarly spastic notes to complement them:
- Lots of Middle-Earth vibes.
- Lots of Temple of Doom vibes.
- Gunpowder Julius might be my new favorite PotA character, or at least join the top five.
- The brain creatures (The Inheritors) are still a concept I’m not so sure about, having not been very sure when I read the books by Andrew Gaska (minor spoilers I guess). I’m more sure of them here, as I think they fit this material better (they were created for it, after all). But I’m less sure of them here, too, as the way the extra brains talk is incredibly distracting and I can’t make heads or tails of it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be getting, and if it’s just for laughs, I find it more distracting for the scenes they’re in.
- I cannot believe yet another Apes comic series begins with its Lawgiver heading off into the Forbidden Zone in search of some mysterious thing. How many times now? Five or so?
- The Keepers of the Psychodrome are more interesting to me. I think those ideas should’ve been combined.
- Quite a bit of this I think could be combined, particularly in the interest of adaptation. Not meant as a criticism of this work as is, in this case.
- The Psychodrome itself is really cool. I’m not sure how I feel about aliens crashing millions of years before Planet of the Apes, about the Apes ever finding them, or about the entirety of the brainwashing subplot by the end. But they really just decided to throw every science fiction category at this wall and ran with it. I gotta respect it.
- I’m retroactively grateful this Ape’s name is Alex, now the namedrop in Urchak’s Folly is referring to this Alex, in my brain, and can just be considered set later. And I’ll pretend Warko is Urchak. You get what I’m saying here, I’m doing that thing where I obnoxiously try to forge a continuity where none exists. Well let me tell you, I’d give my extra kidney for a Moench story tying some of these Marvel pockets together, let alone any of the stuff that was actually working in Malibu’s tenure (largely looking at this material in the first place). Finish out this story by having Darek Zane show up, maybe they sail to the Island Kingdom of Camelot, maybe they come across Alarek on the way there. These characters are so distinct while all exploding out of the same basic archetypes, all mirroring Taylor in some way.
- I’ll admit, the descriptions given for what the next chapters would’ve been sound… bad. But I do wish this had gotten a conclusion. It’s not the one I most mourn for, but it’s worth mourning nonetheless.

Good work here. In my opinion, not the best from Marvel’s output of the day. But very good, and very fun, and my god how well it captures the imagination. If I had kids I wanted to introduce the extra-media Apes stuff to? This might would be the first stop. I’m glad it wasn’t mine, because of how I originally came to Apes. But not much here would be too harsh for younger readers, and it’s so whimsical I think it would hook any kid who likes science fiction stuff. This has it all. It has me wanting to go track down old black-and-white serials or something.
Thanks, Doug Moench. Archie Goodwin. Gerry Conway. Mike Esposito. Mike Ploog. And everyone else involved. I’m sure it was just a monkey book to y’all, but to me, it’s a treasure.

[Rakib Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I am a relatively new Apes fan. Despite watching the original movie as a kid and the reboot as a teenager I was never much invested previously, which might have been due to the fact that I wasn't never really aware of the racial and political issues that this franchise tried to focus upon. But after quite recently rewatching the first movie and following up with watching (for the first time!) the next four I became quite enamoured.

As I began to gradually delve deeper into the tie-in stuff, I decided to check out the various comics from different publishers. And these archives published by BOOM! Studios seemed a great way to read the older Marvel stuff in an organized way.

The first volume of this archive series contains an original storyline set in the Planet of the apes depicting an action packed tale of two friends, a human and an ape going through almost limitless obstacles while re-exploring their friendship. Despite losing momentum towards the end and not having a proper ending, 'Terror on the Planet of the Apes' is an action packed journey that manages to combine the epic tone of the planet of the apes with the weirdness inherent to the comics as a medium.

The story has many interesting and varied characters. Although the protagonist Jason and his friend Alex and the main antagonist Brutus might seem rather one dimensional caricatures; the likes of Gunsmith Julius, Steely Dan, Saraband, Lightsmith and a myriad of interesting villains steal the show with their uniqueness.

Doug Moench really knows how to spin a tale to keep his readers guessing what new perils might come next for our heroes and what new fascinating bits of weird and unorthodox locale or creatures we might experience next. And especially during the first half each chapter adds further layers of world-building to keep readers excited to keep on turning the pages.

The first nine chapters are drawn by Mike Ploog, and his drawing is just something that is a pure joy to experience. The level of detail in his black and white pages kept me engrossed and returning for stuff I might have missed. The last six chapters are also well drawn and eye catching, but lack Ploogs artistic brilliance and pales a bit in comparison.

Overall, the merits far outweigh the minor lacks in this story and the introduction and ending by the Apes expert 'Rich Handley' also add a sense of perspective to this historic piece of work.

This gets 4.5 out of 5 stars from me.

For more reviews and stuff check out my blog -
http://ihate00critics.blogspot.com/

[Kris Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am thrilled to see these black and white Marvel magazines from the 1970s finally get a proper high end hardcover treatment. I am disappointed that BOOM decided to collect them by story rather than chronologically by issue. Aside from the three film adaptations from these magazines which Malibu collected in trade paperbacks and the first four chapters of this story reissued in comic form in the early '90s, this stuff has been out of the public eye for over 40 years.

Like the original film, this story uses a wafer thin allegory on racism to drive its point home. Jason, a human, and Alexander, a chimpanzee, are forced to work together to save each other and the city that humans and apes share at this point in time in Apes continuity. This being a comic book, Moench and company are free to go off of the rails with sets and characters. We are introduced to some great characters, such as Gunpowder Julius, Steely Dan, Lightsmith, and Gilbert. All of them have clearly defined personalities and all are as important to the overall story as Jason, Alexander, and the head of the Ape Supremacists, Brutus.

This being the '70s, some things haven't aged well. Take Jason, for example. He is supposed to be an adolescent, but his hotheadedness and impulsive lashing out at those who care for him border on emotional abuse. This is somewhat common in Bronze Age comics. People were portrayed as macho with short tempers and a self-righteous attitude. This is easy to say here in 2018, where things are so much better with kids being prescribed psychotropic drugs on the regular and school shootings being a routine event. Come to think of it, maybe kids should be allowed to blow their top once in a while.

Terror On The Planet Of The Apes is widely considered the highlight of the Apes magazine series. I owned some of these as cheapo back issues circa 1983, and the few parts that I read never wowed me more than any of the other stories in each issue. I enjoyed them all equally. Pieced together and read as one story, I get why these had such a huge impact at the time. They are still good reads but I am looking forward to the stories in the other Archives even more. #4 was my favorite as a kid, the story where a human was blind and the ape crippled (or vice versa) and they tied themselves together to survive in the wasteland with all sorts of weird monsters. I haven't read or seen it in 35ish years but I am really looking forward to revisiting that one.

I am thrilled that BOOM has collected the entire series minus the Apeslayer stories (licensing?), but wish that it were done chronologically. Oh well. Just a couple of years ago this line was nothing more than a fantasy.

[Billy Kane · Rating 1 out of 5]

Aunque todo parece indicar que nos encontramos ante un buen cómic de los 70, al avanzar en la lectura nos daremos cuenta de nuestro error.
El protagonista es insoportable. Aunque tiene motivos para estar amargado, acaba cansando que se pase toooooda la historia cabreado y buscando pelea. Da igual lo que ocurra, él quiere bronca sí o sí.
La historia comienza con una nada disimulada crítica al racismo (KKK incluido) para pasar a un cómic de aventuras mientras los protagonistas recorren el mapa del mundo. El problema es que nos vamos encontrando clanes de simios cada vez más ridículos: simios colonos americanos (con Davy Crocket y su gorro incluido), gitanos nómadas, vikingos con sus drakkar incluido, hippies pacifistas, simios voladores, etc.
La segunda parte del tomo, es todavía más delirante que la primera. Y podemos decir que es "El planetade los simios" porque salen simios, pero podrían ser cómics de Killraven y nos lo creeríamos tranquilamente.
Como cómic de aventuras tiene un pase, pero siempre que estemos dispuestos a pasar por alto muchas de las situaciones e idas de olla que nos vamos a encontrar. De lo contrario, acabaremos dejando a un lado el tomo pensando qué sería lo que se fumó el guionista cuando lo escribió.

[Christopher Geraghty · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Dad and I saw the five original Planet of the Apes movies in the theater. I was also a fan of the short-lived TV series and Saturday morning cartoon.

I first discovered Terror on the Planet of the Apes when my uncle took me to my first comic book convention. It was one of Phil Seuling's New York Comic Art Conventions, which was held every year over the July 4th weekend in the old Statler-Hilton, now known as the Hotel Pennsylvania.

I purchased issue #'s 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, & 19 at the convention. But since comic specialty shops were non- existent when I was a kid, I purchased my comics at newsstands, so those were the only issues I ever saw and read. I also ended up selling most of them (#'s 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, & 19)

I discovered that in 2017, Boom Studios had published all 15 chapters in a beautiful hardcover volume, and I was excited to get my "stinking paws" on it.

Over the course of 15 chapters the two protagonists, human Jason and his chimpanzee friend Alexander, battled bionic gorillas, tentacled aliens, flying monkeys (like in the Wizard of Oz), giant brains in jars, and Viking apes.

To quote Colonel George Taylor, "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!" But it was a madhouse I enjoyed visiting again.

[Mhorg · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favorite apes stories

Years ago, I had every issue of Marvels Planet of the Apes magazine (which came out a week after Savage Sword of Conan, which I also collected and outlived apes). I was very excited to see these available on kindle -so excited I bought all four volumes. If I'd known that the first was just Terror, I'd have skipped this one. I've never liked this story. I found the human protagonist Jason very one dimensional, and his adventures with Alex the chimp just got sillier and sillier. Riverboat humans as apes, Viking apes, and the whole gestalt mutants really didn't do anything for me. Also when Mike Ploog left, the art on the series got progressively worse. Time to crack open volume 2...

[Todd Glaeser · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the Mike Ploog art is initially incredible, some of the inking on later chapters is obviously rushed, mere sketches sometimes. A couple of chapters, some of the best actually, are printed directly from the pencil art. Tom Sutton eventually takes over the art, as he did when Ploog left Essential Werewolf by Night, Vol. 1, which is odd because their styles are so different.

[Alan Duran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a fan of the Planet of the Apes movie series for years, I had never read these original Ape stories by Doug Moench. There are some pretty strange concepts in these stories. They lean very heavily into the science-fiction genre. If you can't get enough of Planet of the Apes, this book is for you. I am looking forward to reading Vol. 2 of the Apes archive series which is of the movie adaptions.

[Steven Davich · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars for the Ploog art alone.