So here's the deal, if you put Planet of the Apes in the quarter bin I'm going to buy it no questions asked. In fact if you put anything with apes on horses or wearing clothes on sale for twenty-five cents it's as good as gone. So that's how I acquired Adventures on the Planet of the Apes #10. Now as someone who occasionally judges a book by its cover, I imagined this would contain the story of a conflict between the Apes and the Nuclear Mutants of the Forbidden Zone. What I did not expect and what it turned out to be was a chapter in a retelling of Beneath the Planet of the Apes. A little subsequent research informed me that Adventures on the Planet of the Apes was essentially an adaptation of the first two movies that began publication in 1975, and that's weird right? I mean by 1975 there had already been a Japanese manga adaptation of the first film, a Gold Key adaptation of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and a Marvel black and white series that adapted all five movies and included original stories. So why in 1975 go back and do the first two movies again? It's like releasing a new version of a movie novelization years after the film was released. The only thing I can figure is that Marvel was trying to capitalize on the premiere of the animated Return Planet of the Apes which was released just a couple of months before the first issue of Adventures on the Planet of the Apes hit the stands.
Now for a story that you may have heard before.
We begin with Brent before the mutant council, so pretty late into the movie.
As we will see we have a few changes from the movie. The mutants are holding council in an ornate temple complete with bomb god symbol. In the movie they're pretty obviously supposed to be in Grand Central Station. New York City is a weird place to hide a nuclear weapon by the way. Then we totally skip the scene where Brent kisses Nova and strangles her under the mutants telepathic control. I guess strangling a woman while kissing her was a little too much for a Comics Code Authority approved book in 1976.
Taylor tells the Mutants that the Apes are marching on their city. So I expected that, as in the movie, the Mutants would use their telepathic abilities to scare the apes away. But instead of the burning crucified upside down apes the ape army encounters the chimpanzee hippies we saw in the first Planet of the Apes movie.
Once again I think the image of apes crucified upside down and on fire was probably a bit too much for the Comics Code people but threatening ape hippies, a-ok.
Dr. Zaius gets General Urus to spare the chimpanzee hippies and the apes continue their march. Here things get a little out of order in comparison with the movie. In the comic we jump to the Mutants in church scene. This is where we have the great unmasking and it appears the Mars Attacks! guys won the war in this timeline.
So what bothered me as a kid and what still bothers me today is why did the Mutants even bother with the masks. It's not like they're taking the A-train with a bunch of normies and need to fit in, everyone they see since birth is a mutant. Did they just make the masks when Taylor and Brent showed up?
The Mutants profess that they want peace but refuse to let Brent and Nova go. Instead they take them to where Taylor is being held. When Brent and Taylor meet we get this weird little joke.
In the movie the line is "I got here the same way you did spaceship, ape city, subway." Which may still be a joke but a less obvious one because of the scene in the Grand Central ruins. It's weird. Also why did they choose to have Taylor with a beard and Brent clean shaven, when it's exactly opposite in the film? Maybe they were told don't make Taylor look like Charlton Heston. Weird choices all around.
The Mutants use their mental powers to make Brent and Taylor fight.
Then we have a pretty sloppy storytelling choice. In the movie Nova hears Brent and Taylor fighting bites her captor and runs to their cell. In the comic she just appears out of nowhere and shouts Taylor's name breaking the Mutant's telepathic hold on them.
I completely understand this plot point because if 1970 Linda Harrison called my name I would definitely stop whatever I was doing.
In the movie when Taylor and Brent kill the mutant his weight makes the cell door swing shut trapping our heroes but in the comic they encounter a door that's controlled telepathically. Another weird change and I'm not sure why.
Trapped Brent and Taylor give us some exposition about the doomsday bomb and then we cut back to the apes. This is where the comic gives us the scene with the vision of the Lawgiver. As in the movie the Lawgiver bleeds, but in this case (once again probably due to the comics code) the blood is black so it just looks like someone spilled ink on his head.
Zaius rides into the illusion which comes crashing down on him but when he emerges unharmed the apes continue their march to the mutant city where Dr. Zaius finds a passage into the underground tunnels. You know instead casting big scary illusions the mutants should have used their powers to simply trick the apes into riding the wrong way out into the desert or something. Next time they need to workshop those illusions.
The Mutants decide the prime the bomb and that's it until next month.
Not to spoil a 51 year old movie but the apes get into the mutant city, begin killing mutants and generally wrecking things. Taylor, Brent, and Nova escape but Nova is killed by an ape. Taylor makes a speech about how he should let them all die but Brent wants his help to stop the bomb. The apes break into the bomb temple which I believe is supposed to be St. Patricks Cathedral. The apes kill the head mutant and General Urus orders them to pull down the bomb. This evidently is a bridge too far for Dr. Zaius who warns him the bomb will kill them all. Brent and Taylor try to stop the apes from accidentally setting off the bomb. Taylor is shot by Urus, Brent kills Urus, with his dying breath Taylor asks Zaius for help who of course refuses, Brent is shot down by the ape soldiers and as Taylor dies he activates the bomb destroying all life on Earth.
Except for the two apes who escape to the past to start the time-loop that is the original Planet of the Apes series.
So as I said this is kind of a weird one, by 1976 Planet of the Apes had already been on broadcast television and had already had a TV series spin-off. But as I said with the cartoon coming out it's kind of natural that Marvel would want to capitalize on it in the easiest and quickest way possible. As a kid I probably would have bought it and been disappointed.
BONUS
Before they were dominating the school supply market with Trapper Keepers, Mead made these cool Marvel themed supplies.
Give me that pinches slide-ring notebook because I was always getting pinched by those mechanical devils.
Ok Marvel you win. Now all I can think about is how much I want to see a Howard the Duck/Conan crossover. Also if your brag is your 'America's Third Best-Selling Humor Magazine' maybe change the subject.
You mean I can make money in the hot field of van customization? Sign me up.
Stan's Soapbox where he complains about Marvel being too successful. I know Stan, I have the exact same problem.
It's 1976 so we're going to sell Hostess with a nonsense one pager.
And then there's this. I really wanted this as a kid because I loved comics and I loved encyclopedias. #iwasaweirdkid But it was $30. I repeat $30 in 1976. That's about $140 in inflation adjusted dollars. Way out of my price range then and probably now.
"Look who's smiling now!" These ads for LaSalle Extension "University" used to be all over the comics and magazines I read as a kid. I think this is the second LaSalle guy when they updated him to give him a more fashionable but still conservative 70's haircut.
Next time: Everybody was Kung-fu fighting. Scratch that: Next time something foiltastic.
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