Trade Tales! - Exile on the Planet of the Apes

Next up for the month is a return to Boom Comics’ Planet of the Apes books. They had quite a few mini-series and even a main series that was supposed to bridge the gap between Battle for the Planet of the Apes and the first POTA movie. I looked at one of these minis a few years back and quite enjoyed it. I thought it fit well into the original series as a whole and gave an origin for Doctor Zaius.

It’s sequel is today’s pick: Exile on the Planet of the Apes. It mostly has the same team who did Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes. Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman were the writers. Instead of Hardman handling the art, those duties go to Marc Laming. Jordan Bellaire returned to do the colors for the first issue, but Darrin Moore did the rest for the story. Ed Dukeshire stuck around for the letters. So, what happens when humans start to rise up and attack apes?

 

Exile on the Planet of the Apes

Writers: Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman

Art: Marc Laming

Colors: Jordan Bellare and Darrin Moore

Letters: Ed Dukeshire

Editor: Dafan Pleban 

SYNOPSIS

At this point, it’s been two years since the events of the last story. Zaius had banned humans from civilization, but doesn’t stop some humans from attack some apes and stealing supples from a city a few miles from Ape City. The next day, word gets to Ape City and they wonder if the humans were helped by an ape. The Ape council question Prisca, a chimp who used to help humans learn sign language, but she has nothing to do with it. They do wonder if Tern, the human who knew sign language, and Aleron, a disgraced gorilla general, are still alive, but they’re aren’t sure. We do find out that Tern still lives and he leads a band of humans.

Okay, that is a pretty cool look.

The gorillas find out that another chimp, Timon, may be helping the humans. They follow him and end up finding him with Tern. A fight breaks out and folk on both sides are killed. Tern and Timon escape and head to the Forbidden Zone, where more humans and Aleron await. Realizing that she could stop the violence, Prisca heads to the Forbidden Zone to find Tern. She ends up finding Doctor Milo, a familiar scientist from the movies. Meanwhile, Tern and his humans attack an ape armory and accidentally  cause an explosion. Prisca eventually finds him and they head to the Aleron’s camp hidden between a cliff.

The Ape Council thinks enough is enough, so Zaius leads an Ape army into the Forbidden Zone. Timon ends up getting captured and ends up leading them to the area where Aleron and the rest are held up at. Scouts get sent in, but they get taken down. Prisca tries to get them all to come up with another solution, but it doesn’t work. Milo, who knows the group, comes up with a plan to use an explosive. Aleron’s against the plan at first, but realizes that it may be the only way protect the group.

Their plan doesn’t off as planned as one of the humans gets gun happy as they’re planting the explosive. The gorilla army comes through their passageway and a slaughter begins. Some remaining humans and Aleron get captured. Luckily, Prisca and Milo help out the remaining humans escape to some makeshift raft. Aleron also has one more trick up his sleeve: he sets off the explosives to his city. The ape army, Prisca, Milo (carrying a human child who may or may not be Nova) escape and head back to Ape City. The story ends with  the humans finding a familiar shore.

I guess there's a passage in the Lawgiver's book about electrocution.

OPINION

I thought that this was a nice follow-up to Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes. It’s not as politically-driven as the last story and has more action. That’s not a bad thing, though. We get to see humans of this era throw down with the apes and that’s pretty cool. Aleron apparently taught them well. I also liked  most of the characters here like Aleron, Zaius, Prisca, and Professor Milo. I also liked the small hints we got to the other movies like Milo, the Forbidden Zone, and possibly Nova. I’m not sure if she was the kid or not.

The artwork was pretty good as well. It was definitely more in line with what the movies and TV shows looked like. Heck, if you didn’t have any dialogue, you’d think Zira or Cornelius were in the book. The action also looked pretty good, and it flowed pretty well. It also tried to show a couple of new things. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a human wear gorilla armor before.

I don’t have any major problems here. I did think that the ending was a little rushed. In fact, I though the last story’s ending felt pretty brief. Maybe it’s a drawback of these stories only being four issues. It could also get a little too action-packed at times. While I like action in the POTA universe, I also like the more talkative side. Finally, I did feel that it wasn’t as engaging as it could’ve been. It didn’t broaden the world like the last story did. That could’ve also been due to the length. Other than those things, this was pretty nice.

In the end, this wasn’t too bad. I know Boom! Studios put out more POTA comics, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. That universe is rife for some good storytelling. Anyway, I’m calling it a night. Peace, God Bless, and stay out of the Forbidden Zone. Not only will you run into weird psychic mutants, you’ll also hit Manhattan at rush hour.