Planet Of The Apes: Ursus #4 - BOOM! Studios

PLANET OF THE APES: URSUS No. 4, April 2018

The three hundred and third best-selling title in April 2019, at least according to “Diamond Comic Distributors”, David F. Walker’s narrative for Issue Four of “Planet Of The Apes: Ursus” must surely have disenchanted many of its 3,774 fans with his peculiar plot involving the psychically powered human mutants living beneath the remains of New York City seemingly permitting a petrified Sergeant Moench to escape his captivity having first been driven half-insane with mental pain. Indeed, the “brave gorillas” exploration of the utterly destitute Big Apple appears to have been manufactured by this book’s writer solely to provide East Coast Ape City’s general with irrefutable proof that the destroyed metropolis is inhabited by ‘telepathic beasts’, who can simply immobilise a unit of Ursus’ finest soldiers from a distance just by thinking about it.

This bizarre narrative, which runs alongside a somewhat bloody flashback sequence depicting how truly powerful a fighter Kananaios’ son was in his youth following the town of Terminus falling “into the hands of the Humans”, arguably makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, especially when it’s clear from the dwellers living within St. Patrick's Cathedral, that they believe Moench will probably both inform his fellow apes about their ‘civilisation’ and resultantly return “with more of its kind.” Just why the mutants therefore permit their prisoner to flee from their control is utterly nonsensical and genuinely would appear to simply have been lazily engineered in order to provide Ursus with some semblance of rationale so as to “destroy the enemy with or without the approval of the Simian High Council.” 

Disappointingly, the military commander’s behaviour towards his fellow primates would also suggest that something is badly amiss with Walker’s penmanship of the titular character. There is undoubtedly an increasing darkness found within the young, yet-to-be General’s demeanour towards humans during his disconcerting discovery that “the unsimian evil of these beasts” has caused the destruction of several ape settlements. But such hostility towards mankind later suddenly sees Ursus angrily slap Zaius before their city’s Chancellor in a disrespectful move which many upon the High Council will see as a treasonous attack upon the good doctor, rather than a loyal soldier’s earnest determination to desperately do what he thinks best for his settlement; “Stop wasting time and endangering ape lives! Give the order. Let me do what must be done to protect Ape City.”

The regular cover art of "PLANET OF THE APES: URSUS" No. 4 by Paolo Rivera & Joe Rivera