Planet Of The Apes [2023] #5 - Marvel Comics

PLANET OF THE APES No. 5, October 2023

Those readers who stuck around for Issue Five of “Planet Of The Apes” in August 2023 were probably rather perplexed by the comic’s disappointingly palpable, apathetic atmosphere as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention mission to save mankind supposedly hits another “speed bump”. Indeed, it’s hard to recollect a title where the writer’s narrative arguably smacks so much of them just wanting their story to be finished, and resultantly penning some stunningly underwhelming set-pieces simply to make it happen; “I’d hoped… I’d hoped we were better than them.”

For openers, the desperate struggle for American democracy and the imminent fall of Washington DC., which saw Sergeant Tobon bring her apes halfway across the world from the International Simian Research Centre in Ghana, actually consists of just a dozen or so poorly-equipped terrorists who quickly retreat in the face of a swarm of simians running amok across Duke Ellington Bridge. This highly-anticipated battle is genuinely over before it’s even started, and any suggestion of a nation-wide struggle for survival is quickly scythed down by David F. Walker’s unsatisfactory focus upon a single nearby street being held by four ill-armed combatants.

Of course, the American author does try to imbue some sense of danger and urgency in his (significantly shortened) fifteen-page piece, by having the United Nations Peacekeeper suddenly marry park ranger Omatete, for fear that they might not ever be together again. However, considering that the pair debatably have never before displayed such an inclination, this supposedly emotionally moment sadly smacks of being an ill-thought-out, empty contrivance to just keep the tale going for a few more painful panels.

Unforgivably though, even Juliana’s swift decision to walk out on the victorious United States military and somehow conclude her own adventures by safely trekking all the way to Atlanta without incident, doesn’t come across quite as abruptly as Walker’s conclusion to this publication’s secondary yarn “Pug’s Tale”. The “award-winning comic book writer” doesn’t even bother with a title or explanatory paragraph for this chronicle, and disconcertingly just states that the French gorilla somehow crossed the English Channel into Dorset at the head of a huge Ape army, and defeated all the Exercitus Viri camped there – who were inexplicably holding the land’s inhabitants and children captive for some nefarious purpose..!?!

Writer: David F. Walker, and Artists: Dave Wachter & Andy MacDonald