Could Marvel UK's offerings for the week possibly match up to such excitement?
Here's where we find out.
If I remember right, this cover's a total cheat and the Hulk isn't up against a cross between the Sandman and a leprechaun at all.
He's simply up against a sandstorm in one of his desert adventures. A sandstorm that doesn't speak and doesn't have a face. Had Marvel never heard of the Trades Descriptions Act? Next they'll be selling us brine shrimps advertised as monkeys of the sea.
Iron Fist is still bashing people up.
I wonder what the Avengers tale is in this issue?
Jason and Alexander could certainly use the help of Iron Fist right now.
I wonder if anyone on the Planet of the Apes has superpowers?
I wonder how Planet of the Apes fits in with Marvel continuity? Does it happen before or after Guardians of the Galaxy? Is it before or after Killraven? Is it before or after Deathlok?
Those cobbles. That fog. Those medieval buildings. It can only be 1970s London.
But let this be a warning to you. Never interfere with Dracula's evening meal.
I believe this is the one where Spidey guests on a TV show where Electro just happens to be working as an electrician.
Peter Parker's right. He really doesn't have much luck, does he?
There's currently a comic featuring Planet Of The Apes meets Star Trek - I think Captain Kirk and Taylor even have a punch-up. I don't know how this can happen when the apes took over the world long before Starfleet came along. Perhaps it's explained by alternative universes or something. In POTA No.31-34 inventor Derek Zane builds a time machine and travels forward in time to find Taylor and the others - Derek Zane was invented by Marvel so I assume he lives in the same Marvel universe as the Guardians of the Galaxy, Deathlok etc but he arrives in a future ruled by apes not the Badoon.
ReplyDeleteI do remember reading a text feature in either Killraven or The Guardians of the Galaxy where they tried to lay down the timeline for the various future events portrayed in Marvel Comics. Sadly, they never mentioned the apes taking over the Earth. It would've been great to see how they'd have tried to squeeze it in.
ReplyDeleteThe Avengers strip in yet another issue where they weren't on the cover was called " Death calls fir the Arch- Heroes" (originally in Avenges issue 52) and featured the Grim Reaper and Black Panther (with his half mask a la Batman)
ReplyDeleteI loved the comment by IDW owner (the company publishing the Apes and Star Trek crossover) “A crossover between the two is a natural and long overdue.” honest thats a natural crossover :) still IDW do some great books so it will no doubt be entertaining at least.
Didn't Steve Gerber sort out the Guardians and Killraven continuity in an old issue of the Defenders, Steve? That sounds like the kind of thing you'd know about.
ReplyDeleteI go with the Planet of the Apes being in an alternate universe myself, on the basis that a SteveDoesComics post once declared film adaptations to be "not real Marvel comics", so it follows that since there is a Marvel universe there is also a Not Real Marvel universe. That's logic, right?
A universe in which, say, Jason and Alexander might encounter a domed city full of people under thirty is a pleasing thought somehow, but also useful. One thing that always bugged me was how the apes got to be clever enough to be servants in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Evolution doesn't work that fast, so I always assumed it must have been something to do with the arrival of Cornelius and Zira from the future somehow. Morphic resonance perhaps? I guess that might work in a universe where the laws of physics and biology are different, but if you're going to go the bonkers pseudoscience route, you might as well do it in style.
Which leads us naturally enough Jack Kirby, so I'm thinking maybe all the apes were zapped by the monolith from 2001. Sounds good, but... uh-oh, Machine Man encountered a monolith in 2001 and he's from the Marvel universe. But didn't the martians from Killraven invade the earth in 2001? Where are all the tripods and pit fighters in twenty first century Marvel comics? And don't even get me started on the puzzle that is Apeslayer (again)....
-sean
Sean, I think you're right about the future timeline having been laid out in a Defenders issue.
ReplyDeletePaul, thanks for the Avengers info. Thinking about it, I must have not had this issue because I'm pretty sure I missed the first half of Grim Reaper tale when it was published in Marvel UK's Avengers mag.
ReplyDeleteSean wonders how did the apes in "Conquest" get to be clever enough to be servants but I've always wondered how did they actually take over the world ? How did the uprising in one city spread around the world ? How did all the other apes hear about the uprising when they couldn't read newspapers or understand TV/radio broadcasts. And how did a bunch of apes wielding knives and pitchforks defeat the humans' vastly superior military technology ? And then in "Battle" which is set about ten years later all the apes are talking and wearing the same clothes as in the original POTA film !!
ReplyDeleteSteve Gerber did indeed place the Guardians and Killraven in Marvel chronology in that Defenders run, but I also remember a scene where Vance Astro tells his younger self that he comes from only one of many possible futures.
ReplyDeleteAnd there was also that Marvel Team-Up run where Spidey goes back to the Salem witch trials ( via Doc Doom's time machine ), and then meets both Killraven & Deathlok on the way home.
I think, in both stories, Spidey says something like: These are possible futures, and not what necessarily will happen.
So basically, Marvel sort of invented string theory.
And Apeslayer? let's all pretend that was just a bad dream we all had, yeah?
Colin, I too have always wondered how the events in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes are supposed to lead in to the rest of the Apes series, bearing in mind it just seems to be one isolated uprising. Especially as the original film seems to imply there's been a nuclear war. I would assume the humans didn't decide to attack their own rebelling servants with atomic warheads, as that'd be suicidal.
ReplyDeletePete, Apeslayer shall always be a role model to me.
I think the inconsistency in the timeline of the apes films you're talking about, Steve, is some sort of temporal paradox.
ReplyDeleteOr possibly the writers were just making it up as they went along.
-sean
When I first saw those Avengers/Iron Fist comics I thought that Iron Fist had actually joined the Avengers!
ReplyDelete