BSR! Roundtable Discussion: Marvel Apes #1

By big-shiny-robot on August 31, 2008 in Comics Reviews

Marvel Comics was brave enough to do what even the biggest movie studios won’t. And that is give reviewers a chance to check out a stinker in advance of its release. Bravo!

Swank-mo-tron: So, it seems as though there really isn’t much to say about Marvel Apes. The premise is identical to Marvel Zombies (alternate universe) and it’s pretty much not anywhere near as cool. I’m not sure why I read this, this is a novelty act that I have no idea how they’re going to sell a bunch of copies of this. It’s a one-trick-pony and it’s 4 issues long? It’s like Planet of the Apes with none of the cool sci-fi elements… It’s just… God…

Humanjunk: When it comes to primates I’ll rent Planet of the Apes. When it comes to Marvel characters in a twisted alternate universe I’ll just go back and read the whole of the Marvel Zombies series. I love my Marvel, but this concept feels uninspired and a money grab to capitalize on the success of seeing our favorite characters in a different and humorous light. What next? Spider-Ham? Oh. Wait…

Arse-Bot: I have assumed that this was going to be bad from the first time I heard about it, and after reading the first issue, I was right. This is just a ploy to sell some comics and it’s super lame. Marvel Zombies was awesome, mostly because it was, you know, ZOMBIES. Apes? No. Just, no. It’s stupid and pointless, I hate it so much I am actually having trouble gathering my thoughts and putting them into cohesive sentences, and I have already done two or three posts about how much I hate it, so I’m just done, before I have a heart attack or something. Let’s just hope this is the last of any Marvel animal spin-offs and next year we don’t see Marvel Ponies.

Swank-mo-tron: Marvel Ponies could be great, actually… You know, for 5-7 year old little girls. Then sell tie-in’s with Hasbro’s My Little Pony… You might have actually hit on something that could expand the audience of the medium…

(Here’s another shot of “My Little Tony” and here’s one of Spider-Pony. There’s even a Super-Pony and a Bat-Pony.)

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Humanjunk: Fuck Marvel Ponies. I want to see Marvel Care Bears.

Real Annika MK3-47: I’m a vegan tree-hugger. I love apes, gorillas, and primates of all kinds. Too bad I don’t like crappy comics, or this would be a match made in heaven. Seriously, you would have to pay me to get past the halfway mark.

Mookatron – Wow. “Marvel Apes” felt like a super-crappy mid-season replacement show with a big name star star attached, so the network has to put it out there to justify their investment. I started reading with no expectations whatsoever, and was quickly proven right. They pulled out every bad pun you remember from elementary school and even added a few more. The deal was sealed when Monkey Speedball asks the villainous Dr. Ooktapus (sigh) “Is that a banana or are you just happy to see me?” Really? A dick joke? That’s quality right there. I should have stopped reading there, but I guess I felt like I needed the punishment. Pick up “Apes” if you feel the need to hurt yourself, too.

Bambot: This book could have been fun, but the story was convoluted and way too wordy. At one point one of Gibbon’s rambling captions even gets bored of itself and ends with “blah blah blah.” If the writer is sick of the narration how are we not supposed to be? Oh and so all you gotta do to impress the simians enough to earn an invite to Ape-vengers HQ is whip Speedball out of a hoodie in time to block a tentacle? Seriously? Did I miss something there? A little weak for a supposed pivotal moment in Gibbon’s life. The character redesigns are also boorish. The ape Reed Richards was cool, though. And Barry Kitson’s art in the back “History of the Marvel Apes Universe” section was nice to look at. Mookatron is dead right about the puns. Monkhattan? Ape-vengers? And way too many proverbs, too. “As the saying goes…” this book sucks.

Say a prayer for the trees that gave their lives for this rubbish.

Kill-tacular-tron: There is nothing about this book that sounds appealing. I refuse to waste the 15 minutes of my life to read it. Instead I’m going to go turn on the microwave and steady my face dangerously close to it for 15 minutes.

Clang! Boom! Steam: I don’t feel like I can criticize it since by sheer virtue of the fact that I read it means that Marvel has the last laugh.

More-than-a-sex-machine: you assholes couldn’t pay me to read this shit, but from what I see here it appears that the book in question suffers from a fundamental lack of understanding of what makes monkeys entertaining. I mean, Marvel Zombies was similarly one-note, but at least it delivered on its titular promise of brain-eating goodness.

But when you bait me with monkeys, there better be feces-slinging and uninhibited monkey sex, and NO FUCKING TALKING, with the story preferrably being told entirely in crazy-ass monkey noises (in the proven-to-be-successful fashion of that one issue of Powers), or else I’m spending that money on drugs instead. Sorry, Marvel, it’s not that I don’t care – I just don’t get it.

Neotron: I loved it! Actually, I’m just trying to fit in. Everyone liked it, right?

Doctor Cyborg, Robot M.D.: I guess I just don’t see the target audience here. This book suffers from what I like to call “Beverly Hills Chihuahua syndrome” (BHCS) In which something panders so greatly to a child, that it annoys the adults to the point they refuse to buy the product in question, and in the case of Marvel Apes if ever a child breaks the BHCS barrier, he would have a comic book that is far to wordy to read. In fact I can personally guarantee that no one in history, has ever or will ever read Marvel Apes in its entirety. Which is one reason that it took Marvel so long to put the book out. True Story : Marvel had to hire two new editors for every page of Marvel Apes, because the book is simply that boring.