Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes #2
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Alan Robinson
Colorist: Espen Grundetjern
Cover Artist: Stonehouse
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes #2 was much more of what I expected from this series. The first issue was good, but it had to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of setup. Now with this issue, we get to the meat of the story…
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Picking up right where issue #1 left off, we have ourselves a bit of a standoff.
Our lone human, Arch, along with Drs. Zira and Cornelius, find themselves face-to-face with General Ursus and his soldiers. Cloaked nearby, and killing anyone who appears to pose a threat, is the Predator. Everyone finds themselves afraid to make a move, lest the hidden assassin take them out.
Using their superior senses of smell, the apes manage to locate the Predator, and open fire on it. Although they manage to wound the alien, it slaughters several soldiers before disappearing in a trail of green blood. The apes quickly return to the city, while Arch travels to her crashed ship for supplies.
General Ursus decides to tail the Predator, and before long has made an uneasy alliance with Arch. Together, the two head into the Forbidden Zone, where the human hopes to find her missing comrade Taylor. Once they pass through the barrier into the Zone, they learn that things on the other side of the flame wall are very different—and the Predator may have followed them…
Challengers of the Unknown
A human, an ape, and the Predator all walk into the Forbidden Zone…
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
But seriously, it's a pretty good setup.
One of the issues that I had with Planet of the Apes vs. Fantastic Four a few months ago was that it played both sides of the equation too straight. Even when the "core four" ape characters somehow took the FF's powers, the story still came across as a bog-standard Planet of the Apes tale mixed with a plain ol' Fantastic Four one. It didn't really embrace the craziness of mixing these two disparate entities together.
Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes is so far doing a lot more to embrace the madness of its mixture.
We still don't know exactly what the Predator is here for. Who is it hunting? It's only been attacking beings who show aggression, so it hasn't honed in on a particular target yet. So who is the specific focus of its attentions this time around? Smart money is on Taylor, but that's just conjecture on my part at this point.
I liked seeing a bit more of a focus on General Ursus this time around, as far as the ape characters go. In PotAvFF, the focus was largely on the scientist characters, Zira and Cornelius, for obvious reasons. Here, with the looming threat of the Predator, it makes more sense to shine a spotlight on the warlike ape. He immediately has an interesting dynamic with Arch, as they form an uneasy truce in order to explore the Forbidden Zone. Both of them have no illusions that the makeshift partnership will last, though, as they each make it clear that they will sell the other out in order to save their own skins.
There's actually a lot of good character work here. Ursus shows that despite his hatred of humans, he is able to work with one if necessary. Zira and Cornelius take a chance and help the wounded Predator, knowing that its presence is keeping the planet from breaking out into civil war for the moment. And even the Predator itself is operating under a code, with the only people it's attacked and killed so far being those that are threatening or promising violence to another.
Now that all of our leads are in the Forbidden Zone and they've discovered the truth about the Planet of the Apes (I'm assuming everyone knows it at this point, but I'm not going to mention it just in case), they will have to contend with the mystery of what is afflicting the apes who reside within the Zone, and try to locate Taylor to see what the man knows—if he's even still alive. It's a familiar setting from the movies, but the story has branched off and is doing its own thing, which I'm enjoying so far.
Any Which Way But Loose
Greg Pak is bringing a different energy to this miniseries than he did to PotAvFF, maybe because these are less of a "sacred cow" property than the Fantastic Four? Whatever the reason, it feels like he's having a lot of fun with this one, and it shows. It's well paced, and all the main characters get plenty of time to shine. There's not a ton of action, but that makes the few bursts of violence stand out more.
The art by Alan Robinson largely works well for the story being told here. He gives the world a dirty, lived-in look, and the character models are strong. The apes all look like their movie counterparts, but without the obvious "rubber mask" texture to their faces. There are a few panels where characters' facial expressions get a little too creepy, especially when it comes to Arch. I chalk that up to the cast mostly being apes and her being the lone human, so there's some design bleed-through.
Speaking of bleeding, colorist Espen Grundetjern gets to play with two different colors of blood here. The normal red for human and ape, and an almost neon green for the Predator. And there is certainly blood spilled here. Beyond that, he adds to the dirty feel of the world, and the Forbidden Zone maintains a bit of a darker edge to it. It's one of those cases where I can't pinpoint too many things that stand out for one reason or another—everything just works.
One Way or Another
Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes #2 is an enjoyable issue that takes all of the setup work done in the first issue and hits the ground running. The interactions between the human Arch, the apes, and the Predator do not go in the direction I was expecting, and as the action moves into the Forbidden Zone, there's no telling where the story goes from here. That being said, we suspect that the Predator's true prey is still out there somewhere, and there will certainly be blood when they finally meet face-to-face.