Reading Room MONKEY PLANET "Conclusion"

We Have Already Seen...

The diary of Ulysse Merou, journalist with an interstellar expedition from Earth, is found floating in space by other astronauts.

It recounts how the team landed on a planet in the Betelgeuse system discovering both primitive humans and a society of intelligent apes utilizing technology equal to late 20th Century Earth!

Captured by the simians, Merou manages to demonstrate his intelligence, becoming something of a curioisity and celebrity in Ape society...

Written and illustrated by Ernő Zórád, this 1981 Hungarian one-shot adaptation of the original French novel by Pierre Boule has never been officially-published in English.

But, thanks to the fine work of Kyriee (Scans), Swatura Od (translation) and Avoros (scripting), we're finally able to understand this tale in English.

In the 1966 first drafts (and pre-production) of the movie, the plan was to follow the book's premise closer...

...as seen in this 1966 promo reel with an early makeup test featuring Edward G Robinson as Zaius, James Brolin as Cornelius, and Linda Harrison (who played Nova in the first two movies) as Zira!
BTW, the "stock music" is by John Williams from the Lost in Space tv series!

Reading Room MONKEY PLANET "Part 2"

When Last We Left Our Stranded Protaganist...

Cover of 1st British hardcover edition

The diary of Ulysse Merou, journalist with an interstellar expedition from Earth, is found floating in space by other astronauts.

It recounts how the team landed on a planet in the Betelgeuse system discovering both primitive humans and a society of intelligent apes utilizing technology equal to late 20th Century Earth!

Captured by the simians, who don't realize he's not one of their primitive humans, Merou is taken to a major metropolis...

To be concluded tomorrow...

Written and illustrated by Ernő Zórád, this 1981 Hungarian one-shot adaptation of the original French novel by Pierre Boule has never been officially-published in English.

But, thanks to the fine work of Kyriee (Scans), Swatura Od (translation) and Avoros (scripting), we're finally able to understand this tale in English.

Thanks, guys.

Reading Room MONKEY PLANET "Part 1"

There have been numerous comic adaptations of the Planet of the Apes movies...

...and even the short-lived tv series, as we've shown HERE, but there had never been a graphic novel version of the original novel, which is quite different from any of the live or animated adventures in English!

To be continued tomorrow...

Written and illustrated by Ernő Zórád, this 1981 Hungarian one-shot adaptation of the original French novel by Pierre Boule has never been officially-published in English.

But, thanks to the fine work of Kyriee (Scans), Swatura Od (translation) and Avoros (scripting), we're finally able to understand this tale in English.

Thanks, guys.

BTW, both the 1970s animated series and the 2001 remake took more elements from the book than the 1960s-70s films or the recent reboot movie series.

Reading Room STRANGE WORLDS "I Couldn't Stop the Runaway Comet!"

With most of America in a deep freeze, let's see if we can warm you up...

...with this scientifically-inaccurate, never-reprinted tale about death by extreme heat from Atlas' Strange Worlds #5 (1959)!

There's also a really kool Easter Egg within the story!

See if you can find it!

No, we're not going to explore whether God exists or not.

Though popularized as fireballs in bad science fiction, the fact that comets were really composed primarily of rock and ice which vaporized as they approached the Sun, creating the "tail", was known as far back as Issac Newton's time.

So the whole idea of the comet generating heat like a star was ludicrous...even in the 1950s!

Though the writer is unknown, the artist was Steve (Spider-Man) Ditko.

That fact is important for understanding the Easter Egg...

The name "Victor Sage", used here for the extremely-fallible protagonist, later became "Vic Sage",  the secret identity of one of Ditko's more durable creations...Charlton's The Question!

Besides becoming a DC mainstay with his own title and spotlighted appearances in the Justice League animated series, the character was the basis for Rorschach in Alan Moore's "reimagining" of classic comic character archtypes in Watchmen!

Reading Room CRUSADER FROM MARS "Beachhead on Saturn's Ring"

Ziff-Davis had two short-lived titles about visitors from the Red Planet...

...Lars of Mars (which we covered HERE) and this one, about a pair of Martian criminals sent to dispense justice throughout the Solar System.

Yeah, you read that right...

You thought maybe they were a husband-and-wife alien police officer team like Katar and Shayera Hol, the Silver Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl?

Nope!

Tarka murdered his rival for the love of a woman and committed the first felony on Mars in 50 years. The Martian government branded his arm and sentenced him to exile.

Together with his fellow criminal Zira, they were sent to Earth to rid it of crime.

If they failed, then they would be destroyed--and so would Earth.

Using their advanced technology, they battled evil both on Earth, and occasionally in outer space, as seen here.

The writer for this tale from Crusader from Mars #2 (1952) is unknown, but probably is the book's editor, Jerry (Superman) Siegel.

The penciler appears to be Marvin Stein, but the inker is unknown.