Happy fortieth birthday to Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives!

Thanks to Colin Jones for pointing out that this is a very special week indeed for all British comics fans.

For it was forty years ago this week that Marvel UK unleashed two new mags on an unsuspecting public.

One of those mags was Planet of the Apes and the other was Dracula Lives.

Of the two comics, it would have seemed reasonable to assume that it'd be Dracula Lives that would have the longer shelf life, seeing as Planet of the Apes was launched purely to cash in on a TV show that failed to catch light so badly that it only managed to run for a few months before never being seen again.

On the other hand, Dracula Lives was built around classic characters who'd proven their staying power by already having had a long and distinguished career long before the comic had even been conceived.

But how wrong we'd have been in such an assumption. Dracula Lives was finally staked through the heart with issue #87, being forced to merge with its sister title, whilst Planet of the Apes held on for a walloping one hundred and twenty three issues before merging with Mighty World of Marvel where such simian adventures never quite fitted in with the likes of the Hulk, Daredevil and Captain Marvel.

Bearing in mind that Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Dracula tales were nearly always more compelling than Marvel's ape-based fare, I can only assume that Dracula Lives' shorter lifespan was down to the fact that its back-up strips - featuring the likes of Frankenstein and Werewolf by Night - were noticeably weaker than such Planet of the Apes' backup strips as Ka-Zar, the Black Panther and Adam Warlock.

Or perhaps, by the 1970s, such traditional horror characters were merely seen as being too corny to live.

Whatever the reason, while I had every issue ever published of Planet of the Apes, I think I only ever had two issues of Dracula Lives, one of which I recall reading whilst stood just inside the entrance of Pauldins department store in Sheffield city centre.

Sadly, like Planet of the Apes and Dracula Lives, Pauldins is no more. A grim reminder that, like the king of the vampires, ultimately everything in life will one day be reduced to dust.

Apeslayer!

Neal Adams finds his Killraven artwork, "improved upon,"
by an uncredited, "collaborator."

Somehow, no matter how hard one might try, it's the subject that can never be escaped.

It's the power and majesty of Apeslayer!

Just twelve Planet of the Apes covers posted two days ago were enough to bring out the reader demands for Apeslayer covers

Reader, I cannot let you down.

As we all know, in the 1970s, always happy to jump on a bandwagon, Marvel UK took to reprinting US Marvel's Planet of the Apes stories.

There was only one problem.

The UK Planet of the Apes came out once a week and the US ones only came out once a month.

Needless to say, this meant that, within weeks, the UK mags had run out of material to reprint.

This might have defeated lesser men, but the editorial staff of Planet of the Apes were not lesser men. Not for them the barren wasteland of despair. Instead they had an idea worthy of Peter Griffin himself. They simply got Amazing Adventures' War of the Worlds stories and redrew the Martians to look like apes.

They then renamed Killraven, "Apeslayer," called Carmilla Frost, "San Simian," and Bob's your uncle - not to mention being a monkey's uncle.

It was a brilliant plan. There was not one person who could possibly notice the trick they'd pulled.

Well, of course, everyone noticed the trick they'd pulled. It was a little difficult not to, what with there being tripods blundering around all over the place.

But no true British comic lover could care about that. Despite the basic duffness of the idea, it's hard not to look back on Apeslayer with affection - and I suppose it could be claimed he was Marvel UK's first super-hero, beating even Captain Britain to the punch.

Anyway, here are the covers to the breathless issues our hero featured in.

He's very macho, isn't he? I get the feeling he'd have got on with Bill Savage from 2000AD's Invasion strip.

A rare chance to directly compare Apeslayer to Killraven.

In fairness to Apeslayer, he might not have been what you could call original but he could at least fight bad guys without looking like he'd just blundered in from the set of Zardoz.

Hold on. Where's Apeslayer? All of a sudden, he can't even make the front cover of his own comic.

How could anyone have guessed they were really reading a War of the Worlds story? I mean, it's not like there's a load of tripods around to tip us off.

Sadly, after this issue, Apeslayer was never seen again.

What happened to him?

Who can know? But, judging by the fact that the comic carried on for years afterwards, I can only assume he failed totally in his mission to rid the Earth of the Apes' rule.

Poor old Apeslayer. All that hard work for nothing.

My Top Twelve Marvel UK Planet of the Apes covers - plus Special Bonus Feature!

Some mad fool once declared he hated every ape from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Zee.

I refuse to listen to him.

We all know there's no finer sight in all the world than that of an ape talking and waving a rifle around whilst trying to kill you.

And so it is that I choose to inflict my twelve favourite covers from Marvel UK's 1970s Planet of the Apes comic upon humanity.

As so often with these things, being both wishy-washy and lazy, I print them in no order of preference...

It's the issue that kicked it all off in style - marred only by some less-than-stylish captioning.

.

I hated this cover at the time, thinking it a massive comedown after the painted cover of issue #1.

I've since come to appreciate the beauty of its layout. Just as I came to appreciate the addition of Ka-Zar as back-up strip.

Was this this issue in which Gullivar Jones put in his first appearance?

Planet of the Apes?

Ka-Zar?

Gullivar Jones?

With all this, surely Marvel UK was spoiling us.

Is this the one where an ape and a human hate each other but then, thanks to injuries, learn to work together for their mutual good and become friends - only for them to be killed by a group of warring ape and human mutants?

Oh, the bitter irony.

I believe this was the cover to the story based on a certain Mark Twain tale involving King Arthur and a modern day time-traveller.

Despite appearances, I do know the title of that Mark Twain tale but, given its length, I can't be bothered to type it all out.

I think we can all guess which movie this was an adaptation of.

It's bad news for Cornelius, as Marvel tackle Escape From the Planet of the Apes.

And now it's bad news for Zira.

To be honest, you'd need a heart of stone to not to blub your eyes out at the end of that movie.

Now we get to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

To be honest, Conquest is my least favourite of the original POTA movies. I did find it very sterile and a little dull, with ham-fisted racial analogies that themselves might be seen as somewhat racist.

It would appear we've got yet more Conquest, though I'm not sure how the cover fits into that.

I'm no David Attenborough but that river slug look suspiciously like a  giant toad.

Is that Jason and Alexander I spot on the cover, or is my memory playing tricks on me?

I remember once copying this cover in my sketch book - but redrawing the leading ape figure as one of the subterraneans from the legendary Doug McClure flick At The Earth's Core.

You see? I'd rather draw subterraneans than Caroline Munro, that's how Sc-Fi I am.

Potential further reading and viewing:

SPECIAL STEVE DOES COMICS BONUS FEATURE:

I can also announce I've had a request.

And it's not the usual one.

In recent days, John Pitt's contacted me to request I post the covers from Titan Books' 2002 reprints of the Dark Horse adaptation of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. I must admit to having been previously unaware of the existence of such a comic, and the covers seem to be hard to find online. So, just for John, here they are (courtesy of Graham Hill and Neil Foster @ The Forbidden Zone).

Worlds Unknown #3 - Farewell to the Master!

Earthlings, I can only ask that you feel a great sense of joy for me. For, only the other night, I had the chance to finally see the Keanu Reeves version of The Day The Earth Stood Still.

The power!

The thrills!

The awe!

None of  those were present as the thing struggled to hold my attention and made me feel like I was watching a sci-fi version of Meet Joe Black with all the interesting bits removed.

This of course was a terrible disappointment to me, as the 1950s version of the movie's one of my favourite sci-fi flicks of all time.

But, of course, none of this matters because we all know there was an even more important adaptation of Farewell to the Master than even those two.

And that was Worlds Unknown's version of the tale, as produced by Roy Thomas, Ross Andru and Wayne Howard. As with Marvel's adaptation of He That Hath Wings, I first encountered it in the pages of Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic.

 The first thing that strikes me is how much resemblance the first part of it bears to the Dr Who episode Army of Ghosts. In both cases, a mysterious sphere's appeared from nowhere and the authorities have been unable to even put a dent in it. Until, now the fateful moment's arrived, it opens, to reveal the aliens within. Is this similarity coincidence or was Russell T Davies influenced by the earlier tale?

The second thing that strikes me is that Gort isn't called Gort. He's called Gnut. As, "Gnut," looks suspiciously like a near anagram of a very rude word, I must confess I can't help feeling Gort was a better choice of name.

The third thing that strikes me is that, unlike the 1950s movie, it's not the military who're responsible for shooting Klaatu but a lone nutjob up a tree. Indeed, the military in this version seem a model of restraint and professionalism compared to the trigger happy fools of the 1950s movie.

This leads to a very different tale in which Klaatu's buried with honours and a pair of reporters are determined to spend a night in the museum in which Gnut is now housed, to see what he gets up to when there's no one around.

It turns out he uses audio recordings of animals and people in order to temporarily bring them back to life.

All of this culminates in him restoring Klaatu to health before he departs with the words, "It is I who am the master," ringing in the reporters' ears.

It's a much smaller scale tale than the one we're used to from the movie. It's also less dramatic. The action takes place almost exclusively in the museum in the course of one evening, there's little sense of threat and there's no message from Klaatu about mankind mending its violent ways or else.

In this sense, they're very different tales, using the same basic ideas to tell completely different stories. I've never read the Harry Bates original, so can't comment on how true to it this adaptation is but, as it's written by Roy Thomas, I suspect it's probably extremely faithful.

So, which do I prefer? The 1950s movie version or the 1970s comic book one?

I must admit, I do prefer the movie version. I can't help feeling it's far more potent and memorable because of the greater sense of menace engendered by Gort, the race against time, the manhunt for Klaatu and the big final speech. The pacifist message of the movie may be somewhat garbled by its order that peace be maintained by the threat of total annihilation from a police state but it does give the film a sense of drama, urgency and purpose that this version ultimately and deliberately lacks.

Good Lord! Marvel Preview #1/Planet of the Apes #Something-Or-Other.

Sunday evenings were a strange experience for me as a child.

On the positive side, it was the time when I got to read that week's issue of Marvel UK's weekly Planet of the Apes comic and eat a packet of Munchies - the only sweet I can think of that's exactly the same now as it was forty years ago, even including the wrapping.

On the downside, I always had to endure missing the first fifteen minutes of each episode of the Planet of the Apes TV show because we were forced to listen to a Radio 2 sitcom called The Family Brandon, starring sometime Radio 2 DJ Tony Brandon who seemed big on pretending to be comedy legend Tony Hancock. This affectation wasn't as bad as the nightmarish Radio 1 DJ Adrian Juste who notoriously used to edit Tony Hancock out of his own radio sketches and then insert himself in his place. An act on a par with drawing over the Mona Lisa with a crayoned sketch of Miley Cyrus.

Well, mere days ago, I made mention of the fact that, among all the one-off tales Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic printed, there were two that stuck out for me more than all others. One was He That Hath Wings, the tale of what happens when you're daft enough to chop your wings off in order to enhance your job prospects. Needless to say, I learned a valuable lesson from reading this tale and shall never again chop off any modes of transportation my body may possess, merely for crass profit.

The other tale was a thing called Good Lord, a story drawn by Dave Cockrum and inked by Neal Adams and friends.

In it, a bunch of astronauts scour planet after planet, trying to find evidence of the existence of God.

Instead, one by one, they get killed by the various monsters and nasties they encounter on each world.

But then, at last, they find signs of intelligent life, as they stumble across a world with an abandoned city on it.

Upon entering it, they find statues of familiar gods and prophets inside but are then attacked by a monster which they're forced to kill.

And then, when yet another monster turns up, one of them shoots it...

...only to discover he's made a bit of a boo-boo and killed God, meaning the universe is now doomed as death oozes and spreads outwards from the deceased deity's wound.

Needless to say, any story that features God being killed is bound to stick in the mind, if only because you wonder how they ever got away with distributing that sort of thing in the more religious parts of the USA. Obviously, in Britain, where people generally kick up much less fuss about religion because we're too busy hitting each other outside nightclubs every weekend, it was never likely to be as controversial. But, all these years later, what do I the reader make of it?

Well, of course, I love it. Why? Because it looks good. I'm a Dave Cockrum fan and, while not always a Neal Adams fan, I can easily recognise that, from a technical viewpoint, he knows how to do his job. And the two artists' styles mesh well, especially in places where the artwork takes on a noticeably Wally Wood vibe. Credit should also be given to Terry Austin, Pat Broderick, Russ Heath and Josef Rubinstein whose inks are also in there along the way.

Obviously, in terms of logic, there is the question of why God's living on a world full of monsters and can you really kill God with a ray gun? But it's probably best to sweep such obvious concerns under the carpet and just appreciate the sly, dark humour of the resolution.

PS. Thanks to those who expressed concern during this blog's short absence. I can confirm that it was a relatively minor problem and painlessly sorted out with a brief message to Google.

He That Hath Wings - Worlds Unknown #1 or Planet of the Apes #Something-Or-Other.

As we all know, the greatest claim to immortality Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes comic possessed was not that it had stories in it about talking apes. After all, once you've seen one ape talk, you've seen them all talk.

No.

It was the fact that the rest of its pages featured tales of sci-fi, mystery and wonder. How we thrilled to the adventures of Don McGregor's Black Panther, Barry Smith's Ka-Zar and Thomas and Kane's Warlock.

But, beyond even this splendour, the real jewels to be found in the comic were the one-off tales that found their way into the mag's pages.

Of those tales, two have always lodged in my memory more than all others.

And that can only mean one thing.

That it's time to take a look at one of them.

He That Hath Wings is an adaptation of a 1934 short story by a curiously uncredited Edmond Hamilton. In it, thanks to a freak electrical accident, a boy (David) is born with the ability to fly.

Fearing for the child's welfare in a world that'll pry incessantly into his life, his doctor takes him to an isolated island to raise him in private.

But, when the doctor dies, David sets off to explore the world and, after being accidentally shot by a groundsman, marries the daughter of the groundsman's employer.

Well, that could all have been a lovely happy little ending.

There's only one problem.

His new wife's a complete and total dolt.

And so, instead of reacting as any sane woman would to being married to a man who can fly, she nags him to have his wings cut off so he can be just like everyone else and get a nine-to-five job.

Now, I don't like to criticise a man's taste in women but could it have been humanly possible for him to have found a more doltish and clod-brained woman if he'd tried?

I mean, what kind of woman wouldn't want a husband who could fly? It's humanity's greatest dream come true. She could have been the envy of all her friends - and cadged lifts off him when she didn't have the bus fare.

Happily, after a while, his wings start to grow back.

Not so happily, so hen-pecked is he that he decides to have them cut off again.

But then, on the way to the surgery, he decides to have one last flight for old times' sake and, ultimately, his new wings exhausted by the flight, he plunges into the sea and to his death.

Is he downhearted about this?

No.

He's happy because it means he's managed to die free, rather than as a prisoner of convention.

I must confess that, as a child, this finale all seemed rather touching and beautiful to me.

But how does the tale strike me upon re-reading it as an adult?

To be honest, it's all quite annoying. His wife really does seem a complete and total dunderhead. I'll say it again. The power of flight. It's humanity's greatest ever dream! What is up with the woman?

And, obviously, some might spot a certain implied misogyny in a tale about a woman who's so narrow-minded and conformist that she literally clips her husband's wings.

Not only that but our hero's ultimate decision to die flying rather than live Earthbound does make him seem like a total wimp. When all's said and done, there's nothing to stop him from insisting on keeping his new wings and doing with his life whatever he wants.

But the great appeal of the tale was always Gil Kane's art and, while the story itself might not hold the appeal for me it once did, his art looks as splendid as ever. I do always feel his stylised technique was best suited to science-fiction and fantasy rather than super-hero work and this is one of the tales that proves it.

Of course, as a child, it was a strange feeling reading it, as it was impossible not to see parallels with the X-Men's Warren Worthington and it's tempting to see this as an Alternate Universe exploration of how Worthington's life would have been had he been totally devoid of a backbone.

But what oh what could be that other memorable tale I referred to earlier in the post?

Call me psychic but I have a sneaky feeling we might be finding out in a day or two's time.

But, Reader, can YOU guess which tale it might be?

The unforgettable tales of Worlds Unknown.

Watching the Eurovision Song Contest at the weekend reminded us all that "abroad" is a whole other world. How we thrilled to Romanian falsetto vampires, Greeks demanding free booze, a man singing a love song to his shoes, and, erm, Bonnie Tyler.

But there are other worlds; worlds even stranger than those that lie within the boundaries of the European Broadcasting Union.

And so it was that, in the 1970s, Marvel Comics gave us Worlds Unknown.

Anyone who read Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes mag will remember Worlds Unknown with fondness - or at least the tales it contained...

The cover story might be about the coming of the Martians but we all know the true stand-out of this issue is Gil Kane's He That Hath Wings, in which a youth discovers that being born with feathers might not be the blessing one might expect it to be.

It's A Gun For Dinosaur.

It's so long since I read his that I can't remember the ending. I'm sort of assuming it's one of those going-back-in-time-and-killing-your-grandfather-type twists.

That reminds me. I must go back in time and kill my grandfather before he fulfills his pledge to travel forward in time and kill me.

That'll teach him.

It's Farewell to the Master.

Roy Thomas and Ross Andru's adaptation might be more faithful to the original but I still prefer The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Ah, all those memories of William Shatner ripping his shirt off and building a cannon from a big stick of bamboo come flooding back as we get Marvel's adaptation of Fredric Brown's Arena.

I always loved this one, as an alien big cat climbs aboard a spaceship and, one by one, polishes off the crew until it has an unhappy ending.

I can't help feeling that having the homicidal bulldozer ranting like Dr Doom on the cover probably doesn't add a lot of dignity to proceedings.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad was one of my favourite childhood films. It had Sinbad! It had a six-armed sword fight! It had Tom Baker! Verily, the late Ray Harryhausen didst know how to keep a child happy.

Sadly, I don't remember being so taken with George Tuska and Vince Colletta's adaptation.

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad comes to an end, as we get that sword fight.

And Worlds Unknown also comes to an end.

Its run may have been short but it was certainly sweet - and where would Planet of the Apes readers have been without the tales the UK mag so happily reprinted from it?