To start this review off 
I’m going to put in the ultimate disclosure in the history of disclosure. I have only had minimal experience with the Planet of the Apes franchise. I’ve seen just enough of Planet of the Apes to know what’s going on for the most part and that’s about it. You are reading the review of someone who has little experience with this world. For I steer into this book for this review in the fact that I’m an outsider to this franchise so I thought it would make for an interesting review. Turns out I was mostly pleasantly surprised by it. Now what does that mean? Let us continue onwards as I steer you towards Planet of the Apes #1.
Your team on this book is Daryl Gregory on writing and Carlos Magno on the art side. The book itself is interesting for the challenge being for the new fan you have to get them into this world. For the older fan you get them into the world and introduce the new concepts to them. Right off the back you have a death of the lawgiver and this book becomes a mix of dealing with a tenuous peace between the Humans of Southtown a.k.a Skintown and a murder mystery involving who killed the lawgiver. It’s an interesting way to play this all together. You have Mayor Sullivan of Southtown and Council Voice Alaya on two sides. Both being connected to the lawgiver one directly and one indirectly. One trying to keep peace and the other ready to raze the world to solve the murder.
I have to give Daryl Gregory credit for this for someone like me having no connection to the franchise I did find myself getting curious in the general universe and it does make me want to take a closer look into it to learn more. For you get the details on the apes and humans relationships to each other quickly without having to know anything about the movies. That’s not an easy thing to pull off for anyone with a franchise book of this nature and I have to say it was successful with me. By the time it was over I knew each of the characters and had an idea of what their motivations were with the story and started to connect with them.
Carlos Magno made the apes and the humans alike look amazing. You could tell the inspirations from the movies in how the Apes look. It’s wonderfully detailed and also the thing that I can see getting people curious about the book. For this art really is a showcase for him. From the palaces to the seedier sides of Southtown the universe does come to life in the comic. The art in this alone is worth your time in admiring how much went into this and seeing just how great this book looks.
To wrap this all up I would say that yes as a new fan you can get into this book and find yourself wanting to learn more. On the other hand yes if you’re a big fan of the franchise you will totally adore every bit of this book. Would I read another issue after this? More than likely yes since I did like what I saw and found myself wanting to see where the story is going to go next. So from this outsider to the Planet of the Apes I would tell from die hard fan to new fan alike give it a shot. This should be one interesting mystery in the Planet of the Apes.
Review copy provided by Boom! Studios
