Broken Frontier

Marty Blank is the Gibbon, a human who was born with the proportionate strength and speed (and appearance) of a gibbon. He also wears a monkey suit, which is strange. Not wanted by the Marvel heroes nor the Marvel villains, Marty answers a classified ad that is for a study (read experimentation) on superheroes. When he answers the ad, he meets young Dr. Fiona Fitzhugh. This hapless graduate student at State University accidently sends both of them into an alternate reality where the Marvel heroes have been replaced by apes.

This is the premise of this book. It is silly and full of groan inducing puns. However, it is also a careful examination of the superhero. While Watchmen carefully deconstructed the superhero and its most prevalent medium, Marvel Apes pokes fun at it. It isn’t just in the horrible names like the Ape-vengers, there is more at work here and to a certain extent it is just as keen as Moore’s observations.

Concepts like the Thunderbolts or Juggernaut going good are often seen as merely playing to fanboys, but there is a long-standing tradition of the Marvel characters being granted second chances. Just look at the Scarlet Witch or Hawkeye. These are villains who for various reasons crossed the line and became fighters for justice and freedom. This keen observation is on full display once we see the Ape-vengers in training and see that their roster includes Scorpion, Sand Monk and their ilk. There is even a nod to Civil War with the mentality that the baddies are converted or destroyed. Indeed, the entire concept moves from light-hearted fun, to sinister reality almost as seamlessly as the Marvel Universe has. Kesel is truly aping the Marvel Universe here and for all the mediocre jokes and puns, it is an interesting bit of satire.

The art by Ramon Bachs is perfect for this kind of book. He gives the book that late eighties, early nineties DeFalco look. This is a good fit for the book as it is at its core a light hearted and fun book. The limitations he shows in drawing the more familiar human meta-beings are gone once the two lead characters cross the reality line. It is competently illustrated - you know who the characters are evoking and the action is easy to follow.

The back up featuring the Watcher giving us a history of the Marvel Apes is more fun than the main event. Peyer was born to write this kind of work and he has a fantastic time here making fun of the wild west comics and their villains. Kitson should be working on a higher caliber book, but his pencils here are, as always, phenomenal. It looks and reads better than the reason you paid $3.99 and while that is more and more the case with back up stories, here the lead story can’t even compare.

Marvel Apes is not the next Watchmen. Just wanted to clear that up, the book hailed as one of the greatest graphic novels is only mentioned because Kesel is doing something a little more intelligent here than one would think. It is highly flawed both in the tone, as it is primarily a joke book, and in the delivery of its humor, but it is not a complete waste of time. In fact, the fans who take things a little too seriously may have some interesting debates as a result of this book.