“In the earliest days of the Earth, before recorded history, two powerful gods laid claim to the world… Ghraagg’Endah, the bestial avatar of Chaos…[and] Thuuna, goddess of creation and control”. Ghragg’Endah is the Ape mentioned in the title. The backstory, which is covered in the first few pages of Nothing Can Stop… the Ape! (written by Thomas S. Sniegoski and Jeannine Acheson with art by Craig Rousseau), tells us that since Thuuna was unable to destroy the Ape, she found a way to imprison him inside a magical black diamond. However, just as he was imprisoned he released one final blast of destructive energy (“THAOOOOOOMM”) which had the effect of putting Thuuna herself into suspended animation.
Fast forward to our own era. A brainy twelve-year-old called Maxwell Morgan is exploring underground caves with his mother, who’s a professor of archaeology. They discover the mummified remains of Thuuna, and she immediately comes back to life and takes over the body of Maxwell’s mom. Having done so, she sets off a couple of mighty explosions, declares that she’s the rightful ruler of the world, and demands not only obedience but worship from all humans. When they seem disinclined to comply, she decides to wipe them out and start again.
Four of her demi-god assistants – Fyr, Rok, Ayr and A’qa – have come back to life along with her. She gives them the job of killing all humans (“These humans – their chattering annoys me – destroy them”), but they rebel and join forces with Maxwell. The only way to stop Thuuna, they soon conclude, is to release Ghragg’Endah the Ape from his diamond prison.
How to find the magical black diamond? Fortunately, in a convenient plot twist distinctly reminiscent of the 1960s Batman series, Maxwell has just seen a news item on his tablet about a black diamond on display at the Washington Museum of Natural History. So off they go to the museum.
Once there, Maxwell manages to get inside the black diamond; and inside it he discovers not only the Ape but an entire jungle full of prehistoric creatures. At this point there are strong resemblances to King Kong – when Maxwell first comes across Ghraagg’Endah he’s having a fight with a giant snake, and a bit later a T Rex turns up.
Batman and King Kong aside, Nothing Can Stop… the Ape has a couple of other literary ancestors worth mentioning. Thuuna’s assumption that the new world in which she finds herself should immediately accept her as its queen is very like the behaviour of C. S. Lewis’s Queen Jadis in The Magician’s Nephew. And the fact that the central conflict in the story is between Order and Chaos, rather than Good and Evil, recalls Michael Moorcock’s use of the same alternatives in his fantasy novels about Elric of Melnibone.
The advantage of Moorcock’s system is that it’s morally ambiguous: it’s never clear on which side our sympathies are supposed to be. He plays on this deliberately, encouraging us to support both sides or be repulsed by them at different times, which gives a sense of depth and complexity to his narrative. Nothing Can Stop… the Ape starts out as if it’s going to be equally ambiguous, but as the story unfolds Thuuna becomes the villain, and the Ape, big-headed and mocking though he may be, is unmistakeably the hero. This is probably the main weakness of the story, because it then simply boils down to a series of big fights between the two protagonists, with nothing else left to explore or develop thematically.
To put it in these terms is a bit heavy-handed, though. It’s a kids’ book, after all, and it doesn’t take itself too seriously: in fact it’s quite funny in places. It’s a kind of sub-Marvel comics romp: undemanding, high-octane entertainment. The colouring, by Tom Gaadt, and the lettering, by Taylor Esposito, are bright, jazzy and kinetic. The story moves along at an extremely brisk pace, the artwork by Craig Rousseau is cartoony and simplified but very effective, there’s lots of action, and it’s got definite page-turning qualities. It’s 125 pages long, and you can read the whole thing in about an hour.
Thomas S. Sniegoski & Jeannine Acheson (W), Craig Rousseau (A), Tom Gaadt (C), Taylor Esposito (L) • Mad Cave Studios/Papercutz, $17.99
Review by Edward Picot
