‘Marvel Apes’ Covers Debut

I have to admit, I’m a bit torn about the upcoming, four-issue Marvel Apes miniseries. On one hand, it’s nice to envision a post-Marvel Zombies world. Even though I enjoyed the original Zombies stories (and a few of the dozen-or-so subsequent spin-offs, tie-ins and one-shots), it’s long past time to put the living dead back in their graves and move the heck on.

So I’m glad to see the Merry Marvel Marketing crew find a new shtick.

On the other hand… it’s monkeys. Marvel Apes, in fact.

Well, regardless of how you feel about the notion, EW.com recently posted several cover images from the series and the variant covers that will be popping up on other Marvel titles throughout the Apes run, depicting a variety of simian-styled Marvel characters. Pictured here is one of my favorites, the variant cover to Punisher: War Journal #3, due out September 3 (I’ve posted a larger version of the image after the jump). Be sure to check out the Rob Liefeld ape-ified variant cover to Cable #6, too. Words fail me.

Here’s the synopsis of the Marvel Apes "epic," according to EW:

It begins when Marty ”The Gibbon” Blank, a mutant chump with chimp-like powers, is ensnared in a science experiment gone wrong. He’s jettisoned into a sinister alternate reality devoid of humans; here, all of our crime-fighters are now hirsute anthropoids. Joined by the fetching human scientist Dr. Fiona Fitzhugh, this wannabe villain (the Gibbon founded the Spider-Man hating/baiting Legion of Losers) is, in fact, recruited by the seemingly upright Ape-Vengers as he searches for a way back home.

The first issue of Marvel Apes is scheduled for a September 3 release. You’ve been warned.