The Planet of the Apes universe just got a bit bigger and badder with the announcement that the most menacing of apes, Ursus, will receive the origin treatment in a new comic book in January.
The news was unveiled at the Boom! Studios’ Discover YOURS panel at New York Comic Con on Thursday. Writer David F. Walker will return to helm the project, titled Planet of the Apes: Ursus, which will tell the story of how General Ursus came to be … so damn evil. Christopher Mooneyham (Five Ghosts) will supply the interior art.
He was first seen in the 1970 movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes (played by James Gregory), where Ursus was hell-bent on expanding Ape City by entering the Forbidden Zone and destroying the mysterious force affecting the senses of simians.
In a statement sent out by Boom!, Walker says: “When I was a kid, General Ursus terrified me. He came right out and said, ‘The only good human is a dead human,’ and that gave me nightmares. At the same time, I always wanted to know more about him, and as a writer, few things are more interesting than exploring what makes a villain tick.”
The new comic book series is slated to start in January 3, 2018, and tie in with the 50th anniversary of the original Planet of the Apes movie back in 1968. There will be five covers for issue #1, including the main cover by Paolo Rivera (top), the intermix cover by Mike Allred, the subscription cover by Becca Carey, an unpublished Magazine Variant cover (above), and a Virgin Magazine Variant cover painted by Bob Larkin.
