Marvel Apes is a four-issue limited series by Marvel Comics written by Karl Kesel with art by Ramon Bachs and covers by John Watson. The series was released in October 2008.
With his personal life in shambles, Martin Blank A.K.A. the Gibbon is sucked into another dimension populated by simian versions of Marvel characters while helping scientist Fiona Fitzhugh.
Marvel Apes: provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: From a human perspective, certainly from Martin's, the ape heroes come across as this. They're ruthless, violent and murderous, but unless you're a villain who refuses to reform, or have earned their ire in some other way, they're fairly polite and accepting, even friendly.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The apes, though sapient and capable of developing civilization and advanced technology, are still apes and deal with antisocial behavior like criminals and supervillains with extreme prejudice. Anyone breaking the law is forced to either comply or be beaten to death.
- Deconstruction: The Marvel Apes storyline deconstructs the Funny Animal. A reality ruled by non-human primates would most likely be far more violent than ours, since most primates don't have human-level empathy. Even heroes like Captain America sees nothing wrong with beating villains to death since that's just how apes are.
- Disney Death: Speedball looks like he's been killed in the final battle, but he turns out to have survived and joined Marty and Fiona in the 616 universe.
- Killed Off for Real: Happens to both Otto Ooktavius and Reed Richards. The former is beaten to death by the Ape-vengers, the latter is killed by Vampire Captain America for figuring out that he's a vampire.
- Main Character: Martin Blank/The Gibbon.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: There is also a Marvel Apes universe, where everyone is an ape. Some of the ape superheroes are also vampires, and one of them is an ape Nazi vampire. In Marvel Zombies: Evil Evolution there is Marvel Apes vs Marvel Zombies, during which Iron Mandrill gets infected with the zombie virus, becoming a super-intelligent zombie ape in a suit of powered armour.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: If villains refuse to submit and reform then they're beaten to death.
Then all hell broke loose. It wasn't a trial. It wasn't even a lynching. It wasn't human.
— The Gibbon
- Silly Simian:
- The comic sets up this trope pretty expertly, being an alternate universe where everyone is a monkey except the Inhumans and Sue Storm.
At first, the world seems goofy and friendly... but Martin quickly discovers that a world ruled by apes is also ruled by the Law of the Jungle, and you do not want to get on the wrong side of these apes. - Spider-Monkey plays the trope straightest, but as an alternate Spider-Man being silly is kind of par for the course. In the Spider-Monkey special he also proves to be more of a Nice Guy than most of the other apes.
- The comic sets up this trope pretty expertly, being an alternate universe where everyone is a monkey except the Inhumans and Sue Storm.
- Trapped in Another World: While trying to discern whether or not Gibbon is from another dimension, he and Fiona Fitzhugh are transported to the Marvel Apes universe.
