In the mini-series Ape Nation, a Newcomer slave ship accidentally hits a time curve and finds itself, where else, on the planet of the apes.
"What I liked about Alien Nation is the interaction between the two diverse characters, which is probably what everybody else likes about it," says writer Charles Marshall. "What this mini-series will try to do is pick up some of that same appeal, except that instead of being a human, the other character will be an ape. These two characters will develop a buddy relationship, much like Alien Nation. They'll be faced with stopping an army of humans, gorillas and Newcomers, all of whom are being led by General Ollo.
"The way I look at it is that you've got this slave race. There are no resources being harvested on the planet of the apes and there's nothing for these slaves to do, so I figured that it would be a logical off-shoot that they would be used for an army, the only job open. So, they're a part of this vast army that's wiping out everything on a direct path to Ape City. Many of the characters from Planet of the Apes will be popping up, mostly in small roles. They know that this army is coming and they're trying to do something about it, but they don't have the ape power to stop them. Basically, though, it's the story of two characters. The ape's name is Heston, and it's pretty obvious where that came from, and the alien is named Caan, which I thought was a nice tribute to James Caan from the original movie. I'm trying to pick up the buddy quality that appealed to me about Alien Nation and work that in, too.
"I've always been a fan of weird crossovers," he adds, "and it's always a challenge to pull it off and not have people go, 'Oh, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.' If we can get the characters together in a way that works for everybody, we can tell a real good story."
He's obviously confident that he can, as he points out that Ape Nation concludes with everything returned to status quo, while leaving the door wide open for another, very different mini-series that might follow. Planet of the Apes, it would seem, has sparked his imagination.
Taken from a article by Edward Gross in Comics Scene #13 (June 1990)
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