IDW & BOOM! Announce Star Trek/Planet of the Apes Comic Crossover

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Today brings another announcement from San Diego Comic-Con, this time a surprising comics crossover with Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. Details below.

Star Trek Goes Apes – Get Ready For the ‘Primate Directive’

Today at the San Diego Comic Con IDW Publishing and BOOM! Studios announced they are teaming up for crossover you never saw coming – Star Trek and Planet of the Apes. According to the announcement IDW will publish a multi-issue series that will pair the original Star Trek crew with the original Planet of the Apes film cast.

Here is the plot synopsis and cover…

“With the Klingons secretly backing a renegade gorilla general in a coup for control of Ape City, Captain Kirk finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to help out Dr. Zaius’ orangutans,” explains David Tipton. “Taylor won’t be happy with that!”

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press release

Star Trek™ Meets Planet Of The Apes!
IDW Publishing Partners With Boom! Studios For Epic Crossover

San Diego, CA (July 25, 2014) – Have you ever wondered what it would be like to “mind-meld” with a sentient ape? Or wanted to see a Klingon on horseback, brandishing a rifle? Readers will soon have a chance to peek into just such an alternate future, as IDW Publishing partners with BOOM! Studios for the crossover event of the year: Star Trek/Planet of the Apes.

IDW will publish the crossover, which will mark the first time BOOM! Studios has partnered with another publisher on a series. Together they will bring Star Trek, licensed by CBS Consumer Products, and 20th Century Fox’s Planet of the Apes together in a way that is sure to delight existing fans and make new ones. The series will pair the original U.S.S. Enterprise crew with Taylor, Nova and the cast from the original Planet of the Apes film.

“Planet of the Apes and Star Trek are groundbreaking science-fiction properties and both deal with many of the same social issues and themes,” says Greg Goldstein IDW President & Chief Operating Officer. “A crossover between the two is a natural and long overdue.”

“Before I could read comic books as a child, I could watch science fiction on my television. My dad used to wake me up way past my bedtime to watch Star Trek in syndication—it came on after the nightly news—and I took a Planet of the Apes lunchbox with me to kindergarten every day,” says BOOM! Studios Founder and CEO Ross Richie. “Suffice to say, teaming up these two titans of science fiction on the page in a way that they probably will never meet each other on the silver screen is a huge moment for me personally and emotionally.”

The creative team will be a mix of proven experience and new blood with scripts by beloved Star Trek scribes Scott and David Tipton (Star Trek: The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation 2) and interior art and covers by the British newcomer Rachael Stott.

“With the Klingons secretly backing a renegade gorilla general in a coup for control of Ape City, Captain Kirk finds himself in the uncomfortable position of having to help out Dr. Zaius’ orangutans,” explains David Tipton. “Taylor won’t be happy with that!”

“What an epic pairing! I’m so excited to see Taylor, Kirk…and those damned dirty apes…in our upcoming comic,” says IDW editor Sarah Gaydos, “We’re eager to team up these exciting creative forces to bring this to life.”
 

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I hate crossovers. This does not seem to do anything to dispel that sentiment from me.

This is awesome!

IDW’s crossover comics have all sold well, so it had to be a crossover. That it’s apes is surprising, but after thinking about it a bit, not that surprising, because we’re in the middle of an ape renaissance, both movies and comics. I’ve read some of BOOM’s ape comics and found them entertaining.

The Tiptons are writing. They are IDW’s Trek superstars. I’m not familiar with the artist Rachael Stott, but who cares? It’s Apes! And Klingons!

IDW will still have to crossover with Aliens and/or Predators someday.

Well, they’re right. I didn’t see that coming. Should be cool though.

Next it will be star trek / star wars crossover after that most likely.
but I really want Enterprise and Voyager comics more than TOS era.

@Martin,

An ENTERPRISE comic series chronicling the Earth/Romulan War would be absolutely amazing.

When is the Lost In Space/Star Trek crossover coming??

Or the Star Trek / Mary Tyler Moore crossover? Can you imagine Ted vs. Captain Kirk?

Hey, alternate realities are alternate realities. The fan films seem to have no problem opening with ‘These are the conquests of the Starship Enterprise’ these days, so let the comics run with it. Harmless fun…..

But… but…

Apes is about human folly destroying our future… and Earth.
Trek is about human wisdom overcoming human folly to usher in a bright future.

How can you have both??? Wouldn’t Taylor just be thrilled to see Kirk and hitch a ride? Do the damn dirty Klingons blow up Lady Liberty?

This make less than zero sense.

If Trek could “violate” its science enough to cross over with any Marvel but Ironman, I guess anything goes …. but I’m with Martin and Gorn Identity … it’d be great to see a TOS “framework” story about the Fed/Romulan war. I’d also like to see a DS9 comic, rather than “Voyager,” but that’s just my preference. I think there are plenty of “worlds” they can explore in Trek without unlikely crossovers. JMHO.

As a proponent of the NuVerse/AltVerse/JJVerse’s “alternate reality” for Kirk, Spock and crew, I will now be silent :-)

@9 (CmdrR): The simplest answer is the one that has already been established in ‘Trek lore: Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Hodgkin%27s_Law_of_Parallel_Planetary_Development

Basically, this was used to explain away the multiple earth-like planets that seem to resemble Earth, but took a different turn from what Earth ended up being in ‘Trek. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this is used for the comic, making the Planet of the Apes simply a parallel Earth that took a different path.

How about John Sheridan vs. James Kirk in a Babylon 5/Star Trek crossover ?

11 – dswynne — I would not be at all surprised by a Hodgkin’s excuse to make this crossover happen. But, in doing that you have the same problem we get with the JJverse. If there are zillions of Earths, or Kirks, or realities, then why would we become vested as fans in any one reality? Either the humans of ‘Apes’ played for all the bananas… and lost… or ‘who cares?’ If it’s not OUR Earth, then Taylor is just some scruffy guy in a loin cloth being chased by Shakespearean-spouting simians. What’s the point?

The “Primate” Directive. Really guys?

@13. CmdrR,
“or ‘who cares?’ If it’s not OUR Earth… What’s the point?”

Thank you! I’ve been saying this since Orci started pushing his cockamamie parallel universe QM MWI concept.

The ONLY character we should give a rats behind about is Prime Spock. The rest of ’em, Kirk, Spock, McCoy … NOT OURS. So why do we care? According to Orci, there are incalculable copies of every one of us, living out every conceivable possibility that could ever happen to us. But we’re the only ones that matter. Who cares if a copy of me in some other universe is a mass murderer … It’s not me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Should I worry all day long that my counterpart in another universe is committing such crimes? No. But Orci would have us watch some other Kirk, and some other Spock, and some other crew, have experiences which are only superficially related to the characters we all know, and actually care about, and accept them as if they were the same as those we grew up with.

Did anybody who watched the TNG episode Parallels feel for the Commander Riker who came from the Borg infested universe when he refused to go back to seal the rift, and his ship blew up? No. Even the crew of the Prime Enterprise D didn’t. Because it wasn’t the Will Riker the audience knew and cared about, it was just some half-baked shadow of the real deal, just like the characters Bob Orci has created for his Star Trek.

There is a God!

And in one fell swoop, BOTH books I’m working on for Sequart just became out-dated. :::sigh:::

#6 you kid about the Trek/Lost in Space crossover, but I for one would LOVE it. My two childhood favorites together? What’s not to love!

@ 16. Robert J. Sawyer,

Good to see you here Mr. Sawyer, I’m sure that this comic will sit comfortably next to the the Lawgiver statue on your desk :-)

@13 (CmdrR) & @15 (Curious Cadet): The point is that we’re not dealing with a parallel TIMELINE or UNIVERSE; just a parallel Earth (i.e. the world of the Planet of the Apes for this crossover) that evolved differently from Kirk’s Earth, but set in the same Universe. And this is within TOS continuity (the author/editor of the upcoming mini-series implies this). In fact, there are three known ones featured in “Omega Glory”, “Bread and Circuses” and “Miri’s World”. We’re still dealing with one Kirk from within the Prime Universe, not the Kirk from the JJ-Verse or any other alternate Universes. I don’t know how Orci and Bad Robot got roped into this discussion, since they are not involved in this project (IDW DOES do Prime Trek comics, you know). Frankly, it’s silly for you two to think this.

So, once again, remember that THIS story is not set within the context of the JJ-Trek Universe, but within the context of the Original-Trek Universe.

@17 (Ralph): Considering that you can have parallel Earths set within the same Universe, why not have a LiS/ST crossover? Makes as much sense as a Chicago Mafia World (Piece of the Action) and Nazi Germany World (Pattern of Force). Having such a predicament does have precedence…

@20. dswynne,
“The point is that we’re not dealing with a parallel TIMELINE or UNIVERSE; just a parallel Earth (i.e. the world of the Planet of the Apes for this crossover) that evolved differently from Kirk’s Earth, but set in the same Universe.”

It is you who are missing the point. Do you know why Planet of the Apes has emotional meaning at the end when Taylor collapses on the beach and screams, “they blew it up”? It’s because he’s looking that HIS Statue of Liberty. The Planet of the Apes is HIS Earth, he is HOME.

If this is just some parallel planet that developed along some theoretical law of physics, then it holds absolutely NO meaning for anyone. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happens on a planet that happens to look like Earth.

Now maybe that’s not how this story is told, but nothing could be more boring or less interesting than a random planet of the apes that holds no particular meaning for Taylor or Kirk. Because that’s NOT what the planet of the apes is about.

@20 dswynne, MORE:

The Planet of the Apes is HIS Earth, he is HOME. And it resonates with us because Taylor’s Earth is OUR Earth. Take that away, and it’s just a story about some sentient apes.

The only way this could work and keep the same impact is if the Enterprise goes back in time, changes something (like saving Edith Keeler) and then goes back to the future to find the planet of the apes … An alternate future.

But unlike Orci’s Star Trek, this is an alternate future that is THEIR only future. And therefore, they MUST change it to save themselves. This comic removes all of that. Hey guys, turns out the planet of the apes is just another Omega Glory planet that evolved differently than ours, not our own future. Not as interesting a story now, is it? Just like Orci’s Star Trek.

@22 (Curious Cadet): I understand what you are saying, but remember that Kirk violated the Prime Directive on a number of occasions for the sake of principle. He would get involved either because of some outside force (like in the case of this mini-series) or because he was setting something right what went wrong. I’m surprised that you consider yourself a fan of ‘Trek, and not remember any of this, or why the characters in ‘Trek behave the way they do. These stories, episodes, movies, etc. have meaning because of the way the characters are written. You rightly complain about how superficial NuKirk and company are written; in that case, they were designed to be made for the big screen as popcorn fodder. However, we have an entire series of original episodes to get to know Kirk and company, who will be referenced in this upcoming series. Yes, there is the occasion silly episode, but the overall theme of TOS is to “explore strange new worlds…” Well, I don’t know about you, but these parallel Earths, based upon their existence in ‘Trek lore alone, qualify as being “strange new worlds”. And since sci-fi crossovers is a “thing” these days, using ‘Trek as a vehicle to explore the world of the Planet of the Apes will be in keeping with its theme: Kirk has to stop the Klingons from interfering in the development of yet another planet, albeit a more familiar one, only he’s not about to get help from a “time-lost” native (Taylor) who hates the state of his home planet (under the rule of apes). Simple story with a simple premise. I personally don’t see a problem, given that we’re dealing with SCIENCE FICTION. If the story is awful, then we won’t have to worry about another crossover yarn.

It’s just too bad that your criticism of Orci, JJ Abrams and Bad Robot has turned you into such a cynic, when it comes to having fun with pop-culture.

Does not a shared sentience mean anything?

26 Rose,

Apparently not, even if there is shared sentience, there’s no shared sentiment. Because it’s in the AltVerse it’s completely irrelevant and we should just shrug our shoulders when George Kirk dies, Vulcan blows up, Amanda dies, &c. We shouldn’t have feelings about these characters/planet b/c they are not exactly like their TOS counterparts and they are featured in a big-budget screen extravaganza.

Because, y’know we’re not “true Trek fans” or we’re Trek fans with no sense of discrimination.

FEH!

You’ve all got it all wrong. As we later found out, the Planet of the Apes was never Earth to begin with. It was simply an Earth-type planet that George Taylor thought was earth when he mistook the wreckage of MegaMaid for the remains of the statue of Liberty.

Really… this stuff is all fantasy and whims of imagination. I’m excited to read it simply because it will be FUN. We just have to stop taking this non-canon stuff so seriously!

@23. There’s a serious disconnect here – Trek isn’t our future, either. There aren’t any Klingons or Romulans out there waiting to be discovered, no plexi-glass chip technology that will let us do anything by inverting some tachyon polarity, there’s just us – we are plodding our way along, figuring things out, and understanding that space travel, while in our future, is going to look a lot more like how NASA envisions it then Gene Roddenberry did.

Just relax, and enjoy the story.

Women and children love NuTrek. I swear, JJ Abrams and John Cena tap into the same audience.

I kinda like this idea though. The Cornelius and Taylor dynamic reminded me of the McCoy and Spock dynamic in a sense. Perhaps the Enterprise gets pulled into the same anomaly that the Icarus did and ended up X-amount of years into the future.

Trek/SeaQuest DSV crossover coming soon

I want Star Trek/The Invaders next.

@15 I get what your saying about who cares if its alternate earth, and alternate Kirk etc for the JJ films, but if everything had to be strictly this universe/reality they wouldn’t be able to do the Trek Apes crossover, and ST2009 would’ve had to be a full remake like BSG or a prequel with an attempt to make everything looking pre TOS like The Cage and everything set to rights at the end so not to upset the continuity

It sounds very interesting but that means the story needs to change a lot… since it was Earth in the year “39… something….” (or was it “29… something…” Either way most def NOT the 23rd century and Taylor would not have been on this Earth by then) , from what Cornelius’s wife said during her truth serum interrogation in the 1960s(?)…

For a crossover, this one makes at least a bit more sense than other possibilities. (E.g. I don’t think that Star Trek and superheroes fit together all too well.) The core concept of “Planet of the Apes” DOES sound quite TOS-y.

I predict they will do an Urko meets Sarek.

Seriously, though… by grasping for cross-overs and alternate timelines and parrallel universes, the writers all but admit there are no new stories to be had from Trek. That’s crazy. Hell, if you love cross-overs, then check the latest headline and start dropping “Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Joe Klingon” into the copy. Trek has always thrived on taking topical issues and dramatizing them. I don’t think we’ve run out of real history, so I don’t see how we’ve run out of new Trek stories.
-Social Media abuse creating disconnected people…
-Global warming…
-A once great nation declining into polarized camps…
-Celebrity worship taken to extremes…

That’s just off the top of my head. Are you telling me those won’t work, so it’s time to bring in the apes? I think not!!

34 – I predict they will do an Urko meets Sarek.

Hey, we’re all the same under the skin (or latex).

@26. Marja
” We shouldn’t have feelings about these characters/planet b/c they are not exactly like their TOS counterparts and they are featured in a big-budget screen extravaganza. Because, y’know we’re not “true Trek fans” or we’re Trek fans with no sense of discrimination.”

You disappoint me Marja. Or should I say M J? I never said any of that. I didn’t say anything about not feeling for a character or being moved for a story. I echoed CmdrR’s sentiment — I don’t see the point. Just make it a story about a planet of sentient of apes, and skip the cross-brand tie in.

But this Nu-Kirk is NOT our Kirk, and his stories so far involve unlimited violence and little thought. This is NOT our Trek. There’s nobody saying you can’t be interested in the story of this guy named Kirk or his world of violence and brevity of dialogue, but despite Orci’s attempts, he’s not the same Kirk you’ve been watching for 50 years. Why even call them Kirk and Spock then, if they aren’t going to be the same characters? Just create a new ship and create new characters we can invest in their personalities, and individual stories. One answer — money; that should make you feel all warm and sentimental. And Star Trek has been perverted into a vehicle for limitless violence and destruction for the same reason.

The point is simply this, if there are an unlimited number of universes to explore with identical people in all of them, are you going to worry about all of them and care for them all the same? You can care about their individual story, and it can affect you emotionally, but are you going to invest in those characters the same? McCoy took care of Mirror Spock, and Kirk observed he’s very much like ‘our Spock’ — but was McCoy just upholding his Hyppocratic oath, or did he really share intimate feelings for this guy named Spock he new nothing about? Kirk was ready to walk away to get back to their Spock. There are unspeakable tragedies unfolding around the Earth everyday, but does the death of an unknown woman in Iraq reported on the evening news affect you the same way as a close relative? If it does, then I don’t know how you get out of bed every morning. I don’t know you, but I’ll wager you compartmentalize the millions of injustices around the world every day, like the rest of us, feeling empathy, but not devastating grief.

Star Trek is supposed to be our future, whether it is or not, that’s why we connect with it, that’s why we care. Likewise for Planet of the Apes. But once that is stripped away, once there are unlimited universes with unlimited Kirks, with unlimited futures then why should we care as much as we do? You don’t have to worry that one Kirk is blown up because there are unlimited trillions of them that are alive and well in their respective universes. OF COURSE you care when you see this happen in a story, but why should you care overall? Did you really care about Mirror Kirk? Do you lie awake at night wondering what became of him, and hope he learns the error of his ways? I’ll bet not. But maybe, at some point in your life, you did worry about Shatner’s Kirk like that. And actually, I’m not saying you shouldn’t worry about Pine’s Kirk, it’s just now, thanks to Orci, you also know there are many more where he came from.

Hey, what about a Dallas/Star Trek crossover, or even a Dynasty crossover? A Star Trek/The Office crossover? Falcon Crest? Star Trek/Starsky & Hutch? Where’s my Enterprise/Hill Street Blues crossover!?

#6 “star trek”crossover with “lost in space” they already done it its called “voyager”

@ 34. Odradek – “I predict they will do an Urko meets Sarek.”

I’m still waiting for a graphic novel adaptation of Barbara Hambly’s novel “Ishmael” – the Star Trek / Here Come The Brides crossover.

@35 (CmdrR): But they are coming out with new stories, both in novel form and in the comics, all the time, mostly set in the Prime Universe.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Upcoming_productions

The problem is that we don’t have a television series that could address these topics of yours, and you certainly can’t do that with the film series, because they are designed to be summer blockbusters. Hopefully, this will change in the future…

38 – Yikes. Sarek, Lazarus, Makora… I can see why she wanted to do a crossover.
Plus, Bridget Hanley was gorgeous… coulda been an android in I, Mudd.

I would LOVE a Trek/Starsky&Hutch crossover!

@43 Khan 2.0,

LOL … Or a Star Trek Baywatch crossover … Hasselhoff!!!!

Actually how about an I Dream of Jeannie crossover? Oh the hilarity!

And each adventure could simply be yet another parallel Earth where these things actually happened … In one instance Kirk visits a parallel Earth where the NASA space program is developing with a major Anthony Nelson and where genies actually exist … and another where it’s a parallel 1980s and Kirk falls in love with C.J. after the Enterprise rises out of parallel Santa Monica Bay so Kirk can personally rescue her and then fight Mitch for her.

Wait, the perfect crossover with Mission Impossible, on yet another parallel Earth, Spock comes face to face with The Great Paris, his alien humanoid doppelgänger! And they enlist his help to expose a Klingon spy! Wow these crossovers practically write themselves!

No, no, no, I’ve got it! Space 1999/Mission Impossible/Trek crossover … A rouge moon from yet another parallel Earth approaches a different parallel Earth, where Commander Koenig and Helena Russell meet Roland Hand and Cinnamon Carter, with the Enterprise investigating the space traveling moon, and Spock and Paris team up with all of them to stop a Romulan invasion, but the Prime Directive prevents Kirk from rescuing the Alphans on the runaway moon in the end …

Good to know if writers never need to come up with another original idea we’re covered for years to come …

The there’s the Gilligan’s Island crossover … Oh those poor people … WAIT — a Trek/Galaxy Quest crossover! Jackpot!

When Paramount owned the rights to the “Iron Man” film franchise, I was hoping for a “Star Trek”/”Iron Man” cross-over movie. It was unrealistic, sure, but man, it would have been cool to have Stark Industries as the early manufacturer of equipment (transporters,weapons, etc) for Starfleet.

Tony Stark could have been one of Captain Kirk’s historical idols. Throw in a time travel element, and Kirk and Stark teaming up to defeat some bad guys would have been swell.

The odds of that ever happening though, were virtually nil. I guess MARVEL and IDW can do a comic book cross-over, however. *FINGERS CROSSED*

#6. Trekbilly – July 25, 2014 , 18. Ralph – July 25, 2014

At last, the answer to a lifelong question: Would the Jupiter 2 with its own shuttlecraft and spacepous enough to park the Chariot be able to fit in the E’s shuttlebay?

#44. Curious Cadet – July 26, 2014

You jest, but I think you forget TNG, DS9 and VOY all opened the flood gates for all those crossovers and more via the holodeck which they used it to have: Saturday Movie Matinee SF serials, James Bond, Westerns, Opera, Sam Spade, etc. type crossover adventures. They even introduced a few into the movies!

#13. CmdrR – July 25, 2014

This flies in the face that the original creation was from a novel by Pierre Boulle where the ape planet most definitely wasn’t a future Earth but its own Hodgkin style planet with no connection to Earth other than it was where the Earth astronauts landed. Granted the earthman and his family return to Earth and due to time-dilation find that it has undergone a similar ape evolution but the book establishes the two planets are not one and the same.

48 – Cool book. I liked it as a teen, despite being disappointed that it wasn’t a novelization of the movie. I kept missing the characters and wondering why the astronauts spoke French. Apes suck at innovation, btw, in the book.
However, more to the point, the comic seems to be based on the Heston movie, which bears very little resemblance to Boulle’s novel. The movie is definitely a cautionary tale about how Man’s pride can be his downfall. That being the case, Apes and Trek are at opposite ends of the fictional spectrum.

I love mash-ups! Bring it!