Review by Frank Plowright
Has a graphic novel ever previously looked back to the time before the Apes become the predominant species on Earth in the Planet of the Apes canon? To when humans didn’t quite realise they were approaching extinction? If so, it’s difficult to imagine it’s handled better than Fall of Man.
David F. Walker’s plot begins in 2011 when a virus wrongly labelled Simian Flu devastates humanity, believed to have started among apes who have far greater resistance. A belief takes hold that apes are somehow responsible, fuelled by a mass outbreak of lab specimens who run amok in San Francisco, and coalesces into a worldwide vigilante organisation who believe the virus will die if all apes are exterminated. If that means killing those who protect them, no sleep is lost.
As with the best Planet of the Apes, Walker is providing comparisons with current problems in what’s a smart extrapolation of a worst case scenario. What would happen if all those social media voices refusing to believe in science and outcast militias combined and became strong enough to overthrow nations? Meanwhile there are pockets of humanity who accept a new intelligence in apes and befriend them. Walker isn’t judgemental, although for the most part the new terrorists remain anonymous, which is another distinctly modern touch.
The apes first seen in captivity are superbly rendered by Dave Wachter, humanised via their eyes, yet he’s a rare artist as enthralled by technology as he is by nature, and so boats and guns are as detailed as the apes. His movement is fluid, his action is great and his layouts switch into eye-popping large panels or spreads. Fall of Man looks amazing.
There doesn’t seem to be a purpose to the jumping about through time, especially as it’s only over a span of a few years and the ending is a prolonged sequence in the present day, but just put that down to Walker’s stylistic quirk. Despite the early anomalies, it’s not until the end is in sight that we finally see how smart the apes have become, and how much they understand, and all the way through lead character Juliana Tobon provides an instructive voice.
A secondary tale considers Pug, a gorilla performing in a French circus when the Simian Flu spreads, and how it changes him. Walker plays these events alongside and informing the main story, and also contrasting it as this is ape-led rather than human led. It’s briefer, and the art switches from Wachter to Andy MacDonald midway though, but to no great detriment. It’s a slim tale, but not without heart.
The ending wraps everything up according to the cinematic new beginning formula, and it’s the weakest element of a what should otherwise please all franchise fans.
