Predator vs. Planet of the Apes: Three-Way War in 3978

Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes comic cover art with a Yautja facing ape soldiers

By Janno Vares, Founder & Editor, covering Alien vs. Predator since 2001
June 29, 2026

Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes is a five-issue Marvel crossover that sends the Yautja to the classic Charlton Heston timeline, where apes rule and humans live in subservience. Marvel and 20th Century Studios announced the series in April 2026, with the first issue scheduled for July 29, 2026. It marks the first licensed crossover between the Predator and Planet of the Apes franchises, following Marvel's earlier Planet of the Apes vs. Fantastic Four miniseries and a prelude in the Comics Giveaway Day sampler Alien, Predator & Planet of the Apes.

What We Know So Far

Ape soldiers firing on a leaping Predator on the Planet of the Apes

The series is written by Greg Pak and illustrated by Alan Robinson, with main covers by Stonehouse and variants by Ben Oliver, Skottie Young, Chris Campana, Carlos Magno, and Tim Seeley. Marvel's synopsis states that a deadly Yautja crash-lands on the legendary Planet of the Apes after a rescue mission goes wrong. Astronaut Arch is stranded in a hostile ape society, and the fragile balance between rulers and the subservient human population breaks when Predators begin stalking both sides. What follows is a three-way war between humans, apes, and Yautja over who will dominate the ruined Earth.

A short prelude story appeared in Alien, Predator & Planet of the Apes CGD 2026 #1 on May 2, 2026, alongside separate Alien and Predator tales by Saladin Ahmed and Jordan Morris. The main miniseries itself is not a triple crossover: Xenomorphs do not appear in the five-issue run, even though Marvel bundled all three Fox sci-fi brands on the free sampler cover.

The CGD Tease And Marvel's Missing AvP Comics

The Comics Giveaway Day issue was the clearest tease that Disney intends to treat Alien, Predator, and Planet of the Apes as sister properties under one publishing roof. Davide Paratore's cover united all three franchises in a single image, and the book itself functioned as a sampler rather than a true Alien vs. Predator vs. Planet of the Apes story. For longtime AvP readers, that was both exciting and frustrating: Marvel can headline all three brands on one comic, but the ongoing event still leaves Xenomorphs on the sidelines.

There has also been no proper Aliens vs. Predator comic in years. The last Dark Horse AvP series was Thicker Than Blood, which finished in trade paperback form around 2020 when Marvel took the Fox licenses. Since then Marvel has published separate Alien and Predator lines, plus crossovers with Marvel heroes such as Predator vs. Wolverine, Aliens vs. Avengers, and Alien vs. Captain America, but not a new AvP miniseries. As discussed in our AvP license overview, Disney still treats Alien, Predator, and AvP as separate licenses even when the marketing suggests otherwise.

Planet Of The Apes Vs. Fantastic Four

The best immediate precedent for this crossover is not Kong or Green Lantern, but Planet of the Apes vs. Fantastic Four, Marvel's four-issue series that ran from February to May 2026 and stranded Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny in Ape City. For AvP readers, that book hits differently because the Fantastic Four had already met the Yautja in Predator Kills the Marvel Universe. A royal hunting party ambushed the team at their lunar base: Mister Fantastic lost an arm and died from blood loss, the Human Torch was beheaded, the Thing was blasted into deep space when Kraven warned the hunters he was too tough to kill, and only the Invisible Woman escaped the initial attack. Sue later destroyed the Yautja mothership, but the First Family had already learned what a Predator hunt feels like.

Planet of the Apes vs. Fantastic Four flipped the script by putting superheroes inside ape society instead of hunters inside a superhero base. Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes now completes the triangle: the same Marvel era that devastated the FF on the Moon sends Yautja to the 1968 Earth where Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Zaius rule. PoTA has crossed over before through BOOM! Studios titles such as Kong on the Planet of the Apes and Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive, but Marvel's 2026 line is the first time Fox's three biggest sci-fi brands have rotated through the same publishing pipeline in one year.

When Does Predator Vs. Planet Of The Apes Take Place?

Predator vs. Magnus Robot Fighter comic cover set in the year 4001

Marvel's announcement ties the story to the world of the original 1968 Planet of the Apes film, not the Caesar reboot timeline from Rise through Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. In that classic continuity, astronaut George Taylor's ship left Earth around 1972 and crash-landed roughly two thousand years later, with the on-screen date meter reading 3978. The sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes famously introduced a conflicting 3955 date, but most reference guides treat 3978 as the standard year for the original pentalogy.

That date matters for Predator lore because it places the hunt near the far end of the expanded Yautja timeline. Film-era stories such as Prey and Predator: Badlands sit in the distant past or the 24th-25th centuries, while games like Alien vs. Predator SNES reach 2493. At roughly 3978 AD, the Planet of the Apes setting lands about 23 years before the furthest dated Predator story on record: Predator vs. Magnus, Robot Fighter in 4001, as covered in our furthest point in the Predator timeline article. Like other Marvel Fox crossovers, this series should be treated as non-canon to the films, but as a calendar entry it is one of the latest Earth-set hunts in expanded lore.

Have Predators Ever Hunted Ape-Like Creatures?

Ahab Predator fighting red-skinned tribal humanoids in Predator Fire and Stone

For a franchise built on exotic prey, surprisingly few Yautja hunts involve anything ape-like. Our Predators vs. wild animals overview covers bears, lions, wolves, and crocodiles, but never primates. The closest comparisons in expanded lore are tribal humanoids such as the four-armed red-skinned warriors from Fire and Stone, one of whom stabbed Ahab through the mask in an early hunt he still spoke about proudly, and the purple-skinned natives of Planet XI4432-8 from Marvel's ongoing Predator line, listed among the other species that Yautja hunt.

Bigfoot is the nearest comparison in expanded lore: the short story The Monster from Predator: Eyes of the Demon treats the creature as real. That is bipedal, hairy, animal prey rather than a civilization with law, language, and organized armies. Even the ape-born Guardian Xenomorph from AvP SNES is a Xenomorph gestated from an ape host, not a hunt against intelligent apes themselves. Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes therefore fills a gap the expanded universe has barely touched: not cryptids or mute humanoids, but an ape civilization with weapons, hierarchy, and something worth hunting under the Yautja honor code.

Kenner's Gorilla Alien And Ape DNA

The Gorilla Alien Kenner action figure from Aliens Jungle Attack

Apes have touched the Alien brand before, just not through Predator. In 1992, Kenner's Aliens toy line introduced the Gorilla Alien, a bulky primate-host Xenomorph sold with the mini-comic Aliens: Jungle Attack. Kenner ran hard with the DNA reflex idea from Alien 3: if a facehugger can produce a Bull Alien or Snake Alien, a gorilla-born variant was fair game for the toy aisle. NECA later revived the design in its Kenner Tribute line, and the type has echoed in expanded media such as Aliens: Infestation and Alien: The Cold Forge.

That makes Marvel's 2026 crossover feel less random than it looks on paper. Fox sci-fi has been mixing primates with Xenomorph biology for decades, while Kenner's AvP two-pack showed the toy line was willing to combine brands early on. The difference is scale: Kenner gave readers an ape-shaped Xenomorph, and Greg Pak's series now drops spear-wielding gorilla generals into a three-way war against wristblade-armed hunters on the classic Planet of the Apes Earth.

Conclusion

Predator vs. the Planet of the Apes arrives with more context than a typical licensed mashup. Marvel already teased all three Fox franchises on Comics Giveaway Day, finished a Planet of the Apes vs. Fantastic Four crossover months earlier, and spent half a decade publishing Predator and Alien books without reviving classic Aliens vs. Predator. The new series adds a far-future Earth hunt near the end of the Yautja calendar, a rare chance to pit hunters against an intelligent ape society, and another entry in Marvel's growing habit of treating 20th Century Studios properties as crossover fuel. Whether the comic leans into primitive hunts like Prey or all-out war between three factions, it is the first time Ape City and the Yautja share a headline miniseries.