He is picked up by the company Gen-Sys to be part of a testing procedure for the ALZ-113 retrovirus developed by Will Rodman, in hopes of curing Alzheimer's.

He is mocked briefly by Rodman's superior, Steven Jacobs, by knocking on Koba's window as he is being strapped in for the procedure.

While Koba is sedated, Franklin has breathed in enough of the 113 virus to become contaminated, which would begin the Simian Flu outbreak that caused humanity to die out.

In this novel, set a few weeks after the first film, Koba works hard to prove his loyalty to Caesar, while also struggling with the painful memories of his past, which are now more vivid due to his enhanced intelligence.

Koba was born in an unnamed primate research facility, where he lived with his mother and their caregiver, Mary, who taught them Sign Language.

As a result of this incident, the facility's project funding was cut and Koba was sold to Tommy, an abusive TV producer.

Tommy made Koba and his new chimpanzee friend, Milo, part of his TV show, Monkey of the House, and would electrocute or beat them whenever they displeased him.

After Tommy committed suicide due to his show being cancelled, Koba and Milo attempted to escape, only to be captured and separated by animal control officers.

Koba then became a laboratory test subject, and eventually met Steven Jacobs, whom he swore revenge on after the man repeatedly mocked him as an unintelligent animal.

The next day, Koba and the other apes hear a gunshot ring throughout the forest and find Rocket's son Ash has been wounded by a group of humans with loaded guns.

Malcolm, one of the co-founders of the human's settlement, returns to the woods to make peace with Caesar in order to gain access to a hydroelectric generator at a dam in the ape's territory.

Koba keeps the discovery of the guns a secret, and warns Blue Eyes that he fears for Caesar's safety due to the humans remaining in the apes' territory.

Koba kills the human Carver, who had shot Ash and was flippant with the apes previously, and takes his hat and cigarette lighter as souvenirs.

Ash refuses, stating such an act goes against Caesar's teachings, and Koba angrily drags him up a flight of stairs and throws him off a balcony to his death.

Koba orders all human survivors to be rounded up and taken prisoner, claiming that they will know life inside a cage, and imprisons Caesar's remaining sympathizers in a bus.

Blue Eyes learns that Caesar is in fact alive, and frees the humans and apes loyalists from captivity singlehandedly.

At some point, Koba appears as a hallucination to Caesar after the latter accidentally kills Winter, who had joined forces with McCullough out of fear.

[3][4] Eventually, however, Caesar succeeds in freeing the apes from human captivity and is later faced with the option of killing a defeated McCullough.

Despite not returning to direct the film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt expressed that he would like to see Koba become the main antagonist of the series for the future installments.

[12] ScreenRant ranked Koba as the second scariest science fiction monster of the 2010s, stating "Toby Kebbell's performance as the evil ape arguably surpassed Serkis' at times.

[20][21] Mark Hughes from Forbes made many comparisons between Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and The Dark Knight in his review of Dawn, in one instance stating, "In The Dark Knight, those voices willing to take a chance at being destroyed in order to refuse to act against the other 'side' were able to ensure the survival of both ferries full of people trapped in the Joker's diabolical test.

In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, things take a rather different direction, as you of course already know must be the case for the film to progress and for the series to continue toward its destined outcome."

Here, he manages to rival his previous best performance as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is a testament to Serkis’ abilities as well as the visual effects.