A Chain Of Chimps!

Today is an excursion down one of the Dojo's patented countdowns as I take a look at my favorite comic book apes. Apes of all kinds are abundant in the comic books as they are in lots of other venues of popular culture. DC Comics famously had a love affair with apes in the 60's when the editors noted upticks in sales when apes showed up on covers. There have been giant apes, smart apes, civilized apes, ferocious apes, and even a golden ape.

So let me jiggle this barrel of monkeys and see what tumbles out. You can tell me if I have strung them together successfully or not. Let's begin.

21. The movie Planet of the Apes was a huge success in the 70's spawning sequels, toys, a TV show and a comic book. There was also a magazine, both were published by Marvel and featured some dandy talent. Whether your goal is to get beneath, escape, battle or got to conquer these blokes no list of favorite comic book apes would be complete without at least a mention of Caesar and his ape associates.

20. On Saturday mornings the spy craze of the time met up with ape craze to give us Lancelot Link Secret Chimp. I'll confess watching an episode these days might be a little tedious but back in the day I loved it as the agents of the Agency to Prevent Evil battled the never ending schemes of  the Criminal Headquarters  for the Underworld's Master Plan. Chimps aren't my favorite apes, but for Lancelot and best girl Mata Hairi I'll make an exception.

19. Spider-Man has an impressive rogues gallery, arguably the finest in all the Marvel Universe. But likely not on the A-list is The Gibbon. Martin Blank has powers and wants to be best buds with his his friendly neighborhood Spider-Man but things go wrong, he gets juiced and ends up battling Spidey as the "The Gibbon". It's a short battle, but I loved it.

18. Saturday mornings also gave us Bingo, a member in good standing with the Banana Splits. I was much too old to admit liking the Banana Splits when they were on TV, but by gosh I did enjoy their zany antics which happened between episodes of other not-that-bad cartoons and such entertainments. I hear there is a rumor they've gone rogue and have been killing folks, but surely not Bingo. Say it ain't so Bingo.

17. The Red Ghost, a spy for Mother Russia needed help when he planned to take on the Fab 4, but the Fantastic Four still got the best of him despite his trio of Super-Apes (gorilla, orangutan, and baboon) getting super powers like super-strength, super-magnestism and shape-changing respectively. I know I liked them when they popped by the Baxter Building.

16. Never read too many Golden Gorilla stories but the idea that he and Congo Bill shared a brain later in their careers was too much of a hoot. That's the kind of wack creativity that has made comics such a wonderful terrain for so many decades.

15. Rounding out the first gaggle of apes is...well...er...Ape. That's what he's called in the hilarious George of the Jungle cartoons and the comic books as well. While George is clumsy, dim, and an all-around goof, it is Ape who is the sophisticated voice of reason in the depths of the jungle. His cool head and refined manner make George a better boy. 

14. Monkeyman was an Indy hit back when the artist reigned supreme in the comics world and comic books were never "hotter". As is often the case Monkeyman was partnered with a beautiful girl, this time to form a duo against evil. Axwell Tiberius is Monkeyman's real name and he's a genius from another dimension brought to Earth when Ann O'Brien opened a portal. She got super strength and stature and he got stuck, but together they were a formidable team in all too few adventures by their creator Art Adams.

13. Cowboy Gorilla is the creation of Don Simpson and while not as successful as Megaton Man or even Yarn Man, he's a hoot. Often teamed with Phantom Jungle Girl he's a force for good alongside the other heroes of the Fiascoverse. Sadly Don Simpson, his creator has taken a step back from regular comic book production and that's hurt Cowboy's chances for the big time.

12. Who doesn't like Magilla Gorilla? While that might seem a rhetorical question it's actually one which could be asked of any of his potential owners, the folks who have tried to take Magilla home from Mr. Peebles' pet shop. Dressed like some misfit hobo Magilla is memorable if not exactly striking, but he means well. Hanna and Barbera came up with a winner with Magilla.

11. When is an ape not an ape? When that ape is the Ultra-Humanite. A super-villain from the earliest days of Superman's adventures, the Ultra-Humanite is the intellect to confront Superman's brawn. His schemes were many and varied but when he decided to become an albino ape, he found the body he'd dreamed of...in our worst nightmares.

10. And then there's Superman's other ape foe -- Titano the Super-Ape. Not unlike the Fantastic Four or the Red Ghost's own Super-Apes, Titano was once upon a time merely a chimp named Toto who was launched into space and irradiated. Returning to Earth he became an enormous gorilla armed with eye beams of sizzling Kryptonite. Take that Superman. '

9. Malevolent is the Mandrill, the sinister creation of Steve Gerber who battled against first Sheena the aptly named She-Devil and later Daredevil with the assistance of Nekra, an albino female vampire of sorts. Jerome Beacham is the Mandrill's real name and he's the mutated son of a pair of scientists once bombarded with radiation. Nekra it turns out is the daughter of a black cleaning lady also irradiated in the same accident. Together they hate the world and themselves and are extremely dangerous. 

8. Monsieur Mallah is part of DC's Brotherhood of Evil, the vile counterparts to the Doom Patrol. He's a loyal follower of The Brain who created him by experimenting on those of his kind. Along with the ductile Madame Rouge they are villains tough enough for anyone. And who doesn't love a gorilla with a gun? Oh that's right -- everyone!

7. Sam Simeon was delightful in his way as a partner with Angel O'Day. They were a dandy and entertaining pair in the relatively few issues of DC comics which featured them. Sam himself was a comic book artist as well as a detective of sorts and the fact he was a gorilla seemed of less concern to him and others as one might've thought.

6. M'Baku the Man-Ape is really an ape I know, but he made a tremendous impact on this Marvel Zombie from the very fist time he showed up to challenge the rule of T'Challa The Black Panther. The Panther had just become an Avenger and needed a villain and Man-Ape filled the bill with gusto. I guess based on the movies he's something of an ally for T'Challa these days, but it's the Man-Ape of yesteryear that makes me happy.

5. Kerchak is maybe the most important ape on this list. Without the ferocious Kerchak and his impact on the life of the one and only Tarzan of the Apes, pop culture as we know it might look quite different. In the earliest tales of Tarzan we see him grow and become a thorn in the side of Kerchak, but when he finally challenges the leader of his tribe to the right to rule he became a king of sorts in the dark territories of the mythical Africa.

4. Another bad ape is Grodd, the infamous member of the Flash's rogues gallery who seeks nothing less than the subjugation of mankind itself. While considered technically a rogue, you always knew that Grodd was something else, something  more dangerous and deadly. The Trickster wanted to make you look foolish and get booty, Mirror Master wanted to prove his mettle in battle against the most potent enemy he could locate, but Grodd just wanted to kill you.

3. Gorilla Man is a delightful character erupting from the depths of Marvel's horror past when the company was dubbed "Atlas". He was a man who was transformed into a gorilla by dint of a curse and that was his tale of morality until he was rediscovered by Roy Thomas and Don Glut and made a part of the 50's Avengers in an issue of What If?. He proved to be a fascinating character and even rated his mini-series at one time.

2. Perhaps the most successful comic book ape was Konga. Based on a British monster flick which wanted to capture a wee bit of the old King Kong magic, Konga landed at Charlton Comics where the ape fell into the hands of the late great Steve Ditko. Ditko imbued Konga with a charming personality, perhaps a bit too broad at times, but the stories have been reprinted time and again since proving that they have a lasting appeal. (More on Konga tomorrow and beyond.)

1. And finally at last we have the number one ape in comics, in fact  he's the number one ape in any list of any kind. King Kong is the well-spring of modern pop culture, a tale in which for the first time a thing which never lived demanded the empathy of the world and proved that all that hokum could be used to tell stories of lasting lingering power. While it's been many decades since Kong fell from the Empire State Building, he's never ever lost his lofty perch on top of the modern imagination.

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The Last Boy On Earth - Part One!

Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth debuted in late 1972. Jack Kirby had been at DC for well over a year and his magnum opus featuring the New Gods had stalled in the market. But his contract stilled called for him to produce a number of pages so titles were developed to take the place of The Forever People (The Demon) and New Gods (Kamandi) with Mister Miracle hanging on for a few more months. The mandate had come from Carmine Infantino to create a title which evoked the adventure and mystery of the successful Planet of the Apes movies. DC had failed to win that license and so Kirby's version would be competing directly with Marvel's version of the Apes franchise.

To that end, as was often his wont, Kirby dusted off old concepts and blended them to create something totally new. A long ago concept was called "Kamandi of the Caves" about a prehistoric man battling other cave men and such.

Blending this concept with the idea of talking animals (which Kirby had explored before many years before in such places as Thor with the High Evolutionary's "New Men") we got the post-Apocalyptic world of Kamandi. Kamandi derived his name from his home for many years, the bunker in which he lived with his uncle named "Command D".

The first issue is loaded and shows Kamandi exploring the world of demolished New York City for the first time.

In this tale Kirby establishes many of the core concepts of the series. Kamandi encounters other humans, but they unlike himself seem feral and appear to lack the intelligence we commonly associate with mankind. Kamandi battles sentient Wolves who invade his former home and kill his uncle. He avenges his uncle and commandeers an ancient truck to drive to New Jersey where he runs smack dab into a battle between Tigers and leopards. The former appear like Roman warriors of old and the latter have the look of pirates. He is captured and taken to the arena of the Tigers who want to use him for sport at the pleasure of their leader Casesar. They also worship a nuclear missile which the reverently refer to as "The Warhead". A scientist Dog named Canus takes Kamandi under his wing when he detects unusual intelligence and introduces him to another human named Ben Boxer, a mutant who along with his two colleagues hails from a distant area. The nature of Boxer's powers is kept secret for the moment.

In the second issue of the still bi-monthly series Kamandi joins up with Ben Boxer and his men, but not before the Tigers try to take them all prisoner.

Boxer then shows that he can by the use of a button in his chest transmute his form and become a man of impervious metal, a mutation he shares with the two other members of his "Research Team". They escape by means of a small submarine but are captured by Rats and taken to the holding cell where Boxer finds his colleagues. The three of them transmute and defeat the Rats and Kamandi joins them as they ascend to take control once again of their giant blimp which they plan to use to return to their base called "Tracking Site".

In the third issue Kamandi and the men from Tracking Site have flown the blimp to Nevada, specifically an old military base used for space exploration.

Kamandi becomes separated from his new allies and ends up trapped in Ape City and in battle with a giant ape named Chaaku the Mighty.

While he tries to survive his ordeal with the apes Ben Boxer and his men named Renzi and Steve explore the old base which has artifacts from the Moon's surface.

One of those artifacts was in fact an egg of sorts and has hatched releasing a terrible alien creature capable of wielding electricity as a weapon. Kamandi and Chaaku run through vast tunnels and end up at the old base and confronting the Thing that grew on the Moon and Chaaku battles it bringing down the whole of the underground base on them both. Kamandi and the Tracking Site team escape.

In the fourth issue of the now monthly comic Kamandi and Ben are scavenging and Kamandi is fascinated by an ancient comic book featuring The Demon.

The team is set upon by a gang of tigers under the command of King Caesar's son Tuftan who are battling a squad of Apes. The Apes win and capture both Kamandi and Prince Tuftan. Eventually, after Kamandi leads a small uprising of some captured humans he and Tuftan meet and he discovers that Tuftan's capture was a ruse to learn the nature of the Gorilla base in order for King Caesar's attack to be more effective and one more thing. As Caesar attacks Tuftan and Kamandi head to a still operational jet, but Kamandi recognizing the escalation the jet suggests destroys it before Tuftan can make it operational. The two escape the explosion.

The battle between the Gorillas and the Tigers rages in the fifth issue as Tuftan and Kamandi try to survive. Eventually they are captured and Kamandi meets other humans, in particular a lovely young girl he dubs Flower. They try to escape but are captured by the momentarily victorious Tigers who put Kamandi in the arena on a ruined Murdock Field against a Gorilla commander. Tuftan leaps to save Kamandi when all looks lost in violation of his father's wishes. The Gorillas counter attack  and a stalemate seems likely. Kamandi though inspired by the many items of gambling he's chanced upon in the ruins of Las Vegas takes an ancient slot machine and convinces the two armies to abide by the decision chance will arrive at. They agree, the two leaders pull the lever and the Apes win the day and the Tigers withdraw. Tuftan gives Kamandi a vehicle and he and girl Flower head off into the desert.

The greatest surprise to me as I read these issues was how swiftly Kamandi swept across the continent, from NYC to Las Vegas in a few issues. It shows that rule of apocalyptic survival is intact in this series, that the more famous and relatively iconic a location is the more likely some recognizable aspect of it will survive the rigors of time and vagaries of destruction. Now it's true that Kamandi has only just begun his road trip after ballooning with the Tracking Site boys and that was unexpected for sure. Whatever the motivation, the pacing of the first several issues is fantastic, with wonderful energy bristling on the pages. The concept of talking animals is given proper Kirby oomph and so far we've seen Wolves, Rats, Tigers, Leopards, and Apes with a few Dogs thrown in for good measure. 

The Kamandi saga, Jack Kirby's most successful financially at DC in the 70's, continues in the sixth issue with the story "Flower".

Flower is a young human girl who Kamandi chanced upon in the previous issue and who was sent along with him when he was given a truck by Prince Tuftan and sent into the desert.

The pair are waylaid by Sultin and his Lion Rangers who snare the wild humans in an effort to take them to their suburban zoo exhibit.

The Rangers seem genuinely to care for the humans they take care of as opposed to the Pumas who operate as poachers. It is two of these poachers who kill Flower in an effort to make off with her and give Kamandi his second great loss of the series.

In the next issue Kamandi is still in the hands of the Lions and learns much more about their culture which is referred to at the United States of Lions, and is in fact a network of cities and such evolved from the zoos of various large cities.

The Lions have a relatively advanced culture and the zoos they maintain are part of that. In one of those zoos is Tiny, a giant gorilla who is the object of worship by the less sophisticated Apes and an attempt to free Tiny goes awry and he escapes but not before making Kamandi his "toy". In an homage to the great King Kong Kirby offers up a delightful tale with Kamandi in the Fay Wray slot.

By the eighth issue Kamandi is effectively Sultin's pet, but of course Sultin realizes there is more to this young animal.

When the two visit the city we get a glimpse of how ancient human culture has been absorbed into the new animal regime and when Kamandi gets into a fracas with a pet human trained as a security animal, he falls afoul of the authorities and Sultin sees it's time to sneak him out of town. He does, gives him a gun and they part with respect for one another. But quickly Kamandi runs into trouble with some Bears fresh out of  hibernation and only the timely arrival of Ben Boxer and his team save the day.

Reunited with Ben Boxer and the other two members of his team (Renzi and Steve), Kamandi goes with them to their home base called Tracking Site.

It's a splendid place in Central America, a great sphere in the image of Earth itself which used anti-gravity to elevate into the sky. Unfortunately the Great Disaster interrupted its mission and it hung in the sky since, an island of sorts from the chaos of the world below.

Ben Boxer's team are assaulted by giant Bats, but they manage to get inside Tracking Site only to find that it's now as dangerous to them as the Earth itself since the only other inhabitant, a mutant named "Misfit" seizes control of the base.

In issue ten we learn of Misfit's plan to release a deadly bacteria into the atmosphere of Earth which will cleanse it for him and the mutants like Boxer. He is clearly mad, isolated and unique among all other creatures and his scheme is destined for destruction all around.

The Bats attack the base and Misfit has to call upon Ben and his mates to help fend off the threat. Kamandi then attempts to stop the threat of the deadly plague but fails. Boxer and his men have to destroy Tracking Site by sending it on its long delayed mission into deep space.

They activate the systems, gather up Kamandi and barely escape as the base along with the attacking Bats and Misfit leave the atmosphere. Misfit is killed by the very bacteria he releases which also kills the Bats, but its deadly mission ends there in the solitude of space.

With these issues much of the continent drawn by Kirby in his map from issue number one has been explored, but there are a few regions left. Next time Kamandi goes to the Dominion of the Devils. 

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