The Gorilla: Long a symbol of man's primal instincts. Like this guy, who represents man's innate fear of giant flies zapping us with their ray guns. But gorillas were much more than that during comic's silver age-- the story, perhaps apocryphal, is that it was deduced that comics with talking gorillas on the cover sold more issues. So editors said to put more talking gorillas on the cover. And people wonder why the comic business is in the crapper today.
This is actually a collection from the 70s, wherein they attempted to make a little extra cash off the Gorilla Heyday, during which they pitted pretty much all their major heroes against, well, talking gorillas. Not all at once though. You have to admit that's kind of unfair against the poor giant super gorilla on the cover there.
Take Gorilla Grodd, for instance. He may be smart for a gorilla, but he's still a gorilla-- I mean, would YOU assume that squeezing The Flash would somehow make him completely vaporize, leaving only his costume behind? Of course not, because you're not a gorilla. You would've known that Flash had just vibrated out of his costume and is vibrating SO FAST that he can't be seen; Grodd, being a simple gorilla, has no concept of a naked Flash vibrating invisibly next to him. Only a human could conceive of a naked, vibrating, invisible Flash. Because we are Nature's Greatest Mistake.
I don't blame those cops for being shocked that Mr. X is really an ape, but those hands really should've tipped them off. Well, that, and the terrible choice in sportcoat. I mean come on, green, yellow and orange plaid? Only a primate would pick that out.
OMG this is like a total mirror of our own world, where we keep little tiny gorillas in glass domes and um... hmm. I really love the depiction of mundane gorilla life in this one. I wonder what Mom Gorilla is knitting? It's not like they wear clothes. Maybe it's an outfit for junior's LITTLE PET; if so, she'd better hurry-- I don't think they remembered to put air holes in that glass dome.
I know this has been seen around the internet for a while now, but it bears repeating, because this is pretty much what most people think of when they hear the phrase "stupid comic". Let's just forget about the fact that it's a talking gorilla for a moment-- he's using a gun to take books out of the public library. DUDE IT'S FREE ALL YOU NEED IS A CARD. For that matter, he could just read the books in the library and never check them out at all. Oh, well! Just further proof that gorillas are dumb!
Actually, the story this cover illustrates is much, much dumber and 1000 times more convoluted than this would lead you to believe. Let me elaborate:
These super-SMRT aliens spy on Earth, not realizing the images they're receiving take 100,000 years to get back to them-- apparently only 100,000 years ago Earth was inhabited by a civilization of gorillas, but no society in which everyone wore red with green could survive for very long.
Of course, the alien-turned-gorilla lands on modern-day Earth only to find plain, non-super, non-talking gorillas. Ooops!
Luckily, he just happens to be in the jungle the one day scientists looking for a gorilla to turn into a human come along. Yes, that is some luck all right.
Unfortunately, the gorilla-to-human experiment only lasts two panels, so Mr. Alien is right back in gorilla form where he started. Maybe next time, your super-smart alien race could just send a guy in a gorilla suit, huh genius? So yeah, anyway, that gorilla-to-human thing totally goes nowhere.
Those plans the scientist is hiding are for his ray that turns gorillas to people and vice-versa, BTW... why the alien wants to steal those is beyond me, since his people ALL READY HAVE a ray like that. Which is how he got to be a gorilla in the first place. I guess he forgot.
Anyway, on his way to hide his super-secret plans by putting them in books that could be checked out by any Tom, Dick or Koko with a library card, the scientist randomly gets hit by a truck and dies. His ex-lab assistant is first on the scene and completely ignores the books with the plans inside.
Of course, with his "super-scientific mind" the alien COULD speak, but he's very polite and knows librarians will shush you if you talk too loud in a library.
And so the big finale... sigh... the gorilla drives off-- yes, DRIVES off-- with the plans for the transformation ray that he all ready knows how to make, the weirdo stalkery ex-lab assistant follows, and randomly the gorilla-alien takes a dive off Dead Man's Curve, taking the secret of his convoluted, confusing, utterly nonsensical trip to Earth with him to the grave. All in the space of 5 and a half pages.
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