Number 841

"I am the Gorilla-Man!"

Imagine, if you can, if Stan Lee had put out a comic called The Amazing Gorilla-Man; if Peter Parker had been bitten by a radioactive gorilla instead of spider. The mind reels. (It doesn't have anything to do with the story today. I'm just supposin'.)

This two-parter, drawn by Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers, is from Tales To Astonish issues #28 and 30, both published in 1962. It comes to us courtesy of scanner Jim Sharpe, by way of John Kaminski. John has done a profile of the villain here. Thanks, guys! Love these go-go-gorillas!

Note that the character Kirby draws as the evil Dr. Radzik in "The Return of the Gorilla-Man" is not the same as in the first story. There's no explanation, so I assume it's a continuity error, probably because Kirby didn't check back on what he'd drawn in "I Am The Gorilla-Man". It could be the story was in press, and the artwork at the engraver so he couldn't refer to it. It's jarring, even for a story about mind transference, to see a long-haired guy with beard turned into a Nordic-type with crewcut.