Happily skipping along, gun in hand and brain tucked under arm...That's how I like to think of Monsieur Mallah!
Seriously, you have Gorilla Grodd, Monsieur Mallah, Detective Chimp, Bat-Ape (no, not Nightwing), and Beppo, and a host of ape versions of Marvel’s heroes residing in The Marvel Ape Universe.
Furthermore, it seems that shapeshifters like Changeling are most popular when they morph into chimps, gorillas, monkeys, etc. Hey JJ (J'onn to those not hip to my new starting a trend initiative), want to be more popular than Supes and Bats put together? Just morph into a chimp or a gorilla every few issues.
And it’s not limited to comics, either. In television, there’s Mojo Jojo from The Powerpuff Girls and the gorilla-themed Optimus Primal from Transformers Beast Wars and Transformers Beast Machines television series from the 1990s.
Of course, the vast majority of the DC primates are products of early Silver Age insanity, but that leads me to my next question (marked Question 2 for your convenience :).
Question 2: Why are the super-powered apes still popular with readers and some writers?
I couldn't resist this rather apt image...
Perhaps I should scrap my work in progress and write an ape script instead...
Hey JJ (J'onn to those not hip to my new starting a trend initiative), want to be more popular than Supes and Bats put together? Just morph into a chimp or a gorilla every few issues.
ReplyDeleteI'd actually pay money NOT to see that. I like my Martians to be Martiany. Or just human. Or some kind of aquatic Martian beast like in "Justice."
Optimus Primal? Huh? Yeah, that I just don't get.
I think all of this ape-love (wow, that sounds awful) is partly because monkeys and apes just seem inherently evil. (At least to me.) It's like they're close enough to be human to think and plan, but are still animals and therefore aren't beholden to our laws of decency and society. This is why there's a certain irony present when throw poop at you at the zoo ten minutes after you're saying, "Wow, look how human they are!" Plus there's something primal about apes, which I think was Scipio's reasoning for their popularity.
Detective Chimp, though is an exception. I think he's just Silver Age campiness. (Unless he's from the Golden Age? Which I doubt.)
I love Detective Chimp! And those white apes in Wonder Woman are nice.
ReplyDeleteLike Dinosaurs and Nazis, monkeys are just so...so comic booky.
I love Detective Chimp! And those nice white apes over in Wonder Woman.
ReplyDeleteLike Dinosaurs and Nazis, there is just something so...so comic booky about monkeys.
Like Dinosaurs and Nazis, there is just something so...so comic booky about monkeys.
ReplyDeleteOh, Sally. That just made my day.
Sorry about the double post there...I thought the first one didn't go through. But still, you just can't have too many monkeys.
ReplyDeleteLiss, I was kidding about the JJ thing, although it'll probably work in terms of a 'popularity boosting trick'.
ReplyDeleteThe Optimus Primal reference is pretty obscure. Actually, the Optimus Primal fellow wasn't all that bad and somehow infintely less annoying the plain old Optimus Prime (who is about as interesting as Cyclops from X-men and is featured in the Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS movies, which divide the some parts of the internet pretty much into "those who like the movies and despise Michael Bay" and "those who hate the movies and despise Michael Bay").
The Beast Wars and Beast Machines were CGI and especially the latter series had a good storyline. The best part of these series? There were no human characters. Most of the animated series suffer from "what can the humans contribute in this situation" or "humans acting like idiots" problems.
The fact that I like any Transformers related properties, in itself is weird, because as a kid I prefered this 'so-called xerox' show called Go-Bots. Both animated shows came out around the same time.
I think all of this ape-love (wow, that sounds awful) is partly because monkeys and apes just seem inherently evil. This is how I feel about cats - they'll ignore you and I'll be thinking 'yeah, you've got the whole god-among-men thing down.'
SallyP:
People just see Detective Chimp and they know awesomeness is about to follow.
Like Dinosaurs and Nazis, there is just something so...so comic booky about monkeys.
That pretty much solves the mystery right there.
Liss, I was kidding about the JJ thing, although it'll probably work in terms of a 'popularity boosting trick'.
ReplyDeleteI know you were! :)
This is how I feel about cats - they'll ignore you and I'll be thinking 'yeah, you've got the whole god-among-men thing down.' Yet you don't see evil cats in comics. Weird, huh? Except for that issue of JLI where Guy Gardner tussles with a feral cat. One of my all-time favorite JLI issues. Other than that, you've got Streaky the Wonder Cat or whatever he's called, and he's a good kitty.
Actually, I knew you knew. I shouldn't have written your name there as that line was for the benefit an off-linbe friend and lurker on my blog who would like to see Ch'imp action. I guess I might've been 'comics intellectual crushing' on you at the second of writing it...
ReplyDeleteYes, Ch'imp is the lurker's name for JJ in Chimp form...MADNESS
That's okay. I feel famous when I'm mentioned by name on a blog. Okay, so which one of us is the intellectual? :) (Which, at first typing, I misspelled, so I think we know the answer to that one.)
ReplyDeleteCh'imp. Don't you just love you can Martianize anything by adding some well-placed apostrophes? I can only think of J'onn J'onnz's brother, T'omm. Yep. T'omm. Perhaps I shall contact Dr. Fate to summon the powers of the astral plane to have this lurker to show himself. Or we'll just ask Detective Chimp.
P.S.
ReplyDeletehttp://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2009/11/hitman-monkey-hitman-monkey
Yep. Teh monkeys. Dey ebil.