I showed several old comics to the kids I used to work with. It was part of a comic creation class. The kids saw the chimps, monkeys, and gorillas and said, "Monkey!" Apparently, it works. No other animal attracted so many kids.

"Wonder Woman teaching a gorilla to play baseball" is a sentence that can only exist in comics and I love it.

“Crisis on Infinite Earths” only sold because Solovar the sapient gorilla guest starred. Without Solovar, all the subsequent Crisis knockoffs were bombs. Just sayin’.

I love how crazy Grant Morrison got with Doom Patrol. It was also highly transgressive to the norms of the early 90s in an amazing way. Because the fact that a brain in a jar and a French speaking intelligent Gorilla were gay was the least “taboo”(again by early 90s comic book standards) part of their relationship.

"Titano tries to shave Jimmy Olsen with a helicopter." - DC Comics, ca. Silver Age

I can't tell you all the gorilla encounters I've had in my life. The worst are the ones who think they're people, but are actually just super-intelligent gorillas.

Not gonna lie, the Giganta thing makes a lot of things click for me. Like how in the Justice League cartoon, Giganta had a thing for Grodd. Always found that odd but now it actually makes a bit of sense

'Why Do Gorillas Sell Comic Books?' That's a heckuva way to talk about my LCS owner, but I can't disagree.

The Fantastic Four battled the soviet super villain The red ghost with the power to become intangible and can pass through solid objects he had 3 super apes a gorilla with super strength, a orangutan with magnetic powers which can make guns and other metal objects float into the air, and a shape shifting baboon all of which were highly intelligent.

At last, the return of the famed Gorilla Mask. That's what I call a Throwback.

I dunno how I never noticed that this was a common thing, but good call, Chris. You could do a video on the trope of disembodied brains in comics too, there are so many instances of it.

Six Gun Gorilla is a forgotten public domain Wild West comic where the O’Neil (that’s the gorilla’s name) hunts down the Strawhan gang who shot the prospector who taught him how to use guns and raised him like a son. The Eponymous Ape has been popping up in popularity lately in the indie comics radar.

"DC went crazy with their gorilla covers." Darn, ya missed the perfect opportunity to say "DC went APE with their gorilla covers." 😆 Cool presentation BTW. Funny how we sometimes don't notice the obvious until it is pointed out to us.

I totally get it. Gorillas are awesome XD But my favorite has to be Mike from "Motor Girl" drawn and written by Terry Moore. If you want a comic about a female Veteran, who lives on a junkyard with a talking Gorilla, dealing with Aliens and PTSD, that is funny, clever and heartbreaking (and so beautiful), this is the comic for you. Afterwards, you will love Mike as much as I do. Promise.

Looking into american comics as a kid, and seeing constantly gorillas, this really boggled me. It still does. Because though my experience is limited, I do not recall many italian/belgian/french/uk/japanese/etc comics where a big point of them would have been that there's an ape (maybe Cromartie High), while it's something that still seems to happen in american comics.

I was a little surprised you didn't mention 'Angel and the Ape' from DC...although to be fair you really did pack a huge amount information into a short amount time, while entertaining at the same time.

The Congorilla was the best use of a gorilla in a comic with Grodd coming second. They were fun to read about. As a kid fun was what I wanted and these two gorillas gave that.

Seriously I’ve been asking This question for the past 6 years, like I’ve always wondered why there are so many gorilla characters in the comic industry, especially DC

I heard Julius Schwartz had a strict 1 gorilla cover per month rule. This was a limit not a requirement. Gorilla covers sold so well every DC title would have had one for every issue. Nothing but gorilla covers from DC, except Schwartz didn’t want to kill it with overexposure. Creative teams would beg him to give them the gorilla that month and he would refuse, only allowing it for whichever ever titles turn it was.

"It's not rocket surgery!" Chris, I have to say, there's no greater joy than when someone who's creative work you appreciate can surprise you with an unexpected move to an even higher level of entertainment. I would say this line pleased me in a way similar to when Kurt Busiak revealed [SPOILER] that Hank Pym had anguished for years with the shame that he had used his own brain patterns to create Ultron. Well done sir!!

It's like how zombies are popular now. There was a similar gorilla craze in the early days of film: Bela Lugosi and Raymond Burr turned into them, endless movies featured gorillas as the (not much of a) surprise "villain" at the end.

I've really missed the "Oh, hi! You caught me..." openings, so it was great to see you pull it back out for this episode!

I'm a huge Nick Cardy fan. He got in on DC's silver and bronze monkey craze big time. Please consider a Cardy spotlight. He is an unsung comics hero. I wish the stories inside lived up to the fantastic covers...

This is one of my favorite things in comics history. The idea that gorillas being so prominant that there was a whole movement. Being a reader of DC you get so used to the idea of intellegent gorillas just existing, you forget how absurd it is.

I screamed when you said "It's not rocket surgery," Thought I was the only person who used that phrase. Also, I know it's not comics, but my favorite talking gorilla is King Gorilla from Venture Bros. "They wanted the Surreal Life, KG gave em the surreal life!"

Of course, there's also the things like Marvel Apes and JLApes. And of course there's the Golden Age characters, which are mainly one-off enemies, but you occasionally get characters like Six-Gun Gorilla, a protagonist gorilla who carries a revolver.

Chris, how could you forget The Red Ghost’s gorilla?!?

"You think of speed's natural enemy: gorillas." lol

I guess you could say they were going apeshit for Gorillas in the silver age(pelted with tomatoes).

. . . And of course, in the early 2000s, a small group of DC alumni helped establish *GORILLA COMICS* as a short-lived IMAGE imprint. It oversaw the publication of CRIMSON PLAGUE (George Perez), EMPIRE (Mark Waid & Barry Kitson), SECTION ZERO (Karl Kesel & Tom Grummet), and SHOCKROCKETS (Kurt Busiek & Stuart Immonen). It also demonstrated that you could free the creator from the Densely Congested "gorilla sanctuary," but not the gorilla from the creator's imagination. Or something like that. ;)

Yes! I love this topic. I've always noticed how gorillas tend to be over-represented in pulp magazines and old comics and movies

I never noticed how gorillas were a specific DC trope. Someone went through a "monkee is gud" phase

There was an issue of DC's series SECRET ORIGINS, issue #40, that handled this trope. The cover for that issue featured a number of apes, dinosaurs, motorcycles, the color purple and a fire in the background - an interior essay discussed how in the "old days" all of these things were stuff editors wanted on covers because it sold better.

I feel like a lot of 90s and early 2000s cartoon animators we're inspired by this Gorilla crazy with a lot of characters lol, Mojo Jojo is obvious but i swear there was like a few scenes in spongebob, deksters labs, and many others that feel referential to these comics lol

Immediately Gorilla Grodd came to mind. Completely forgot about Monsieur Mallah though. That whole scene in Doom Patrol was so ..surreal and very Morrison. It's weird I remember watching the Justice League cartoon as a kid thinking Grodd and Ultra Humanite were the same character, due to that similarity.

Congorilla was my favorite. Congo Bill switched bodies with the big golden gorilla! Great stuff! Thanks for posting!

I always question whether the gorilla thing was a real trend, or just something the higher ups assumed was the common thread that increased sales. Then again, I do immediately watch any comic book video I see that's about gorillas.

Stan Lee mentioned a few times that DC would often copy things Marvel did, like for example if lots of Marvel covers had red backgrounds then all of a sudden DC covers would get red backgrounds, and he would even use this fact to mess with them sometimes. So it seems like Silver Age DC had no idea what they were doing, and none of the sources really suggest that there was more than one gorilla cover comic that sold, it just seems like that experiment with the parrot who gets food at totally random times, and then one time it coincidentally gets food while shaking its head, so now it can't stop shaking its head over and over.

What's the coolest species on Earth? Gorillaz Nuff said!

the greatest ape story of all time is, Monkey Business in the Charles Darwin Block, a Judge Dredd story and is well worth checking out!

That opening will haunt my dreams for weeks to come... Excellent work.

You missed the great pulp character Six-gun Gorilla. Which had a small revival with Six-Gun Gorilla: Long Days of Vengeance, as well as a 6 issue run at BOOM! Studios This demonstrates a third common trope regarding apes; which has been seen through this video as well; teaching a normal gorilla to act like a human

Surprised you didn't mention Alan Moore's Promethea and his Weeping Gorilla Comix, which combines the gorilla trope with the color purple, also a sales trigger.

The selfie-taking, drumming gorilla on issues #23 and #24 of Astro City vol#3 was a recent classic of the trope.

...The Brain in a robot body asking Monsieur Mallah to kiss him wasn't something I was mentally prepared for.

The Ultra humanite from Justice League 2001 is one of my favorite Gorillas/Human I gess.

Greetings from Brazil! 🇧🇷 We have a strong tradition of national comics, but we had a lot of influence from American hero comics, which, to this day, are one of the most popular genres around here. It's always a joy to discuss the follies of the Silver Age. What a beautiful channel! Congratulations!

LMAO I can't overstate how much I enjoy your intros in every video

When I was a kid, a couple friends of mine and I wrote in to Marvel Team Up to try to get them to use the Red Ghost and his Super Apes. We wanted Spider Man and apes

As ever, that was superb. There's actually a hell of a lot of other cultural concepts that arise from this episode. I don't understand them, yet, but there was some kind of thing going on in the West generally that moved children's attention from gorillas in the '60s towards dinosaurs in the '80s. Sorry for appearing patronising, but you've *really* earned the 'tropes' aspects of the channel's name with this vid. You've identified a trope I've not understood before. And now I want to know why it exists! Man, you're a master of your craft. Thank you.

1:56 "Helped create" is a very VERY generous way of putting it.

DC should give hire you to collect these issues in a trade and write the intros. my guess is no small number of comictropes fans would buy it and spread the word. your humor is great and matched by your enthusiasm. keep it up!

My comic book guy loves Julius Schwartz, and once told me that he had a list of 7 things DC found could be put on a cover to make that book sell better. They were gorillas, fire, dinosaurs, motorcycles, a hero crying, the color purple, and a question being asked. This leads to my favorite comic cover ever, Secret Origins #40, which features all 7 and yet sold horribly.

"...You think of speed's natural enemy -- the gorilla!"😂😂

Lovely work, Chris. Really takes me back, and reminds me of why I was a DC kid all those years ago. So nice to see M. Mallah getting some recognition, and The Ultra-Humanite, who I hadn't thought about in decades.

It was the Marvel movies that got me looking at comics for the first time. Gotta say, I love this “anything goes” era!

Reading back at Martin Pasko's Superman run, a personal favorite of mine sue to his fleshing out of the Superman rogues gallery, particularly Metallo there was that odd chapter he tried to revive Titano. One of the mails he was sent said that Titano was better left forgotten. I disagree. He's a GIANT GORILLA WITH KRYPTONITE VISION, it's the closest thing we can get to Superman vs Kaijuu.

The folks over at EC Comics, always happy to borrow ideas, published a story called "Gorilla My Dreams!" in The Haunt of Fear issue 17, cover-dated February 1953. In it, a surgeon transplants a man's brain into a gorilla's body, with tragic results. At Marvel, Rawhide Kid faced off against a gorilla known as "The Ape" in issue 39, cover-dated April 1964. Also, regarding the comment at 17:57 about the Marvel story "I Am the Gorilla-Man" from Tales to Astonish issue 28 (Feb. 1962 cover date), the phrase "one-off sci-fi story" made me chuckle because the Gorilla-Man was actually one of the few Marvel monsters that made a second appearance in those pre-hero days. :) In this case it was just two issues later with the imaginatively titled "Return of the Gorilla-Man" in TTA #30 (cover-dated April '62) -- coming back "by popular demand," or so the cover says. Both stories were reprinted in issue 5 of the Marvel giant-size monster book Fear, cover-dated November 1971, offering a relatively low-cost way to enjoy these Kirby/Ayers classics.

As a primate myself this episode got me really hyped!

There is also the all gorilla themed issue Swamp Thing Annual 3 which features tons of gorilla heroes and villains being mind controlled by grodd

Disproportionate number of primates in comics when compared to number of wolverines.

When this poped up in my YT feed I thought "eh i don't care about this subject but I'll watch it because this channel is great". I am really glad I watched this because this was hilarious i love this video

DC also did a fair amount of reprints in the 1970s, including DC Special #16, Super-Heroes Battle Super-Gorillas. It reprints gorilla stories against Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash.

Thank you for this great video. I love this history big dives in this type of tropes and quirks of comics. Great work!

Couldn't stop thinking about more modern Marvel's Agents of Atlas's Gorilla-man and Hit-monkey. Well also the first gorilla in comics I have encountered was CY-gor...

I wonder if this is related to how in a lot of vintage sci-fi and horror movies the monster is someone wearing a gorilla suit.

Oh! That reminds me! I forgot to turn off my evolution ray in the other room! Thanks, Chris!

Thanks so much for this one! I love hearing the background to the zany stories of the past explored!

What an episode!!! Thats why I love Comic Tropes, serious research on crazy subjects! Thank you Chris, amazing job as always!!!

Love it, Chris. Your personality is so strong & your work so thorough that I could listen to you about any subject. Thank you!

This is the first video you’ve made that i watched, and that intro is so impressive I already like your vids man keel it up 👍

Never thought this would be a Comic Tropes topic for a video - and I love it!

A great episode about a fun topic! It's clear you really enjoyed do this one!

14:35 that’s such a good sound bite drop and I know exactly where it’s from. A French guy hit his nuts on the Slalom (I think) and the commentator was going in on him 😂

Amazing how you can keep coming up with such high quality content. Love seeing new videos each week just don’t know how you do it.

I really appreciate how high quality your content is.

Chris, green and purple? Your boots orange? Y'look like a villain...

I think I had that Strange Adventures with the lie detector cover when I was a kid. My grandfather stored a couple of stacks of my comics in a work storage place that he allowed a tenant that ran a thrift store to have access to. A lot of stuff ended up missing, including my comics. This crook ended up going to jail for molesting a little girl, so stealing comics was the least of his crimes.

Love this subject so much, it perfectly exemplifies the best aspect of comic book storytelling; that pulpy fun that I feel so many adaptions kinda miss!

This episode was very fun, and a nice return to analyzing tropes.

Here I was hoping for a mention of 1989's Secret Origins #40, with Gorilla Grodd, Congorilla, and Detective Chimp

Awesome episode! I have a subsection in my comic collection, outside of title, date and creator, just for go-go checks and purple apes. Marvel did have the PoTA license in the 70s., and those magazines had some pretty great covers and ape-forward stories by Alfredo Alcala and Mike Ploog.

Great topic! Let’s not forget Ape X from Squadron Supreme Ltd series donned the cover of #6 & 9, although not predominantly.. Great job & love the off the beaten path topics! 👍🏼

Marvel tried to catch up (although a bit late) with the Marvel Apes series, if that would even count. But, for sure apes catch my attention, as I love studying great apes

my boy rocking that TEDDY FRESH

You should talk about why writers like writing about evil Superman like villains

I've had ideological differences with you in the past, but I love your channel. Hope it continues to do well.

A very entertaining video. Gorillas are magnificent creatures. I think you may've missed Kamandi, which had a bunch of talking gorillas.

Thank you so much for this wonderful video! I really enjoyed it. Few things in life are perfect, but comic books with gorilla covers are about as close as we've ever come.

I hope Benny gets his royalty check for that cameo

One of the best yet!

It’s utterly fantastic how you come up with these obscure topics chris .. some ( but not I ) would say you’ve gone bananas 🍌

I literally started eating a Banana after this video started. Also, been collecting Grodd for awhile and was happy to snag the Nembo kid a few years ago.

I used to pull animal books off the store shelves my family and I would go to all the time as a kid, ESPECIALLY if it had a dinosaur, crocodile, lion, shark, or gorilla on the cover. I think we can all relate, perhaps it's just that as kids, we are naturally drawn to the more dangerous and "taboo" animals, as violence is a developing idea in our young minds, and it makes them more mysterious and fascinating to read and learn about. Our monkey brains may also use that as a learning experience to better prepare ourselves for a dangerous encounter with the animals in the future.

I will admit that, as a kid, I bought any comic if it had a gorilla on the cover. Most were horrible (Brotherhood of the Spear being my least favorite) but I was into Planet of the Apes and King Kong and wanted my ape fix. The thing that still baffles me, though, is the connection between surf music and monsters. Most surf bands pay homage to Universal Monsters but I fail to see the connections.

Sleeper episode, didn’t know what to expect but I really enjoyed this one, great job!!!

Wow, that opening was ape-$&## crazy, ha! That might be one of your best openings yet, and that's saying something. Great episode, Chris. I truly went bananas for it!

As a kid I my favorite column within the wizzer and chips comic was guy gorrel, a kid that transformed into a gorilla whenever he got scared.

Fun topics! I love seeing these true Tropes topics.

Great video! So fun!