Featuring: Gorilla-Man
Release: November 9, 1961
Cover: February, 1961
12 cents
Credits: Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers
7 pages
This is a tangential story, but it seemed worth including. Unlike Henry Pym last issue, Herr Radzik is a mad scientist bent on evil. He’ll also become less prominent of a character.
He is an evil scientist who invents a ray to switch bodies. He first changes places with a cat (I perhaps would have stayed there) and then decides a gorilla will be the ultimate form. His ambitions involve stealing money as a gorilla, and such. But, once he puts the gorilla into his body, the gorilla is able to use its new human brain to outsmart him and lock him in a zoo.
Strangely, this is not Marvel’s first Gorilla-Man. There were two prior gorilla men, though one wouldn’t take the name until much later. I’d like to visit next the stories of the two original gorilla men. I have found I have a tendency to confuse who was who, which is what led me to include this story.
The other stories in this issue, which we won’t cover, are: “Midnight on Haunted Hill”; “The Scheme!”; “The Frightening Frog”; and the text story “The Green Hat”.
Rating: ★★½ (out of 5), 44/100
Significance: ★★☆☆☆
Characters:
- Herr Radzik, Gorilla-Man
#4 story in reading order
Next post: PRELUDE: Men’s Adventures #26, Story D
Next in order: Fantastic Four #3
Previous: Tales to Astonish #27
