October 1966: When Gorillas Fly

During the 1960s, American children were already thoroughly familiar with sinister flying simians, The Wizard of Oz having aired annually on CBS beginning in 1959.

And ape-happy DC Comics was always ready to give them another helping.

In Lord of the Flying Gorillas (Hawkman 16, Oct. 1966), the high priest of the mirage-hidden Australian city of Quaranda, Ruthvol, sends his winged gorillas to capture Hawkman and Hawkgirl as a sacrifice to his god, Involos.

Written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Murphy Anderson, the tale also involves interplanetary teleportation, with Hawkman playing the role of his friend Adam Strange here. He comes up with an invention that will save an alien race from being overwhelmed by moth-men.

In mid-story, after a lot of frantic action, Hawkman takes off his wings to rest on an otherworldly bed.

“This ‘air mattress’ formed by jets of air sure is relaxing,” he thinks. “I think I’ll whip one up for the apartment when I get back to Midway City.”

In fact, this marked the third set of winged gorillas that DC Comics had dished up for its readership in recent years. 

In The World Where Evolution Ran Wild (Hawkman 6, Feb. 1965), our heroes teleported to the parallel world of Illoral, a place radiation had populated with tiger-men and flying gorillas. The arrival of the bird people sorted everything out. 

The flying gorillas in Hawkman 16 are eventually revealed to have come from Illoral.

And a little earlier, in The Flying Gorilla Menace (Strange Adventures 125, Feb 1961), readers were treated to warlike Kong-sized winged apes from a planetoid that is stealing Earth’s atmosphere.

However, the super-simians proved no match for human pluck and ingenuity.