Today in Comics History, January 13: Happy birthday, ya big smelly ape! (He considers that a compliment, actually.)

Please join me in wishing a happy birthday to America's only ape, the fiendish and fleaish Gorilla Grodd! In fact, might I suggest...KNEEL BEFORE GRODD!


from Super DC Calendar 1976 (DC, 1975), letters by Ben Oda



Yes, Gorilla Grodd, the Sensational Character Find of 1959! So iconic that he debuted in the very second regular issue of the All-New, All-Allen Flash! But did they put him on the cover? They did not. What's your major malfunction there, Julius Schwartz? "Oh, kids definitely love pied pipers, put him on the cover!" Ya yutz.


from The Flash (1959 series) #106 (DC, April 1959), pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Joe Giella, letters by Ira Schnapp
And you didn't even show The Flash running on the cover. How can you not have the Flash (widely considered in a consumer poll to be the Fastest Man Alive, according to 8 out of 10 cats) running on the cover? Luckily, when you turn to the first page, you;'ve got your gorilla-dynamic image right there slapping you in the face, and there's even your patented Infantino Sidewalk Lines Converging on an Imaginary Point™! This should be the cover! There, I'm already running DC Comics in 1959 more efficiently.


from "Menace of the Super-Gorilla!" in The Flash #106, script by John Broome, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Joe Giella
Not that it was too much of a challenge for Flash to defeat the early version of Grodd. Just pop off his head and scoop out the guy inside!


Jeez, just put some pants on, dude.


Happy birthday, Gorilla Grodd, you old nut, you! Well, I gotta go; I'm picking up the treats for his party.