Monster of the Day #3264

And that’s why I had to stop going to the opera….

Are we sure that’s not Lancelot Biggs?

That gorilla’s going to toss that dude to his death in rage, but he’s not angry with the dude. He’s angry with himself. He meant to grab a chick and snagged the wrong wrist. One thing lead to another and he ends up here, where he always dreamed, only without the Fay Wray he always longed for. Sad, really.

See, I have a completely different take on this. If you look closely, you’ll note that the gorilla is attired in white tie and tails while his, um, companion suspended above him is wearing a red tie with a green suit. What I infer from this is that the gala being attended has a very strict dress code and the gorilla is merely enforcing said guidelines accordingly.

Actually, I think he’s holding a mannikin. It’s modelling the “Drunk Out of Your Skull, But Boy Are You Stylish” collection.

I’ve actually read this story and its sequel. The Whispering Gorilla is (was?) a reporter who gets killed by mobsters but not before the resident mad scientist transplants his brain into a gorilla, because Science. The mad scientist also operates on his throat and vocal cords so he can speak, but only in a rough whisper. The Whispering Gorilla then vows revenge on the gangsters, as well as to save his girlfriend.

At this point almost any other story would have the Whispering Gorilla go slouching through the streets, strangling his killers, before it all ends with him killing the mob boss and saving his lady-love at the cost of his own life. Not here. The Whispering Gorilla gets a suit and goes back to his old job at the newspaper. He pretends to everyone that he’s wearing a well-made gorilla costume for some reason, and they all fall for it. He investigates the mobsters, with a few fight scenes along the way, and catches them in the end. He also learns that his mind is going gorilla along with his body. So after catching the crooks he and the mad scientist go to Africa to try and save his mind.

It strike me that the above would have made a great origin for a Golden Age superhero: ‘The Whispering Gorilla — Scourge of the Underworld!’ Heck, in his second and last novel he fights a Nazi plan to launch a fleet of U-boats on African lakes, crewed by Nazi gorillas with human brains! Maybe someone read that real-life story about the Soviet scientist who tried to create a race of Gorilla Men for Stalin?