Flashback Friday: Professor Gorilla

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: Professor Gorilla!

In 1966, at the height of Bat-Mania thanks to the hit tv show starring Adam West, DC released a Batman manga in Japan called バットマン (Battoman), and colloquially known as Batmanga in the West. It only ran for a year and featured a mixture of original material and material based on Batman comics of the time. Professor Gorilla is a bit of both.

Detective Comics #339 (March 1965) tells the story of a scientist who invented a machine that could transfer the abilities of one animal to another - he essentially invented a scientific version of Vixen's animal totem. However, the experiment didn't quite go according to plan, so he and his test subject actually switched abilities instead. He got the strength and speed of a gorilla and the gorilla, Karmak, got his intelligence. So Karmak started using the scientist to rob banks. You know, like gorillas do.

Issues 10-12 of the Batman manga (July 1966) loosely adapts this story. Although the first issue is a pretty faithful adaptation of the backstory, it then veers off into its own story for the next two chapters. Karmak dons a costume, starts going by "Professor Gorilla", and attacks people for mistreating animals. The story ends when the effects of the machine wear off and Karmak goes back to being a normal gorilla.

In 2010, Grant Morrison launched a new series called Batman, Incorporated. For about three years at this point, Morrison was telling an epic Batman story over several series that tried to make every Batman story canon in one way or another. "Batman, Incorporated" was an expansion of the Club of Heroes/Batman of All Nations idea that he brought back in 2007, and saw Bruce Wayne traveling around the world to find heroes to be their country's Batman and be funded by the Wayne Corporation. In issue 2 (December 2010), he travels to Japan, which allows Morrison to bring in some details from the Batman manga. Most of the issue concerns itself with the Japanese hero Mr. Unknown fighting Lord Death Man, but after he "dies" and is reborn as Batman Japan, we get a splash page of him fighting Professor Gorilla.

Character Spotlight: Codec

It's no longer June, but Agents of ATLAS Month continues! Greg Pak apparently doesn't mess around when he makes a series about Marvel's Asian superheroes, so there are more canon immigrants than the ones who were advertised. We'll talk about one of them today, and who knows, there might be more next week.

In April 2017, a new series called Marvel Future Avengers debuted in Shogakukan’s Bessatsu Coro Coro Comics Special. An animated series debuted in July 2017. Both follow a kid named Makoto, who was given superpowers in a Hydra experiment, then gets trained by the Avengers with two more kids with superpowers. It's a very Super Friends set-up, but there's nothing wrong with that.

One of the other kids is named Akiyadi, aka Codec. Unfortunately, I can't tell you anything more about him since information is scarce about this whole project online. Even what little I've said so far had to be pieced together from multiple sources. But Future Avengers will be receiving an English dub soon, so hopefully that'll change (ideally before this post goes up, but we'll see about that).

Regardless, Codec appears in War of the Realms: New Agents of ATLAS #3 (June 2019), and he's mentioned as being a part of the Future Avengers, so we know that team exists as well in some capacity.

Flashback Friday: Lord Death Man's Name and Location

Each Friday, I take one of the entries from my old Super Posts and expand it into its own featured article.

This week: The name and location of Lord Death Man!

In 1966, at the height of Bat-Mania thanks to the hit tv show starring Adam West, DC released a Batman manga in Japan called バットマン (Battoman), and colloquially known as Batmanga in the West. It only ran for a year and featured a mixture of original material and material based on Batman comics of the time. One of the the examples of the latter category is Lord Death Man.

In Batman #180 (March 1966), Batman faces off against a foe known as Death Man, who dies as he's about to be brought to justice, only to later return. After this happens several times, Batman realizes he is simply faking his death each time, and at the end of the issue, he's struck by lightning and dies for real.

In the first three issues of the Batman manga (April 1966), Death Man appears as Lord Death Man, but otherwise follows the same plot as Batman #180.

Lord Death Man was later brought to comics by Grant Morrison in Batman, Incorporated #1 (November 2010). Grant Morrison's goal with his run on Batman was to make as much of his history as canon as possible. That included bringing back the Batman of All Nations, aka the Club of Heroes, and then expanded that idea into Batman, Incorporated in the series of the same name. Thus, Lord Death Man appeared as a villain of Mr. Unknown, a potential recruit as the Batman of Japan. Batman, Incorporated #2 then established that he and Death Man are the same person, although Batman suspects he's gotten some sort of upgrade in the years since they first fought.

Character Spotlight: White Fox

I'm so glad to finally be posting this entry. I first made it over a year ago but I've been holding onto it because I don't like posting before the character has actually debuted, even when I know when and where they'll debut. And then I missed the debut by several months, so this should have been posted back in October.

A couple years ago, Disney Korea began publishing a manhwa-style webtoon called Avengers: Electric Rain, which is set in Korea and features a familiar (read: movie) lineup of Avengers, with one new addition: White Fox.

White Fox appeared in the first entry (September 2014) and is a Korean superhero based on - or may actually be - the kumiho, or Korean nine-tailed fox spirit (similar to Japan's kitsune).

White Fox was first seen in American comics on the cover of the video-game-tie-in-yet-still-in-continuity Contest of Champions #1 (October 2015).

She has since appeared in every issue of the series, save one (but she appeared on the cover of that one). She has also made an appearance in Deadpool #1 (November 2015).

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man The Manga

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. (Although see here for more information on that.)

Today's entry is Spider-Man: The Manga.

In the 1970s, Marvel tried to bring Spider-Man comics to Japan, but they were not very successful. Instead, Japan tried again with Spider-Man: The Manga, originally written by Kosei Ono and drawn by Ryoichi Ikegami. The manga told the story of Yu Komori, a high school student who gains spider powers and starts to fight crime as Spider-Man. Overall the series was pretty faithful to the original comic, except that the radioactive spider came from Yu's own experiments and he didn't decide to start fighting crime because his uncle died (though he does have an aunt Mei). Originally the series adapted Spider-Man villains, but when Kosei Ono was replaced with Kazumasa Hirai, the book started to go in its own more violent, more sexual direction.

In Spider-Verse #2 (January 2015), a Spider-Man counters the idea that all Spider-Men are Peter Parker with the fact that he met a Japanese kid named Komori:

In case you're wondering about the other Japanese Spider-Men that Spider-Man Black mentions, you can find out more here and here. There's also another one, which you can learn more about by googling "Marvel Mangaverse".

Spider-Verse: Spider-Man J

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Spider-Man J (スパイダーマンJ).

Spider-Man J is a 2004 manga about a 15-year old boy named Sho Amano who gains his spider-powers through supernatural means. His goal is to prevent a villain named Lord Gokibu from stealing the fossil of the Insect King, and the only person who knows his secret identity is a detective named Makoto. Other supporting characters include counterparts to Aunt May, Mary Jane, and Harry Osborn. Sho is shy and doesn't have many friends, but he does have three pets: a cat named Leo, a dog named Par, and a bird named Don. This is a shoutout to the tv show Supaidaman, which featured a robot named Leopardon.

He first appeared in American comics in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...though his first full appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015). I don't know if he shows up anywhere but this group shot, but you can tell it's him by his small stature, his black-and-white costume, and the fact that you can see his pupils through his mask.