Planet of the Apes gave us more than just the immortal Charleton Heston screaming “Get your hands off me, you damn dirty apes!” and “Damn you all to Hell!” When Marvel Comics won the contract to adapt the series in comic book form, Carmon Infantino over at DC wanted a monkey series of his own. He turned to Jack Kirby who had left Marvel for DC in 1970. Jack combined an unused comic strip “Kamandi of the Caverns” with some ideas from an old Harvey Comics piece to create a world of manimals far exceeding a mere planet of apes. Kamandi dwells in a post-apocalyptic realm where all kinds of humanized animals vie for power.
Planet of the Apes, the first movie, was written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. Serling was no stranger to the effectiveness of animal faces on humans. On The Twilight Zone episode written by Serling, “Eye of the Beholder” (November 11, 1960), a beautiful woman is horrified to find her face scarred in an accident. There is a classic reveal when the nurse turns around and we see that a normal face is pig-like. Serling brings that same power to another classic reveal in Planet of the Apes when we see for the first time that the hunters, chasing the humans through the corn, are apes. It would surprise no one that Pierre Bouelle’s La planète des singes (1963), that inspired the 1968 movie, was itself inspired by H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1897). Both novels use animals for Science Fictional and satirical purposes.
That old Harvey piece was “The Last Enemy” (Alarming Comics #1, September 1957), a five pager written and drawn by Kirby. In it, a time traveler, Hammond Drake, comes to the future to find all humanity gone, destroyed by nuclear war. In our place, the animals have gained intelligence and are fighting for supremcy. Above ground it is dogs versus cats, while underneath the rats plot their victory. Drake is captured by the rats, who want the secret to atom bombs. The dogs rescue the man, who in turns gives the secret to the peace-loving dogs and their allies. He returns to our time preferring that the world “go to the dogs”, rather than the rats. This early piece already shows Kirby’s bias towards mammals and pets over other animals.
Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth ran 59 issues, beginning October-November 1972 and finishing its original run, in September-October 1978. Jack handed covers over to Joe Kubert with issue #34, then gave up scripting the comic with issue #38 and finally art with issue #41. From that point on Kamandi went his own way with many different scripters and artists working on the comic. (I haven’t included these issues as I wanted to focus on Jack’s creation only.) In June 1993, Kamandi would return with Superman in Kamandi at Earth’s End, a six part mini-series. Kirby had nothing to do with the comic though he planted the seed back in 1975. He passed away in 1994.
Kirby’s manimals have a satiric quality that would have made Rod Serling proud. They are living, breathing creatures but he often uses them to comment on the world. Kirby’s scenarios are quite unlikely, even ridiculous at times, but the satire saves them from being untenable, whether it is a hotel filled with Florida alligators, or a Canada filled with gigantic, radioactive insects (thanks, Jack!)
The Alligators are guests in “The Hotel”, a resort run by jaguars. They forced out a crowd of humans in an “eviction battle”. They are territorial about the pool and other hotel features.
The Ant is a soldier in the Horse Marines, an army from Europe charged with protecting the Land of the Demons (Canada). Captain Pypar calls him an aborigine. Along with his clothing, this suggests he is representing the First Nations. He communicates directly by touching his feelers to your head.
The Bats wear clothes but dont seem to have a spoken language we can hear. They attack Ben Boxer’s Tracking Station and end up being destroyed by the most powerful germ ever created.
The Bears are looters that are looking for human made artifacts to sell on the black market. They also capture humans to sell.
Dogs are intelligent and usually kind to humans. Doctor Canus is a scientist. Kirby had a fondness for bulldogs, so most canines are of that breed. The Britonek Horse Marines are all bulldogs, with corny English accents.
The Dolphin is Inspector Zeel, a mammal who is carried about by his human servant. He is a scout for a society of dolphins that live in an underwater university. They are attacked by the Red Baron, a human teained by killer whales.
The Donkeys are talking animals though they do not have hands and feet. The Lizards of Los Lorraine have enslaved them. They speak Spanish as well as English.
The Gorillas and other apes are quite close to the denizens of the Apes movies. They keep humans like cattle. They have armies that fight with the tigers for domination of old cities liked Las Vegas. Flim-Flam is an animal trainer and less aggressive than the gorillas. An army of German ape soldiers known as the Germiniks are part of the Horse Marine army from Europe. Another group of apes worship Superman’s old indestructible suit. (Where is Superman? Wait until 1993 for that answer.)
Humans in Kamandi’s world are savage beasts. Here Kirby uses them as a counter-point to Kamandi and his friends like Ben Boxer. Like the humans in The Planet of the Apes, the animals think of men as beasts and treat them accordingly. Caesar has pet humans while Sacker exploits them as slaves. Mutated humans also appear throughout the comic as radioactive transformers, as dwarfish telepaths like Misfit, the gopher-like creatures living underground and Pyra, the firestarter.
Jaguars are the animals that run “The Hotel”, a large resort that different types of animals vie for room. The jaguars try to stay neutral.
The Killer Whales are in a war with the dolphins. Killer whales eat dolphins in nature. Kirby turned this into an aquatic war. The Killer Whalesd trained a human named the Red Barn to attack the dolphins.
The Leopards are organized nautically, signing on with a ship’s captain. We see them returning from a trip to capture mutated insects for the Sacker Co. They are best read with a thick “pirate” accent. They all seem to work for Mr. Sacker. A force of leopards work at killing off all the giant insects and plants to clear land for Mr. Sackers enterprise.
The Lions make only a brief appearance. They are Rangers who protect the wildlife in the animal preserve. They ride dune buggies and treat humans kindly but like wildlife.
The Lizards live in the hot south and their lifestyle resembles the people of Mexico. They hiss when they talk. The Lizards have enslaved the donkeys.
The Mullosks run the Aquarium, an air-filled zoo for humans. The water breathers are on the outside watching the humans, conducting experiments on them. Kamandi (of course) brings the whole place shattering down.
Pumas are the poachers that the Lions are in pursuit of. The Pumas want to capture humans for sale. They are arrested by the Lions for trial.
The Rats live in the remains of New York City, much of which is underwater. To work around the flooded skyscrapers the rats use diver equipment and submarines.
The Sharks have mutated into flying fish. They have not gained intelligence. The barracudas have also changed into land animals that prowl the ruins near the ocean.
The Snakes are repesented by Mr. Sacker, the evil head of the Sacker Company. This powerful serpent enlists Kamandi to be the rider for his giant grasshoppr, Kliklik. Sacker is served by Spirit, Flower’s sister.
The Tigers are imperialistic military types. Their leader is named Caesar. The film The Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) had come out in June so Kirby might have been aware that there was an ape called Caesar. But since his tigers are basically Romans he didn’t have to apologize. They fight with the gorillas for territory.
The Wolves appear occasionally in mixed groups of animals and as troops. They form an army of French soldiers in the Horse Marines known as the Napoleoniks.
Kamandi, like the Demon, Mister Miracle, O.M.A.C. and Devil Dinosaur, was Kirby having fun with the medium he helped to invent, American-style comics. As a competitor to The Planet of the Apes, Kamandi had middling success but instead went its own way, creating some of my fondest memories as a
young comic reader. I am reminded of a scene in one issue where Nazi portraits are being sold by Mr. Sacker as “Funny Animal Pictures”. This was the true spirit of Kirby and Kamandi, Science Fiction as satire. It’s a topsy-turvy world filled with giant insects, talking animals, as our young blonde-haired fellow wondered from adventure to adventure, losing Ben Boxer and finding him over and over. (It would be quite a contest to figure out who wandered into more trouble in the 1970s, Kamandi or Korak, the son of Tarzan!)