It’s time to end this look at DC’s gorilla characters by ending on one who is and isn’t a gorilla. How is that possible? Brain transplants! The Ultra-Humanite is more than meets the eye, and we’re going to explore this villain’s history as he goes from a dying man, to a young woman, to an albino gorilla (sometimes even a dinosaur).
Ultra-Humanite started life as a wheelchair-bound man with a genius mind. He would use this intelligence to try and take over the world, simple enough. He’d find himself being Superman’s opposite as a powerful mind in a not so powerful body. As he aged (later, it would also be added that he had a degenerative disease that was killing him) he realized a mind like his could not die. Naturally, the man who only went by Ultra-Humanite would have a young celebrity named Delores Winters taken, and he put his mind into her body.
While running around in Delores’s body, the Ultra-Humanite would commit many crimes. Using society’s views about women and a celebrity as a way to cover his heinous crimes. As his intelligence continued to grow it would cause his time in any body to end quicker. Eventually the original Delores Winters would gain control of her body and the Ultra-Humanite would have to find a new body. He’d find one in a modified albino gorilla. This would become THE body that many people would recognize as Ultra-Humanite. This body was strong enough to handle the Ultra-Humanite’s ever increasing mind and he’d even have the cranium sized to hold his massive mind.
Many take over the world attempts would be attempted by the Ultra-Humanite, his most recent near-success was when he nearly gained access to the magical genie, the Thunderbolt by masquerading as the genie’s former master, Johnny Thunder. He’d become well known thanks to the Justice League cartoons of recent years. He was only ever in his gorilla body so it seemed fitting to make him the final gorilla character to end these spotlights on. The Thunderbolt seems like an interesting spotlight perhaps.
Alexander Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
