Congorilla
49 years ago - William Glenmorgan is born in South Dakota.
31 years ago - 18-year-old William attends the University of California to study Animal Behavior & Ethology.
28 years ago - 21-year-old William travels to Sub-Saharan Africa to study under anthropologists in Uganda.
23 years ago - 26-year-old William earns a PhD in Ethology from Cambridge, and begins to work to establish conservation centers across Africa, campaigning internationally to raise awareness of the importance of conservation. He is often referred to as 'Congo Bill' by the local experts.
20 years ago - 29-year-old William begins communicating with the Kawolo, a remote indiginous tribe in Uganda, and learning from their vast insight into the behavior of gorillas.
13 years ago - 36-year-old William, while exploring a lost underground city with Nuli, a Kawolo spiritual guide, is trapped in a cave in. They discover a talisman of ancient Kawolo design, enabling Bill to switch his consciousness with the legendary newly-awakened Golden Gorilla, allowing them to free themselves. Nuli gives him the name Congorilla. He begins to use the talisman to summon the Gorilla to protect people and defend against poachers.
9 years ago - 40-year-old William first meets David Zavimbe, working with him to thwart one of the largest ivory smuggling operations on the continent.
8 years ago - 41-year-old William's connection to the Golden Gorilla is usurped by Aku Kwesi. He ventures deeper into the lost city of the Kawolo with Nuli. They find the location of the original rituals that created their bond, and re-forge them to no longer need their talisman.
6 years ago - 43-year-old William Glenmorgan is hesitant to involve himself in political activisim, seeing himself as a foreigner on African soil, but he ultimately agrees to join David Zavimbe in the Kindgom, helping to defend the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo and their revolution, determining that even as an outsider he can acknowledge when something is the right thing to do.
I have no explanation whatsoever for why DC loves gorillas so much. This fictional universe has existed for a long time, and there have certainly been fads that have resulted in certain types of characters being popular in ways that look funny in retrospect... but DC has at least five different gorilla-themed characters that I can think of off the top of my head without trying. There's a whole city of intelligent gorillas out there. This happened. I have no idea why. If DC is going to be a place where gorillas are a regular thing, then it stands to reason that there has to be at least one gorilla superhero.
There is more to this particular gorilla hero, of course. The fact that there are some inherent themes of colonialism in his original depiction isn't lost on us, or the fact that having one of the main heroes on the African continent be a white guy who turns into a golden-furred gorilla is problematic at best. We actually took him off the timeline completely for a time, but we ultimately decided that he's a character that can be a lot of fun, and it was worth it to take another look at him. As long as those potentially problematic ideas are addressed thoughtfully, I hope we can find a purpose for him that lets us all enjoy what should just be a playfully goofy concept.
There is more to this particular gorilla hero, of course. The fact that there are some inherent themes of colonialism in his original depiction isn't lost on us, or the fact that having one of the main heroes on the African continent be a white guy who turns into a golden-furred gorilla is problematic at best. We actually took him off the timeline completely for a time, but we ultimately decided that he's a character that can be a lot of fun, and it was worth it to take another look at him. As long as those potentially problematic ideas are addressed thoughtfully, I hope we can find a purpose for him that lets us all enjoy what should just be a playfully goofy concept.
Congorilla's Comic HistoryCongorilla was originally Congo Bill, an adventurer archetype in the vein of Alan Quartermain that was introduced in Action Comics all the way back in 1940, which makes him as old as Batman. He ran as one of the backup stories in Action Comics all the way until 1959, even getting his own six-issue series. In 1957, Bill encountered the legendary Golden Ape, which became a fixture of the series. Eventually a magical talisman allowed Bill to exchange bodies with the gorilla, leading the character to be rebranded Congorilla; perhaps the purest example of DC's love of the great apes.
Congorilla made sporadic but fairly consistent guest appearances over the decades, but remained a fairly silly part of their extensive catalog until one appearance in particular started to steer the character in a different direction, |
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1987s Swamp Thing Annual #3 by Rick Veitch was a Gorilla themed extravaganza, featuring a who's who of Gorilla characters from Angel & Ape to Titano. In it, Congo Bill decides to remain as Congorilla permanently, setting the character on a decidedly strange path. This was followed up by the four-issue 92 miniseries in which Bill loses control of the Golden Ape to his former associate Janu, leading to some really wild depictions of Congorilla as an amoral tyrant. By 1999, a four-issue Vertigo miniseries actually depicted the death of Congo Bill's body while they were mindswapped, leaving Bill permanently in the body of a Gorilla with enhanced strength and healing and the ability to grow in size. That old chestnut.
James Robinson's much-derided 2008 miniseries Cry For Justice was set up as a team of established heroes and particular oddballs. I have no idea why he chose to include Congorilla. While the miniseries is problematic at best, it was followed up by Robinson's stellar run on the Justice League, which meant that for several years, improbably, Congorilla was a full-fledged and very well-liked member of the Justice League. DC comics love of Gorillas had come full circle. |
Our Congorilla StoryWhen we first started this project it was only a few years removed from Congorilla's tenure in the Justice League, and so it made perfect sense for us to include him, at least for a time, in ours. Eventually, with time and distance, it became clearer just how completely insane this was. What's more, the problematic elements of the character continued to bug us, to the point where it just seemed best to remove him until we understood what to do with him.
First of all, we needed to fully reimagine his status in the world, getting rid of the colonizer-based images of him as a hunter or explorer. He needed to be a conservationist, someone dedicated to preserving the integrity of the continent and it's ecosystem. We actually based his educational history on Jane Goodall, trying to give him a similar scientific background, and tried to show that his relationship with the local tribespeople and their ancient magical artifacts come from a place of mutual respect. Second, as a white guy and an outsider, he absolutely could not be one of the most prominent heroes of Africa. He needed to be part of a whole bunch of African heroes, which led to us assembling one of our favorite new teams of heroes, the Kingdom. We also decided to leave out the death of Congo Bill, allowing him to continue to work as a prominent conservationist, summoning the Golden Ape and becoming Congorilla to help protect the continent and it's people. |
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