Strange Adventures With Apes

Just monkeying around today with Strange Adventures, and a couple of tales where simians take over humans...or so it seems.

Long before there was a planet of the apes, here are these little stories....both with covers by Gil Kane!

Gorillas In Space!

With Strange Adventures #64 (January, 1956) with story by Bill Finger, Carmine Infantino and Bernard Sachs, we find ourselves in the height of the space race, with Dr. Owens trying to complete an orbiting satellite to prepare for a space station...when he and the Professor are confronted with a space station, manned by apes!  They presented themselves as Earthmen who made the satellite and, while in space, mutated into apes thanks to the cosmic rays.  

Warned, the scientists said the would halt their work, but Dr. Owens hit on the space station and went into orbit with them.  There, he found out they were really aliens disguised as gorillas, trying to halt Earth's advancement.  Tricking one of the aliens, he took his gorilla suit, wrecked their cyclotron, and brought the space station to Earth, to be taken in by the authorities.

The Gorilla Conquest Of Earth

Now, Strange Adventures #69 (June, 1956) with story by John Broome, Gil Kane and Bernard Sachs takes a different approach with its gorillas.  Edward Smith had invented a time machine, and planned to travel back to 5,000,000 BC....but, found out he devolved as he went back in time.  Stopping instead in 1,500,000 BC, he found a society where apes ruled, and men were docile slaves.  

Finding this unbearable, he worked with the humans to lead a revolt, and used science to combat the apes advanced weapons.  He then headed back to his own time...but lost his time machine in the water, after crashlanding in the ocean.