Gorilla Ganty

Personal Data

Residence: Mudville and Center City
Occupation: Pharmacist, Profession Criminal
First Appearance (Golden Age): Sensation Comics #40 (April 1945) 
First Appearance (Post-Golden Age): None

History

        Nothing is known of the history of Clarence Twillins before 1945, when he was the local pharmacist in Mudville, a small town on the outskirts of Center City.  Mudville's claim to fame was being home to a pharmaceutical plant run by Sloane Industries which was producing "Cur-It", a new cough medication.  Twillins owned the building the pharmacy was housed in and had rented a room to a group of printers, who he found bossy and aggressive.  As it happens, the "printer" were actually counterfeiters, running fake Cur-It labels to pass along phony pharmaceuticals.  When Twillins inadvertently opens the door on their operations, they realize he is a potential witness and follow him home.  Believing he is heading for Sloane Industries to report them, one of the gang - "Toothy" Gamlin- trails Twillins and accosts him, throwing him into a nearby stream filled with outflow from Sloan Industries.  The mousy pharmacist disappears beneath the waters but emerges in a rage and attacks Gamblin.  The body of Twillins undergoes a metamorphosis into a giant, muscular form and in a rage, he snaps Gamlin's neck and flees.  Terry Sloane, alias Mr. Terrific, is visiting his production facility and hears Gamlin's cries but when he arrives after a quick uniform change, he finds nothing but Gamlin's corpse and some increasingly large footprints.

    As he fled, Twillins' mind raced, becoming more obsessed with his own powers.  Realizing the police were likely to hold him accountable for Gamblin's death, he sees no loss in pursing a life of crime with his new found powers and returns to the Pharmacy to ambush the counterfeiters.  Squeezing through the door, he finds himself impervious the bullets of the gangsters and thrashes them soundly.  One of them calls him a gorilla and Twillins seizes on the name as his new Nom du Crime, Gorilla Ganty. As they plot a brazen raid on nearby Center City, Mr. Terrific, tracking evidence from the shoes, stumbles upon them and immediately attacks.  No match for Ganty's sheer size and strength, Terrific is stunned with a felling blow.  As he comes to, he spots Ammonium Nitrate and topples a container onto the radiator hoping to oxidize it into nitrous oxide or laughing gas.  Terrific was carted outside and through into a waiting truck to be dispensed with in a more rural area but he quickly loosened his bonds and returned inside.  There he found Ganty and the gangsters, sedated and giggling from the gas and they were quickly subdued and turned over to the police.

The activities of Gorilla Ganty after 1945 have not been recorded.

Multiversity

To date, no version of Gorilla Ganty has emerged on any Earth other than the original Earth-2.

Powers/Skills

Gorilla Ganty was transformed into a colossal humanoid by the polluted waters outside of Sloan industries.  In addition to evoking a malevolent personality reminiscent of the Koehaha Stream of Ruthlessness (All-Star Comics #36), the chemicals in the water physically transformed the unimposing, middle-aged body of Twillins into a form roughly 8 feet tall which strength to match.  The new body was also significantly denser, able to withstand gunfire at close range. 

Weaknesses and Limitations

Although physically imposing, Gorilla Ganty had no obvious immunity to chemical injury and he was subdued with nitrous oxide, a fairly ordinary sedative.  While the original form of Twillins was likely somewhat educated to be a druggist, Ganty was aggressive and brutal and conceivably somewhat less intelligent than he originally was.

Appearances