First Appearance - Blue Beetle 9, October 1941
Alter Ego - Jack Castle
Group Affiliation - Mystery Men of America (1942-1946), Special F.O.X. Unit (Korean War)
Jack Castle was the assistant to Dr Flavious Brock, circa early 1941, but had earned the scientists ire by coming in drunk and bothering Brock's niece. As Dr Brock needed a living brain for his experiments, he coshed Jack over the head and put his brain in the body of a gorilla. This caused him to, pardon the pun, 'go ape'! Castle killed Brock and set out on a rampage – he turned against humanity and even took over a gang of thugs.
Eventually the Gorilla was captured and imprisoned. While in prison, he was seen by a psychiatrist who helped him come to terms with his new condition. When America entered the war and the MYSTERY MEN of AMERICA were formed in March 1942, the Gorilla became part of a program that offered 'science villains' the chance to earn their freedom by fighting for the US.
He became a member in good standing and in decades to come was often cited as one of the most successful cases of rehabilitation among former powered criminals.
In the early 1950's, when there were a shortage of willing science heroes, the then increasingly corrupt Federal Operations eXecutive coerced Castle into signing up for a special unit of powered heroes operating in Korea, by threatening to revoke his pardon. The Gorilla survived the war, but his years in Korea did nothing to help his distrust of authority.
From the second world war, on, Jack Castle was especially close to the similarly named Jack Carter aka Robot, owing to their parallel situations of having their brains transplanted into bodies which marked them as "non human".
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