Issue(s): Shanna the She-Devil #4
Cover Date: Jun 73
Title: "Cry... Mandrill!"
Credits:
Carole Seuling - Plot
Steve Gerber - Script
Ross Andru - Penciler
Vincent Colletta - Inker

Review/plot:
Shanna and Patrick are invited to a mysterious dinner, which turns out to be a bid by a monkey-man named the Mandrill to take over three African countries.

In addition to Shanna and Patrick, the Mandrill invites a diamond dealer, a British diplomat, and a mercenary general. Everyone rejects Mandrill's offer/demand to join his coup, except the diamond dealer.

Shanna escapes, leaving the others behind, and is contacted by Jakuna Singh, the local SHIELD agent from issue #2. He tells her that in addition to the people at the dinner, the Mandrill also has her father. His plan is for her to go back and get captured again and then signal SHIELD once she's freed the prisoners. However, Shanna blows the plan a little bit when the Mandrill orders Shanna's face to be tattooed like his other girls (weirdo), leading her to break her restraints and chase the Mandrill around while he screams things like "Impossible! No man could do what you're doing, let alone a woman!".

Eventually he winds up getting mauled by a pack of real Mandrills, and she has to rescue the poor dear.

The Mandrill doesn't show any evidence of actual powers this issue, unless convincing your lady friends that it's ok that you have other lady friends and that they should all tattoo monkey markings on their face is a power.

Plus, he is a monkey man.

This issue's bondage scene (see above) is surprisingly tame, but we do get a picture of Shanna mounting a bucking rhino.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 3 - first Mandrill

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Jakuna Singh first appeared in Shanna the She-Devil #2

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

According to wiki, Steve Gerber disavowed any involvement in creating the Mandrill character, blaming it all on Carole Seuling. In all fairness, John Byrne created a character named Karisma during his run on Fantastic Four who was almost as bad.

But it was Gerber who came up with the whole "radiation made the Mandrill black and gave him rape powers" that people always complained had Unfortunate Implications.

I found the whole "enslaved by our sexual chemistry" business to be Unwholesomely Disturbing. At first I compulsively tried to read the article about it on Mandrill's Wikipedia page, but fortunately was able to restrain myself from joining the required Howard the Duck Yahoo discussion group. Self-control. Must.. Not... CLICK!;-D

I’m going to believe Gerber didn’t come up with the Mandrill. The sexual dynamic in most of his stories is immature men hooking up with sexy yet forebearing women who take care of them, mother figures. Male dominance didn’t seem to be his thing.

But it was Gerber who came up with the whole "radiation made the Mandrill black and gave him rape powers" that people always complained had Unfortunate Implications.

Gerber was, I think, trying to be subversive, but ended up reinforcing the nasty implications: the idea seems to be that the white child fits whites' stereotypes of blacks, and the black child (Nekra) fits what Gerber might have imagined were stereotypes of whites. One is an animalistic sexual predator, the other literally powered by hatred of others. And yet their origin has them as the victims of hatred, assuming these roles because the world makes them do so based on their physical appearances.

The problem is that the powers that fit the stereotypes are innate, and that the Mandrill is still the dominant mastermind while Nekra is the muscle, the dragon. And this slots them back into the stereotypes on two levels at once, making the whole thing even worse.

But then, Gerber's political stories were always odd int heir subtext (and sometimes text). He also portrayed the refuseniks as terrorists in his Defenders run, for example, and the Foolkiller miniseries is all over the map in its politics (though there, at least, the main character's growing psychopathy seems to be the final target of Gerber's criticism).

Mandrill's worst crime might have been getting his girlfriends to get the face tattoos. I mean nowadays morons get face tattoos all the time but in the 70s it really would have ruined their future employment prospects.