Titano

Titano is a animal comic character who features in DC Comics.

Biography

Pre-Crisis

Toto was a male common chimpanzee selected to participate in an experimental space rocket mission scheduled to span an entire week. Whilst in space, a Green Kryptonite meteor collided with a passing Uranium meteor and the radiation from the combined elements washed across the space capsule, altering Toto's genetic structure. The space capsule returned to Earth, and Toto was seemingly unaffected by the radiation. Moments after exiting the capsule, however, his size and strength grew to epic proportions. Lois Lane was present at the scene covering the story of the space capsule landing with Toto recognizing her. As an act of affection, Toto scooped Lois into his paw and took off with her. It was at this point that Lois gave him the name of Titano. Titano began stalking through the streets of Metropolis with Lois in hand, inadvertently causing a considerable amount of property damage. Clark Kent, fearing for Lois' safety, changed to Superman and engaged Titano in combat. Much to the Man of Steel's lament, he learned that the radiation had given Titano another super-power - Green Kryptonite vision. Unable to withstand the effects of the Kryptonite, Superman had to back down. Lois came up with an ambitious plan to halt Titano's childlike rampage. Recalling the chimp's tendency to imitate the actions of humans, she manipulated Titano into donning a pair of over-sized lead-lined eyeglasses. Now Superman could deal with him without fearing the effects of Titano's Kryptonite vision. Superman hurled Titano into the timestream where he arrived in Earth's prehistoric past. (Superman v1 #127)

The colossal, kryptonite-powered primate king was abruptly snatched from his peaceful, prehistoric sanctuary when a bizarre temporal anomaly materialized him directly back into a terrified modern metropolis. Marooned in the stone age by the Man of Steel during their previous encounter, the giant beast had spent his exile peacefully gathering massive prehistoric vegetation until the Man of Tomorrow inadvertently activated a highly volatile alien time-viewing device at the Fortress of Solitude, tearing open a chronological rift that dragged the monster forward through time. Materialising amidst the high-rises of Metropolis, the disoriented, skyscraper-sized ape panicked, immediately resuming his destructive rampage through the streets. When the red-and-blue hero rushed to intervene, the giant beast instantly repelled the offensive by unleashing lethal, glowing beams of green kryptonite radiation directly from his eyes, forcing the weakened protector to retreat and equip a specialized, heavy lead containment suit. Ignoring the military's conventional artillery, the colossal ape scaled a major building and scooped up Lois Lane, treating the terrified reporter as a prized possession while moving across the city block in search of large, spherical structures. Recognizing that the creature was driven purely by hunger and a base impulse to find the giant coconuts of his home era, the clever hero flew back into the ancient past, retrieved a massive prehistoric fruit, and brought it into the present as a non-violent distraction. While the completely engrossed monster dropped his human captive to frantically crack open the prehistoric treat, the hero seized the window of opportunity, hit the distracted behemoth with a high-speed physical kinetic charge, and hurled him safely back through the chronological rift into his native, primeval timeline. (Superman v1 #138)

A time-warp resulted in Titano coming back to the present and becoming a menace to Metropolis. To help stop him, Jimmy Olsen used an enlarging serum to make himself a 'Colossal Boy' in order to fight the giant ape. Eventually, the giantess Allura comes to Earth and takes Titano back to her world, where he finds and falls in love with a female ape of his size. (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen v1 #77)

Post-Crisis

Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events. Titano was a chimpanzee that came to be subject to experiments headed by Dr. Thomas Moyers. Secretly, this project was designed to create a superweapon for the U.S. government and Task Force X with the program being overseen by Sarge Steel. The experiments were conducted at a laboratory with Lois Lane covering the story and Amanda Waller present on site. Titano tried to escape his tormentors by leaping into Lane's arms. An accident caused the ape to gain super-strength and grow to enormous proportions. Attempting to kill Moyers, whom he saw as his tormentor, Titano was stopped by and engaged in a battle with Superman. The presence of Lane causes Titano to calm down, as he considered her a friend. Moyers used his equipment to reverse the transformation. The reversal is too much for the chimpanzee, who dies in Lane's arms. She later writes the Daily Planet article "Tears for Titano" in honor of the animal. (Superman Annual v2 #1)

Post-Flashpoint

Following the Flashpoint, a new version of reality was created with a different history of events.

Overview

Personality and attributes

In appearance, Titano was a colossal, bipedal mammalian creature that possessed the structural biological physical traits of a giant ape integrated with the specific physical markers of a chimpanzee. Titano possessed a dense, dark brown coat of coarse fur that covered the vast majority of his muscular body, with the explicit exception of his face, ears, hands, and feet, which featured bare, wrinkled grey-tan skin. His facial anatomy featured a broad snout, two dark eyes set beneath a prominent and heavy brow ridge, and an exceptionally wide jaw filled with large teeth. Due to his rapid mutation, Titano stood several stories tall, making him capable of peering into the upper floors of skyscrapers and lifting modern human vehicles in his palms. Titano did not wear any garments, uniforms, or armor, remaining entirely in a natural biological state, though his eyes glowed with an intense, fiery green and yellow energy whenever his radiation powers were actively triggered. (Superman v1 #127)

The innocently affectionate, newly mutated simian victim suffered a catastrophic psychological fracture when a sudden, painful cosmic transformation completely eradicated his gentle chimpanzee nature and replaced it with terrifying, uncontrollable instinct. Originally a highly docile, human-dependent space test subject named Toto, the small primate possessed a deeply cooperative and loving disposition, holding a profound, protective emotional attachment to his human handler, Lois Lane. This peaceful psychological baseline was violently shattered when his orbital space capsule collided with a high-energy cloud of combined uranium and kryptonite space radiation, triggering an excruciating, building-sized cellular expansion that instantly warped his mind. Thrown into a blind, disoriented panic by his sudden, terrifying physical scale and the agonizing, radioactive green light permanently searing out from his own eyeballs, the colossal creature viewed the modern metropolis not as a hunting ground, but as an overwhelming, hostile labyrinth. His ensuing citywide rampage was driven entirely by a child-like regression to familiar comforts; he frantically sought out large round objects because his fractured mind mistook them for the small rubber toys of his lost infancy, and he aggressively snatched up his former handler not to harm her, but out of a desperate, primal instinct to seek safety with the only human anchor he recognized. Tragically incapable of communicating his deep existential terror or his desperate hunger to the aggressive military forces attacking him, the giant beast's debut permanently established him as a profoundly sympathetic, misunderstood monster whose immense destructive power was merely the external symptom of an intensely frightened, mutated infant trapped in a god-like frame. (Superman v1 #127)

Powers and abilities

Titano was born a member of the primate race where Titano was a member of the chimpanzee species before undergoing cosmic mutation. On a basic feats level, Titano's massive scale granted him immense superhuman physical strength, durability, and weight, allowing him to easily crush steel structures, tear through metropolitan roads, and overpower the raw muscular power of Superman. As a direct consequence of absorbing the combined energies of the green and yellow space meteors, Titano's internal organs acted as a biological generator for Kryptonite energy. Titano possessed the unique ability to shoot highly concentrated, visible beams of green and yellow radiation directly from his eyes. These energy beams could travel long distances and were lethal to Kryptonians, completely draining Superman's physical strength upon contact. Additionally, while his cognitive intelligence remained at the baseline level of a common animal, Titano retained complex emotional memories and a capacity for localized affection toward specific humans who had treated him with kindness. (Superman v1 #127)

Notes

• Titano was created by Otto Binder and Curt Swan where he made his first appearance in Superman v1 #127 (February, 1959).

Alternate Versions

• In Adventure Comics v1 #295 (1962), an alternate version of Titano was shown to be an inhabitant of Bizarro World. Bizarro Titano was created by Bizarro in an effort to find a worthy opponent to beat to prevent the exile of Bizarro Lois No. 1. Through a time-scope, he trained the imperfect duplicator ray on Titano to create a copy that was also referred to as Big Ape. Titano entered the ring against Bizarro-Lois, and won by leaving the ring in a big hurry to go eat some coconuts he has spied from afar.
• In DC One Million 80-Page Giant v1 #1,000,000 (1999), an alternat version of Titano appeared in the DC One Million setting. Titano One Million was the Superman-like defender of the Gorilla Galaxy and was a direct descendant of Solovar.

In other media

Television

• In Superman: The Animated Series, Titano appeared in the setting of the animated television series set in the DC Animated Universe in the episode "Monkey Fun" where he was voiced by Frank Welker. Titano had been trained by NASA to pilot a rocket for an unspecified space mission. Before he was to go on his mission, he was put under the care of Sam Lane much to the delight of his daughters, Lucy Lane and Lois Lane. Lois and Lucy would play with Titano and gave him a stuffed monkey, Beppo, that would play the song "Pop Goes the Weasel". Sadly, Titano's happy time with the Lanes came to an end and he was sent out on his mission in the rocket Titan-0, from which he got his name. During his mission, something went wrong and his space pod rocketed out of control into space. Trapped in an asteroid filled with an unknown gas, Titano went into a coma where he remained for 20 years; until Superman found and freed him. Back on Earth, Titano was almost totally unresponsive to anyone; until he met up with his old friend, Lois. Now happy and active again, he was sent home with her but was hyper and destructive. Things got worse when the asteroid's gas reacted with Earth's atmosphere and caused him to experience growth spurts. Titano's behavior became more feral and aggressive, and he escaped into Metropolis. Titano was confused and unaware that his presence was a danger to others around him, Titano explored the city and caused several disasters; such as releasing monkeys from the zoo which led to a pair of lions being released from their cage. It was only thanks to Superman's intervention that no one was hurt. Titano continued to explore Metropolis and eventually made his way to Hob's Bay where he was confronted by the SCU. In an attempt to put him to sleep, Dan Turpin and Maggie Sawyer tried to hit him with tranquilizer darts, but this only made him angry. Now turning violent, Titano tried to attack but Superman arrived and confronted him. Titano proved to be too strong, however, he escaped. Titano's explorations took him to a carnival where he became frightened when he saw the Rocket Ship Ride that reminded him of his old ship. Things only got worse when Superman arrived. Seeing Superman as an enemy, Titano grew violent and started destroying the carnival looking for a weapon to kill him. Fortunately, Lois received Beppo from her father and managed to play the song over the carnival's loudspeakers. Calmed by the song, Titano stood still long enough to be exposed to sleeping gas and was finally subdued. S.T.A.R. Labs found a cure for his growth spurts and Titano was taken to a remote island heavily inhabited by monkeys where he finally found a suitable home.

Appearances

• Superman v1: (1959)
• Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen v1:
• Superman Annual v2:

External Links

• DC Database Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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