Titano: the giant chimpanzee and his kryptonite rays

Titano, the giant chimpanzee who fires kryptonite from his eyes

Titano is a performing chimpanzee named Toto, sent into space and returned transformed: more than ten meters tall, and able to project rays of green kryptonite from his eyes. His full name in the comics is Titano the Super-Ape, and it is Lois Lane who gives it to him, in the story where he appears for the first time.

His place in the gallery of Superman's opponents rests on a single trait. Titano has no plan, no hatred, no army. He is written as a natural disaster, and the Man of Steel cannot simply strike it: approaching the ape amounts to approaching a source of kryptonite. That is what sets him apart from the other bearers of the green stone in this file.

The reference profile of the original version, published in Who's Who #24 in February 1987, gives him 10.6 meters for 7 tons, against 1.14 meters and 37 kilos in the form of Toto. A single accident therefore separates the chimpanzee from the monster, and that passage from one scale to the other is the whole subject of the character.

Superman #127 (1959): Toto goes into space and comes back a giant

The founding story is titled "Titano the Super-Ape!". It takes eight pages, in third position in Superman #127, cover-dated February 1959, on sale December 18, 1958 at the price of ten cents. The script is by Otto Binder, the art by Wayne Boring, the inks by Stan Kaye, all under the direction of Mort Weisinger — in the middle of the Silver Age of comics.

Toto is presented as one of the most intelligent chimpanzees in the world, and it is on that account that he is sent on a space flight. On the way, he passes through the fusion of two meteors: one of uranium, the other of green kryptonite. He comes back a giant, gifted with kryptonite vision. Lois Lane renames him Titano, then he abducts her. Superman cannot approach him, and settles the matter by throwing him through a time barrier, into prehistory. Toto's trainer and the American army also appear in the credits.

The sources diverge on the artist. Three reference profiles out of three give Boring the interior of the story, while one encyclopedic note credits Curt Swan — who does, however, sign the cover of the issue, with Stan Kaye. The story has been reprinted several times, notably in Superman in the Fifties in 2002 and in Showcase Presents Superman #1 in 2005.

The kryptonite rays, Titano's one and only weapon

The mechanics are precise, and they have never changed for the original version: two meteors fuse during the flight, one of uranium, the other of green kryptonite, and the chimpanzee who passes through them comes out with eyes that project the green stone. This kryptonite vision is the only thing that makes Titano a real threat, and it is also the only weapon he possesses.

The rest comes down to size: super-strength and resistance scaled to ten meters tall and seven tons. None of the profiles consulted gives him flight, super-speed or complete invulnerability, which stay on the side of the list of Superman's powers. Against an ordinary opponent of that size, Kryptonian strength would be more than enough.

What jams things is the effect of the green stone on Kryptonian skin: it makes it vulnerable, and a continuous ray rules out hand-to-hand. The comparison with Metallo is illuminating. Metallo carries his kryptonite in his chest in the form of an artificial heart, and he uses it deliberately against Superman. Titano, for his part, decided nothing: he only crossed two stones in the wrong place, and he became a weapon without knowing it.

The Silver Age: the seven years when Titano really comes back

The character had been created for a single story. Weisinger brings him back, according to the specialist press, because the first episode was liked, and Superman #138 (cover July 1960) takes up exactly the same title, "Titano the Super-Ape!", over ten pages and with the same team. Superman accidentally brings the ape back into modern Metropolis, then has to trap him in order to send him back into the past. An attested graphic detail: for this second story, Boring replaces the chimpanzee head with a gorilla head, which visually brings the character closer to King Kong. The inspiration of the 1933 film is in fact reported by the specialist press, which ties it to Weisinger's habit of taking up the fantasy films of the time.

After that, Titano slides from antagonist to plot device. In Superman #142 (January 1961), he serves as a trigger to send the hero astray in time. He also enters the stories of Bizarro World with Adventure Comics #289 (October 1961), then Adventure Comics #295 (April 1962) introduces Bizarro-Titano, a bizarro clone of the ape, a character distinct from the model.

The exit arrives in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #77 (June 1964), "The Colossus of Metropolis!": Allura of Ashtar, princess of a people of giants from the galaxy of Ashtar, takes Titano home. Jimmy Olsen temporarily has the powers of Colossal Boy there. The last Silver Age story centered on him is Jimmy Olsen #84, in April 1965; Titano still passes through as a guest in Superman #226 (May 1970), still under Weisinger's direction.

1978: the three-issue return his writer disowned

After eight years of absence, Titano returns under the pen of Martin Pasko, with art by Curt Swan. Three issues of Superman carry him: #323 (cover May 1978), #324 (June) and #325 (July), edited by Julius Schwartz. #323 is incidentally the first appearance of Albert Michaels under the identity of Atomic Skull, and that of the organization SKULL; its cover is signed by José Luis García-López.

The tone changes radically. In #324, "Beware the Eyes That Paralyze!", Titano shares the bill with Atomic Skull, and the register is no longer that of the misunderstood monster that carried the 1959 story. #325 closes the arc, and the ape then disappears from pre-Crisis continuity.

The sources diverge on the count: a general note speaks of a two-part story, while the issue-by-issue index records three. Pasko himself came back to this arc in an interview published in 2006, reported by a reference book: he explains that he thought he could treat at face value a giant ape firing kryptonite from his eyes, that the result did not work, and that the readers' mail convinced him to leave the character alone. The interest of the testimony is not that the concept would be laughable, but that an author judged the tone of his era incompatible with it.

Tears for Titano (1987): the same ape, without the rays

After Crisis, John Byrne takes the character up from zero in Superman Annual vol. 2 #1, published in 1987: thirty-eight pages titled "Tears for Titano!", drawn by Ron Frenz and inked by Brett Breeding, under the direction of Mike Carlin. Titano is no longer an astronaut chimpanzee but a laboratory baby chimpanzee, subjected to experiments by Doctor Thomas Moyers, with Amanda Waller and Sarge Steel in the credits. The aim of the program is to manufacture superhuman agents for the government, and the name "Titano" comes from a cruel joke by the staff.

Lois Lane visits the laboratory, and the animal throws himself into her arms. An accident then gives him super-strength and giant size. He tries to kill Moyers, Superman stops him, and it is Lois's presence that calms him. Moyers then reverses the transformation and kills him: Titano dies in the journalist's arms, and she devotes to him in the Daily Planet the article from which the story takes its title.

One factual point deserves to be set down clearly, because it touches the title of this article: this 1987 version does not have kryptonite vision. The rays belong to the pre-Crisis Titano, and to him alone. They are therefore two distinct characters, with two incompatible origins, who share a name.

New 52 then cyborg: the modern versions of Titano

The New 52 relaunch gives a third origin. In Superman vol. 3 #3 (cover January 2012, on sale November 23, 2011), written and laid out by George Pérez and drawn by Nicola Scott, Titano appears in flashback: he is now a mutant albino gorilla created by a deranged biophysicist, and above all a gorilla barely larger than a normal gorilla. The gigantism, which was the whole character, disappears.

He dies two issues later, in #5 (March 2012), then returns as a cyborg with a luminous body in #32, cover-dated August 2014 for a release on June 25, under the pen of Geoff Johns. The sources do not resolve the contradiction: the indexes give him as dead in 2012 and classify him as deceased, whereas he reappears in 2014, in 2023, in 2024 and in 2025, without any continuity explanation being offered.

The most developed modern appearance is Titans vol. 4 #1 (cover July 2023), by Tom Taylor and Nicola Scott. Titano attacks an industrial installation there, and it is the full team that gets the better of him: Beast Boy holds him, Cyborg secures the site, Starfire and Donna Troy knock him out. Superman is not in the scene, and that is no accident: it is the issue in which the Titans take the Justice League's place.

Krypto, Beppo, Super-Pets: Titano on the animals' side

A parallel thread runs through his whole career: Titano is one of the rare monsters in Superman's bestiary to have entered through the animal door, and that shows in the company he keeps. As early as August 1961, Superman #147 published "Krypto Battles Titano!", eight pages written by Jerry Siegel and drawn by Al Plastino: the ape, still stuck in prehistory, faces Krypto, and two unidentified aliens try to capture the dog and the ape for an alien zoo.

The most discreet wink is elsewhere. In the 1997 animated series, the stuffed ape of Lois as a child is named Beppo, in an assumed reference to the Kryptonian ape of the comics. It is a tribute, not an identity: Beppo is an ally of Superman and a member of the Legion of Super-Pets, Titano an Earth chimpanzee turned enemy by accident.

In 2025, the character changes sides for good. Supergirl vol. 8 #5, cover-dated November 2025 and on sale September 10, is titled "Paws and Effect": Titano, reduced to the size of a dog, joins the modern Super-Pets alongside Krypto and Streaky, while Lena Luthor watches over Midvale. The press nicknamed him "Tinytano", but DC writes "Titano". Two guardrails, to finish: he was never a member of the Legion founded in 1962, and he does not appear among the animals of the 2022 animated film.

Titano on screen: 1966, 1997 and 2017

Three cartoons have carried him, and no live-action film. The first is The New Adventures of Superman, produced by Filmation for CBS from September 10, 1966: the episode "The Chimp Who Made It Big", aired on October 1st, 1966, keeps the comics origin. Two irradiated pieces of space debris fuse, transform the chimpanzee Toto into Titano the Super-Ape, and the ape grabs Lois; Superman has to hold the army back from firing, because he thinks he can return him to his starting state.

The most developed version is "Monkey Fun", thirteenth episode of the second season of Superman: The Animated Series, aired on September 27, 1997, directed by Curt Geda from a script by Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer. It rewrites everything: Titano is the chimpanzee Lois and Lucy Lane played with as children, sent into space by the army and lost for twenty years. There is no kryptonite in this episode — the growth comes from a gas contained in the meteors, and it happens in stages. The ape is never malevolent, only destructive because of his size: he frees the zoo's apes, looks for bananas on the port of Metropolis, and it is Lois who calms him with a toy. S.T.A.R. Labs stops his growth and he ends up on a tropical island, the toy hung around his neck. Frank Welker provides his vocal effects, without being credited.

Finally, Justice League Action devotes "Harley Goes Ape!" to him, aired on October 21, 2017, written by Paul Dini: Gorilla Grodd takes control of Titano, and the only person able to counter that hold is Harley Quinn, who had looked after him when he was small. Stargirl helps her free him so that Superman can beat Grodd. A hologram of Titano would also appear in season 3 of Superman & Lois, launched on March 14, 2023, but only one source attests it and the list of the television and animated series does not record it.

What Titano is not: Grodd, Beppo and the 2025 kaiju

The file attracts four recurring confusions, and all of them dissolve as soon as the facts are set side by side.

• Titano is not Gorilla Grodd. Grodd is a telepathic and intelligent gorilla, an enemy of the Flash, who precisely takes control of Titano in Justice League Action. Two unrelated characters, and the most likely mistake on this subject.
• Titano is not Beppo. Beppo is a Kryptonian ape, Jor-El's test subject, an ally of Superman and a member of the Legion of Super-Pets. The trap comes from the 1997 cartoon, which gives that first name to Lois's plush.
• Titano is not the giant monster of Superman (2025). James Gunn's film has Lex Luthor release an unnamed kaiju, fought with the Justice Gang. No source identifies it with Titano, and the director cites Godzilla Minus One as a reference.
• Allura of Ashtar is not Alura In-Ze. The first is the princess of the people of giants who takes Titano in in 1964; the second is the mother of Kara Zor-El. Neighboring spellings, no connection.

One nuance of species remains, and it comes from the art, not the script. Toto really is a chimpanzee, but Boring gives him a gorilla head from 1960 on, and the New 52 simply decides on an albino gorilla. As for his rays, they have joined the powers DC made disappear: no modern version gives them back to him.

Conclusion

If you keep only one thing from this file, keep the accident. Titano wanted nothing: a chimpanzee named Toto crosses two meteors, comes back ten meters tall with eyes charged with kryptonite, and finds himself ranked among the enemies without ever having formed the slightest plan. That is also why he crosses the eras so badly: in 1978 they tried to make him a killer, in 1987 a laboratory victim, in 2012 an ordinary-sized gorilla, and in 2025 a pet.

His place among the most dangerous opponents of the Man of Steel therefore does not come from a power or an intelligence, but from a single physical property: he carries green kryptonite in his eyes and he cannot switch it off. To continue on the good side of the bestiary, the tour of the Legion of Super-Pets shows what the same universe does with an animal when that animal chooses its side.