This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero blog post will look at DC’s variation on the original Planet of the Apes. The Kamandi series was a post-apocalypse tale with animals mutated into quasi-human forms and with human intelligence.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #1 (November 1972)
Title: The Last Boy on Earth
Villains: Wolf-Men, Tiger-Men and Leopard-Men
Synopsis: Years after an event remembered only as The Great Disaster, a teenage male named Kamandi lives with his grandfather in the remains of a military post called Command D. (Yes, the post name inspired our hero’s name Kamandi.)
Kamandi is rowing around flooded Manhattan and vicinity in his daily recon. When he returns to the command post he sees that anthropomorphic wolf-men have killed his grandfather.
Kamandi slays the wolf-men in turn and abandons his former home, driving off in the late wolf-men’s wagon. (Oddly, horses did not gain human form and intelligence and are still used to ride and as beasts of burden.)
After some time, the young man gets caught in the middle of a large-scale battle between an army of tiger-men and an army of leopard-men, all wearing the clothing and wielding the weapons of the humans who used to rule the world.
Kamandi winds up taken prisoner by the tiger-men and their general, Great Caesar.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #2 (January 1973)
Title: Year of the Rat
Villains: Rat-Men
Synopsis: While a prisoner of Great Caesar and his troops, Kamandi meets Ben Boxer, a human survivor with mutant abilities. He also befriends the benevolent Dr. Canus, a humanoid dog who tends to the medical needs of humans held prisoner in the Tiger Empire.
Kamandi’s headstrong, defiant nature eventually lands him in another fight with tiger-men soldiers. To spare Kamandi from harsh punishment, Dr. Canus helps the young man and Ben Boxer escape.
After being on the run for days in a commandeered mini-sub/ jet plane hybrid, our heroes are captured by humanoid rat-men and imprisoned with Renzi and Steve, fellow mutants of Ben. In the end they fight their way free and hit the road again in their vessel, now named Traveler.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #3 (February 1973)
Title: The Thing That Grew on the Moon
Villains: Gorilla-Men
Synopsis: Kamandi and his mutant allies are flying around the American Southwest looking for the hidden mutant settlement called Tracking Site.
While exploring on foot, Kamandi gets separated from Ben, Steve and Renzi, and gets captured by a party of gorilla-men. The mutants, meanwhile, hide in what is left of a museum and face a monstrous being from the moon.
Kamandi escapes the gorilla-men and is chased into the ruins of Las Vegas, where all parties encounter the thing from the moon.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #4 (March 1973)
Title: The Devil’s Arena
Villains: Gorilla-Men
Synopsis: In the aftermath of the previous issue’s climactic battle, Kamandi, Ben, Steve and Renzi scrounge for supplies. Kamandi clashes with another party of gorilla-men, who capture him and a military expedition of tiger-men led by Prince Tuftan, the son of Great Caesar.
Soon, Kamandi leads a mass uprising of Prince Tuftan and other captive tiger-men. Amid a brutal battle between the gorilla-men and their former prisoners, our hero must also keep a surviving pre-Great Disaster weapon of mass destruction out of Tuftan’s savage hands.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #5 (April 1973)
Title: The One-Armed Bandit
Villains: Gorilla-Men
Synopsis: Reluctant allies Kamandi and Prince Tuftan make a break for freedom as the bloody battles continue all around them. Great Caesar and his tiger-man armies arrive to turn the tide.
Kamandi leads an uprising of ignorant, non-speaking humans against the gorilla-men and meets Flower, a beautiful female among them who IS able to speak.
Great Caesar condemns Kamandi to the Killing Ground, where he must fight a gorilla-man in mortal combat. Tuftan saves him, but the gorilla-men armies attack again. Our hero survives and is granted his freedom and a fast car, in which he drives off with Flower at his side.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #6 (June 1973)
Title: Flower
Villains: Lion-Men and Puma-Men
Synopsis: Days later, Kamandi and Flower arrive in a territory consisting of what is left of Washington, Montana, Utah and the Dakotas, where they are captured by motorcycle-riding lion-men.
The lion-men are good guys, it turns out, and place our hero and his lady on a sprawling “human reserve” in what used to be Arizona and Mexico, where humans are allowed to live in peace.
Kamandi and Flower live happily for a time with other humans, but eventually, poachers in the form of puma-men raid the Sanctuary. Our hero and the lion-men leader Sultin defeat them, but not before Flower is killed.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #7 (July 1973)
Title: The Monster Fetish
Villain: A kaiju sized ape
Synopsis: Kamandi and Sultin see to Flower’s burial. Their friendship grows stronger as Sultin teaches our hero more about the United States of Lions and the lion-people’s dedication to preserving surviving humans and other anomalies on Earth A.D. (After Disaster)
A gigantic mutant ape called Tiny breaks free of his containment area and goes on a rampage in the lion-men’s city New Capitol. Obviously, it’s all just a nod to King Kong, with the enormous ape even grabbing Kamandi and climbing up a tall building with him.
Lion-men piloting bi-planes save Kamandi and take down Tiny.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #8 (August 1973)
Title: Beyond Reason
Villains: Bear-Men
Synopsis: As Kamandi continues his life among Sultin and his fellow lion-people, the latter shows our hero some of the statues recovered and preserved by the noble lion-men.
The pair speculate on the meaning of these memorials to clothed humans, but we readers recognize the statues as past presidents of the United States.
Eventually, Kamandi is introduced to society at large and is appalled that, outside of the Sanctuary, even the benevolent lion-men regard non-speaking humans as pets and watch-dogs to be kept on leashes.
Kamandi fights back against the lion-men who try forcing him to wear a leash. Sultin recognizes that our hero cannot be happy among the lion-people, just as he cannot be happy among the non-speaking humans of the Sanctuary now that Flower is dead. He has Kamandi escorted out of the United States of Lions to continue searching for his old friends Ben, Steve and Renzi.
After much fruitless exploration of ruined cities our hero clashes with bear-men, but is saved by his old mutant friends, who tell Kamandi they know how to get back to the mutant settlement called the Tracking Site.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #9 (September 1973)
Title: Tracking Site
Villains: Bat-Men
Synopsis: Kamandi sets out with Ben, Steve and Renzi in their lighter-than-air balloon vessel. As they near the hovering, globular city called the Tracking Site in the sky over South America, they are attacked by swarms of bat-men.
Our heroes fight their way to the Tracking Site and slip inside, locking the bat-men out.
While dozens, if not hundreds, of bat-people continue trying to burst into the floating globe city, Kamandi and the three mutants explore the place.
It turns out that the Tracking Site has been purged of all human and mutant life by an evil, mad scientist mutant called the Misfit. He is served by a group of androids called Serviteks. The Misfit now controls a deadly virus which can wipe out all humans and mutants on Earth and he plans to release it.
KAMANDI Vol 1 #10 (October 1973)
Title: Killer Germ
Villains: Bat-Men and the Misfit
Synopsis: Kamandi, Ben, Renzi and Steve learn that the Tracking Site was once an experimental NASA station before the Great Disaster.
The Misfit has his Serviteks imprison Kamandi and the three mutants while he prepares to unleash the sentient virus over South America, so it can begin spreading over the entire planet and wipe out human life.
The besieging bat-people at last succeed in forcing their way into the Tracking Site and amid a chaotic battle with Serviteks and bat-people our heroes break free and amid all the cataclysmic combat they also manage to thwart the Misfit’s attempt at genocide.
In the following issues came battles with the leopard-men pirates of the Atlantic Ocean. And so the Kamandi series went on, with this original run going until 1978. Below is a map that Jack Kirby made of part of the world after the Great Disaster.
Balladeer's Blog 
You should see the animated DC Showcase of Kamandi. It’s how I discovered the obscure character and realized how much potential he has.
Thanks for the info! It’s good to hear they gave him some exposure in their animated works!