That shit isn't easy, and so over the decades comics have gone through all sorts of fads and phases in an effort to change with the times. And sometimes, shit got weird.

Writing superhero comics must seem like the easiest job in the world: You take some wish fulfillment, mix it with a dash of modern mythology, and just naturally end up with a story about a guy in a colorful spray-on bodysuit who saves the world. But you try cranking one of these out every month for, say, 75 straight years.

5 At One Time, Every Comic Had to Have an Ape

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Fun fact: According to comics, in the course of Superman's life, he has A) been attacked by a gorilla multiple times, B) seen his best friend transformed into a gorilla twice, and C) been transformed into a gorilla himself.

If that seems a little odd, it's because in the 1950s and '60s DC Comics found that monkeys and/or apes would instantly boost a book's sales. Thus began DC Comics' obsession with inserting a primate into every comic, at all costs. It turns out it's actually not easy -- for example, one of the earliest was Detective Chimp, an intelligent, trained chimpanzee sleuth who helped the local sheriff solve crimes:

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He was later rebooted as a miserable bastard with an unhealthy appetite for cigarettes and hard liquor. Seriously.

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In reality, this would actually make life super easy for the suspect's defense attorney, but we digress. Riding high on Detective Chimp's success, the company then rolled out Angel and the Ape, a comedic story about a talking gorilla who was -- wait for it -- a private detective (which is completely different, you guys). DC also revised some of their old pulp heroes to better fit their new "all apes" vision, taking their jungle-trekking adventurer Congo Bill and making him a superhero that could take mental control of a giant golden ape named Congorilla.

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"Yes! I could NEVER have done this as a human being!"

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And as we mentioned, somehow Superman's friend Jimmy Olsen wound up in the body of a gorilla on two separate occasions: