Don’t Mess With Hitman Monkey

Marvel’s newest character is the deadliest simian on Earth

You know what the comic book industry is sorely lacking these days? Monkeys with guns.

Answering our prayers is Marvel’s newest sensation, Hitman Monkey, a highly-trained Japanese macaque assassin who would give the Punisher a run for his gun-wielding money. (And he even sports a snazzy suit and red tie.)

He’ll tangle with hot mercenary du jour Deadpool in issue #19 in February, but you can check out an exclusive origin, uh, tale tomorrow on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited from writer Daniel Way and artist Dalibor Talijic with a cover by Frank Cho. (Part two arrives online in January.)

The whole thing sounds like a joke. And that’s exactly how it started. Editor Axel Alonso tells GCD that the inspiration for the character came from a random photo of a monkey “drowning” a guy that had been captioned “Hitman Monkey finds no joy in his job.” Says Alonso, “It cracked the f--- out of me. I just thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. And I thought, ‘Man, you know, that’d make a great comic book!’”

Deadpool scribe Way enthusiastically agreed and ran with it, helping create a unique new Marvel Universe character and compelling antagonist for the notorious Merc With a Mouth. “Hitman Monkey is a killer of killers. The legend lives and grows inside this gun-for-hire community. Part of the problem in the Deadpool arc, where Hitman Monkey shows up, is that no one else believes him, that there’s this, you know, homicidal monkey out there.”

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