Powers
Tracking: The Man-Ape can track prey with Remarkable ability.
Body Resistance: Manape's hide can resistant the impact of small arms fire and physical damage with Typical ability.
Talents
Martial Arts A and C, Acrobatics, Thrown and Sharp Weapons
Contacts
As the leader of the White Gorilla cult, he may draw on assistance from cultists
History
M'Baku was one of the greatest warriors of the African nation Wakanda, second only to T'Challa, the Black Panther himself. While the Panther, king of the Wakanda, was on leave from his royal duties to serve the Avengers in America, the ambitious M'Baku plotted to usurp the throne. The Wakanda culture had evolved from a hunter-warrior society and was traditionally ruled by its greatest warrior. The Black Panther had outlawed the rival White Gorilla cult from Wakanda while the Panther cult was dominant. M'Baku flouted T'Challa's edicts and revived the White Gorilla cult, personally stalking and killing one of the rare white gorillas living in the jungles near Wakanda. Bathing in the gorilla's blood and eating the gorilla's flesh mystically conferred its great strength upon M'Baku.
When the Black Panther returned to Wakanda with the hero team Avengers, M'Baku, calling himself the Man-Ape, openly challenged the Panther's right to rule. M'Baku deplored T'Challa's technological revitalization of Wakanda and sought to have all technology outlawed so the nation could return to its natural primitivism. After a protracted battle, the Man-Ape bested the Panther. However, when he bound T'Challa to the giant statue of a panther and tried to topple it upon his enemy, the statue instead crumbled, burying M'Baku.
The Black Panther, believing the Man-Ape had been crushed, returned to New York with the Avengers. But M'Baku's chief supporter N'gamo revived the rebel. M'Baku followed the Panther to New York. There the Man-Ape allied himself with the Grim Reaper and his Lethal Legion, a short-lived team of Avengers' foes including the Living Laser, the original Power Man, and the Swordsman. The Man-Ape kidnapped Monica Lynne, the Black Panther's American girlfriend, and lured the Panther into captivity. When the rest of the Avengers came to the Panther's rescue, it was, in the end, Captain America who physically bested the Man-Ape.
The Panther decreed that the Man-Ape could never return to Wakanda without facing the death penalty. Humiliated, the Man-Ape chose to wander the less civilized parts of the world, performing mercenary work to survive and keeping a low profile. He was eventually contacted again by the Grim Reaper, who was trying to assemble a new Lethal Legion to exact revenge upon the Avengers. The Man-Ape served as one of the Grim Reaper's henchmen until the Reaper's racist attitudes prompted the Man-Ape (and fellow Legionnaire Black Talon) to abandon the Reaper's cause.
Man-Ape was invited to join the most recent version of the villain team Masters of Evil, but soon after, the Master's ultimate plans were thwarted by the hero team Thunderbolts.
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