Gorilla Grodd

Gorilla Grodd is a supervillain appearing in DC Comics, primarily as an enemy of The Flash. He debuted in Flash v.1 #106 (April–May 1959), and was created by writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino.

Fictional character biography
Gorilla Grodd is a hyper-intelligent telepathic gorilla with the power to control the minds of others. At one time he was nothing more than an average ape, but after an alien spacecraft (retconned from a radioactive meteor, the same one that empowered Hector Hammond) crashes in his African home, Grodd and his troupe are imbued with super-intelligence by the ship's pilot. Grodd and fellow gorilla Solovar also develop telepathic and telekinetic powers. Taking the alien as their leader, the gorillas construct a super advanced home named Gorilla City. The gorillas live in peace until their home is discovered by prying explorers. Grodd forces one of the explorers to kill the alien, and takes over Gorilla City, planning to conquer the world next. Solovar telepathically contacts Barry Allen to warn him of the evil gorilla's plans, and Grodd is defeated. The villain manages return again and again to plague the Flash and his allies.. He has since recovered, and a failed attempt to set up a base in Florida leads to his capture and incarceration in Iron Heights.

Grodd is also seen in the Superman/Batman arc "Public Enemies" (Superman/Batman #1 – #7) controlling numerous villains and heroes in order to take down Superman and Batman for the prize of 1 billion dollars offered by then U.S. President Lex Luthor. Despite his use of foes such as Mongul, Solomon Grundy, Lady Shiva, and Nightshade, Superman and Batman are able to deduce the mind behind the attacks, and quickly dispose of Grodd.

He is responsible for crippling the Flash's friend Hunter Zolomon, resulting in his transformation into the villainous Zoom when Hunter tries to change the event so it never happened. Hunter would often think about how Grodd used him as a plaything in that fight while talking it over with the Flash.

Grodd attacks the International Ultramarine Corps, ravaging. He ravaged the African city of Kinshasa, literally eating many hostages, so the Corps would take their floating city to it. Grodd grounds their city and neutralizes many of their members. During the course of this incident, Beryl informs the team that Grodd ranks number three on the latest "Global Most Wanted". He has made no less than eighteen attempts to eliminate all traces of humanity from the face of the earth.

One of the attempts occurs in Son of Ambush Bug #5 (November 1986). Grodd had traveled to the Late Cretaceous "to wipe out all traces of human evolution from the time stream" (despite the fact that, at this point in time, the ancestors of humanity would be his own ancestors as well). His plans are apparently shattered by a combination of the sudden appearance of Titano, and Ambush Bug waking from a nightmare. Whether or not Grodd's plan is a failure or not is disputable: Ambush Bug awakes to "Anchor-Ape Clark Kong".

In the 1991 Angel and the Ape limited series, Grodd is revealed as the grandfather of Angel's partner Sam Simeon. This is conflict with Martian Manhunter Annual #2 (1999), which states that Sam Simeon is Grodd’s brother.

In the Justice League of America Wedding Special, Gorilla Grodd is among the villains seen as members of the Injustice League Unlimited.

In "JLA Classified #1-3, DC, 3-issue story arc, 2004, Grodd and his forces attack the Ultramarine Corps. Grodd has most of the citizens they are protecting killed. He personally eats some of the humans.

In Salvation Run #3, Grodd teams up with the Joker to gather their own faction of the exiled supervillains. In #4, he kills Monsieur Mallah and The Brain, only to be knocked off a cliff by the Joker. He is seen alive in the final issue, attempting to deliver payback to the Joker.

In Justice League of America #21, Grodd is shown among the members of Libra's new Secret Society and placed in the Inner Circle. In Final Crisis #4, Gorilla Grodd was among the high-ranked superheroes and supervillains that were turned into Justifiers. In Final Crisis: Resist, he is sent to apprehend Snapper Carr and Cheetah, but fails.

Powers and abilities
Grodd's psionic abilities allow him to place other beings under his mental control. Grodd can also project telekinetic force beams, telekinetically transmute matter, and transfer his consciousness into other bodies. He possesses great physical strength far exceeding that of an ordinary gorilla. He is a scientific genius who has mastered Gorilla City's advanced technology and who has created many incredible inventions of his own.

The Antimatter Universe Version
Gorilla Grodd has a counterpart on the post-Crisis antimatter universe's Earth called General Grodd who is a member of the Justice Underground. He is a freedom fighter from a militaristic ape nation.

Television

 * On the ABC animated series Challenge of the Super Friends, Gorilla Grodd is one of two Flash villains (along with Captain Cold) that appear as members of Lex Luthor's Legion of Doom. In one episode, Grodd hatches a plot to take control of Gorilla City and use its citizens to conquer the world. He later appeared in the Super Friends short episodes "Revenge of Doom", and "Two Gleeks Are Deadlier Than One". It should be noted that this version of Grodd, though highly intelligent, never displays telepathic abilities. He was voiced by Stanley Ralph Ross.


 * Gorilla Grodd was mentioned in passing by the character Nightshade in the episode titled "Deadly Nightshade" of the live action Flash TV series from the early 90's. He was a crime boss in the 50's who worked out of Central City's Helltown, and adversary of Nightshade.


 * Gorilla Grodd is a recurring villain in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, and is voiced by Powers Boothe. Generally, he is referred to as just "Grodd", although Flash mentions him as "Gorilla Grodd" in the episode "Comfort and Joy"; Dr. Fate does the same in the episode "The Great Brain Robbery". In his first appearance, "The Brave and the Bold", Grodd is a fugitive from the secretive Gorilla City, a spurned would-be tyrant who vows vengeance on his fellow primates. Maintaining an e-mail relationship with Central City scientist Dr. Sarah Corwin, he comes to Central City to cloak the metropolis in a similar shield as Gorilla City's. This provides him a hidden base from which to launch a nuclear assault against Gorilla City, while he controls the populace of Central City with his mind-control helmet. While the League hurries to stop the bombs, Flash, Green Lantern, and Solovar (re-imagined as the head of Gorilla City Security rather than its ruler) rush to defeat Grodd himself. Grodd becomes incapacitated when he tries to use the mind-control helmet on Flash, not knowing that Flash had switched around various wires. Grodd's return in "Secret Society" showcases a different side of the villain. No longer focused on Gorilla City, Grodd becomes an opponent to the League as a whole. With his loyal follower Giganta, he recruits Killer Frost, Parasite, Shade, Sinestro, and Clayface to make a sort of anti-League dubbed "the Secret Society". Revealed in this episode is that Grodd's accident with his mind-control helmet has given him mental powers, which he utilizes in this story as a subtle type of tampering with the League's emotions. Having watched the League via secret cameras for weeks, Grodd manipulates their feelings until the Leaguers start lashing out at each other and end up walking away from the team. Having separated them, Grodd tries to capture each Leaguer and invades a football halftime show to do away with the heroes publicly, only to be foiled by J'onn J'onzz, who frees his teammates. The Society battles the League one last time, but fail to beat them. Of note in these episodes is that Grodd's romantic preferences become clear: he has a taste for human females, like Corwin or the artificially-made-human Giganta. In the fifth season of Justice League Unlimited, Grodd turns up as the leader of an expanded Secret Society. As he describes it, the new Secret Society is a sort of co-op for supervillains, banded together to help each other's villainy in the face of the expanded League. After having the Secret Society seek out various valuable artifacts, Grodd reveals his master plan: to turn every human on the planet into apes. The plan, however, is thwarted by the Justice League. Subsequently, an unimpressed Lex Luthor shoots Grodd and usurps his position as the new leader of the Secret Society. Obsessed with reclaiming the godlike power he briefly tasted when merged with the now-destroyed Brainiac, Luthor keeps Grodd prisoner in the Secret Society's headquarters in the hopes that he will reveal how to reconstitute the living supercomputer from the last remaining fragment. With the discovery that Brainiac had a base in deep space that was subsequently destroyed (see "Twilight of the Gods") Luthor has the Secret Society refit the headquarters for space travel, promising them a place of leadership in the new order with himself as absolute ruler. Because of Luthor's heavy-handed leadership and romantic disinterest, the spurned Tala eventually releases Grodd, who then arranges a mutiny with many other villains. Luthor uses his intellect and resourcefulness to counter his adversaries' powers. Grodd and Luthor finally find themselves alone together, and engage in fisticuffs. Grodd thoroughly dominates the fight and, after pummeling Luthor into helplessness, attempts to use his mind-control ability on him. However, Luthor had anticipated this and wore a device that turns Grodd's power back on him, giving Luthor control of Grodd. Luthor forces him to step into an airlock after first humiliating him by making him bow down and acknowledge Luthor as his master. Grodd is released into space to an unknown fate, all the while screaming threats.


 * Gorilla Grodd appears in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Terror on Dinosaur Island" voiced by John DiMaggio. He and his ape followers plotted to devolve the human race with an E-Ray from their headquarters on Dinosaur Island. They ran into conflicts with Batman and Plastic Man. With Batman devolved to an ape, Plastic Man helps the Ape-Batman fight Gorilla Grodd and his servants. When the E-Ray is activated, it evolved the humans (Batman put the E-Ray on reverse when Gorilla Grodd wasn't looking) back to their natural state. It even evolved Gorilla Grodd to a human who ended up incarcerated at Iron Heights in the end planning his revenge. He was later shown in "Day of the Dark Knight" escaping Iron Heights (still in human form) and attempting to attack Batman, but stopped by Green Arrow. Gorilla Grodd has an heroic conterpart in a parallel universe in "Deep Cover for Batman!". The original Grodd, now a gorilla again, joins Owlman and other villains in "Game Over for Owlman!".

Film

 * A robotic duplicate of Gorilla Grodd appears in the animated film, Justice League: The New Frontier. The robot is used by the government to trap the Flash so they could study him.

Video games

 * Gorilla Grodd is featured in the video game Justice League Heroes voiced by Neil Kaplan. A robot double of Brainiac frees Gorilla Grodd from his prison so he can take revenge on Gorilla City for imprisoning him.


 * Gorilla Grodd is set to appear in the upcoming video game DC Universe Online.