A
super-villain published by
DC Comics. He first appeared
in
Flash #106.
Two versions of the Grodd's origin exist. The first
involves the falling of a mysterious meteor into the
jungles of Africa, bathing a troop of gorillas with
a strange radiation that accelerated their intelligence
to human levels and beyond. The second version tells
of a space craft, not a meteor crashing in Africa. The
craft contained an extraterrestrial, who used the
technology of the craft to give the troop of apes
increased intelligence. The two apes given the greatest
mental abilities were Solivar, the leader of the
troop and his rival, Grodd. The troop soon created a
city in the depths of the African jungle, aptly named
Gorilla City. It was an incredibly advanced city where
the apes and the extraterrestrial lived.
Eventually the city was discovered by two European
explorers who were overwhelmed by the advanced nature of
the city. The gorillas welcomed them gladly, hoping to
learn further from the humans. Unfortunately, this
occurance of European expansionism met with the same
end that others have. One of the explorers shot and
killed the alien in front of all of the gorillas, causing
the gorillas to distrust humans and to erect a force
field/cloaking device that shielded Gorilla City from
discovery. This story closely parallels the story of
the Cherokees, except that there was no Gorilla Trail
of Tears, the Cherokees didn't have a cloaking device,
and the expansionist Americans weren't secretly being
controlled by a megalomaniacal gorilla named Grodd who
wanted to cause his fellow gorillas to distrust humans.
Apart from this the stories are almost identical.
Years later, Solivar, the benevolent king of Gorilla City,
was captured by humans. Fearing his city would be discovered,
Solivar played dumb, acting like a normal gorilla and
was transported to Central City's zoo. Grodd followed
Solivar to steal his ability to control the gorillas minds
in mass, which brought Grodd into conflict with Central
City's protector, the Flash. It also called into conflict
Grodd's intelligence as he picked the time when Solivar
was on another continent to try and steal his power, rather
than doing it when he was close to home.
Grodd became a member of the Flash's Rogues gallery, trying
many times to take over the world with an army of gorillas.
He fought with not only the Flash, but also the Green Lantern,
the Justice League, and even his own grandson, Sam Simeon (the
ape of Angel and the Ape).
Grodd nearly pulled off his world conquest, turning the
human population all into apes and controlling them with
his great mental powers. He was eventually defeated, however,
by the Martian Manhunter.