Gorilla Grodd

History

Deep in the heart of Africa is a city hidden by mountains and illusion. Where it now stands, a meteor (or a spacecraft, depending on which account you read) crashed during the 19th century, its rays imbuing a gorilla tribe with hyper-intelligence and telepathy. There they now live, in an advanced society using science far beyond our own.

On an exploratory mission, their leader Solovar was captured by humans. Rather than reveal the existence of Gorilla City, he played dumb and allowed himself to be taken to a Central City circus. Grodd came after him, but not for rescue; his intent was to steal Solovar’s secret for controlling others through force of mind. He succeeded, but ran afoul of the Flash for the first time. His plan to create an army of his fellow gorillas and take over the world was foiled.

Since then, Grodd has spent most of his time imprisoned in Gorilla City, breaking out only when he has a plan ready. Often he has gone to Central City, hoping to eliminate the Flash before he could interfere with his plans. At times, he has led a political faction within Gorilla City, sometimes even becoming the dominant force.

One of Grodd’s widest-ranging schemes was to arrange Solovar’s assassination and manipulate Gorilla City into war against humanity. In the course of this, Grodd absorbed too much neural energy from his fellow apes, leaving him with the intelligence of a normal ape (Martian Manhunter Annual #2, 1999). He has since recovered, and a failed attempt to set up a base in Florida led to his capture and incarceration in Iron Heights. Despite recovering his intelligence and force of mind, Grodd has become more savage with each attack. Grodd led a massive breakout from Iron Heights. In the process he broke Hunter Zolomon's back, leading to the creation of Zoom.

Grodd was one of the villains sent to planet Salvation. After savagely killing  Monsieur Mallah and the Brain he is kicked of a cliff by the Joker. He survives, and helps Lex Luthor set up the teleporter back to Earth.

DC Animated

Grodd attempted to destroy Gorilla City. He invented a device that would allow him to control humans and used the device to get into the Nuclear Research Lab. Once in the Nuclear Research Lab, Grodd orders the scientist and military officers there to launch the nuclear bombs at Gorilla City. Some of the members of the Justice League Unlimited then go to Gorilla City to stop the nuclear bombs from exploding while the Flash and the other heroes go to the Nuclear Research Lab to find Grodd and stop him from wreaking havoc. Grodd is eventually defeated and later imprisoned Grodd in a cage in Gorilla City.

Grodd eventually escapes and forms s secret villainous society which includes Parasite, Killer Frost, Giganta and the Shade. Grodd also tells the Shade that he had sent robots to spy on the Justice League Unlimited. Grodd then assembles his team and escorts the villains to an isolated island which is heavily guarded. The villains easily breaks into the premises and enters a small underground chamber. The chamber is completely empty and the villains finds four tanks of radiations. Grodd opens the tanks and large amounts of mud begin to appear. The mud begins to regenerate and turns into Clayface. Grodd convinces Clayface to join the secret society and Clayface agrees to join. Grodd then orders the secret society to break into a factory to lure the Justice League to the factory. The Justice League had been encountering problems of their own and were badly beaten by the villains. The Justice League were unable to work together and soon the Justice League separates. Grodd wants to take down the Justice League members one by one and lures Batman himself is captured by Clayface. The remaining Justice League members then decide to put away their differences and try to work together to stop the villains put fails to defeat the villains and instead are captured by the villains. Martian Manhunter escapes and follows Grodd as Clayface. Grodd then takes the Justice League members to a American football pitch surrounded by people. He then tells the audience that he would kill the Justice League right in front of them. Martian Manhunter frees the Justice League and later defeats the secret society.

Lex Luthor escapes from prison and is taken by The Key to Grodd's secret hideout. Grodd then tells Lex that he had assembled all of the super villains and plans on an another assault on the Justice League Unlimited. Lex originally refuses to join but changes his mind when Grodd shows him a fragment of Brainiac's technology. Lex teams up with The Key and Dr. Polaris to steal the Spear of Longinus from Blackhawk Island. Lex steals the spear and finds out that he had been tricked by Grodd.

Grodd then orders Lex to augment the powers and abilities of the super villains. Grodd then tells the super villains about an ancient old legend which is about a young Viking prince called Prince John who fell madly in love with a Valkyrie and later Odin found out. Odin then agrees that if Prince John would die heroically he would allow him and his love to be together again. Odin was a cruel god and gifted him with incredible invulnerability to harm. Grodd wants Prince John's dead body in order to reverse the secret of his invulnerability. The super villains eventually fails and Grodd is betrayed by Lex. Lex Luthor then imprisons him in a lab and wants Grodd to tell him about Brainiac's fragments.

Grodd later is freed by Tala and gathers his own villainous supporters. Grodd's henchmen then battles Lex's gang. Grodd then tries to hypnotize Lex but Lex reflects the hypnotize wave back onto Grodd himself. Lex then takes Grodd into the air room and opens the gate and Grodd is sucked into space. Grodd is then presumed dead.

Episode Appearances