Saturday, September 14, 2013

Gorilla Grodd! (as seen in The Flash)



PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: Variously Drew Drowden, William Dawson, an anonymous derelict [So did Grodd turn into a giant ape after being struck by lightning while doused in Dumpster juice?]
Occupation: Would-Be World Conqueror [To be fair, this is the occupation of all anonymous derelicts]
Marital Status: Formerly married [You know. Before he turned into a great big stinking ape.]
Known Relatives: Baka (wife, separated) [Ha ha. I chuckled that her name was Baka.]
Group Affiliation: Secret Society of Super-Villains
Base of Operations: Gorilla City
First Appearance: FLASH #106
Height: 6'6" [So just an inch taller than The Joker!] Weight: 600 lbs.
Eyes: Gray Hair: Black [And all over.]

HISTORY
Grodd was the greatest scientific genius among the highly evolved and extraordinarily intelligent gorillas living in Gorilla City, a hidden civilization in equatorial Africa (see Gorilla City) [Okay, so I got it backwards! He's the greatest scientific ape in the world and he cashes that all in to be a human bum.], Grodd made repeated unsuccessful attempts to conquer Gorilla City and the world, most of which were thwarted by the second Flash (see Flash II). (An account alleging Grodd and the other gorillas of Gorilla City to be extraterrestrials is totally erroneous [In other words, disregard that one story by that one hack that made no fucking sense anyway.].)

Years ago, Grodd used his telepathic powers to read the mind of Solovar (see Solovar), Gorilla City's leader, and thus discovered how to control the minds of others through "force of mind." Grodd returned to Gorilla City, and psionically took control of its soldiers. Solovar enlisted the aid of the Flash, who detested Grodd [What did Grodd ever do to Barry Allen to deserve such hostility?]. Later, Grodd apparently lost his new power [By ingesting some tainted fruit? By pissing off the Gorilla Gods? Through sheer laziness and sniffing his fingers too much?].

Still later, Grodd used an evolution accelerator to transform himself into a human being [Do I have to list all the things that don't make sense about an "evolution accelerator?" How about just the big ones? How would the accelerator know the outside forces working on the species that would help form it to better survive? How about the fact individual species don't actually evolve? You need birth after birth after birth to effect the change and that overall change is determined not by what the species wants to become but what is best to survive the environment around it? But I bet the big dumb ape simply evolved into a human, right?!]. Calling himself Drew Drowden [I suppose the name is all the explanation that nerdy Gorilla Grodd evolved into a nerdy human?], Grodd found a means to give himself tremendous mind-over-matter powers [Again, a little lacking in the details.]. Upon reverting to gorilla form, Grodd lost those powers and was again defeated by the Flash.

Unable to escape his Gorilla City cell physically, Grodd killed his own body and projected his mind into the body of a human named William Dawson. Dawson's released mental essence began wandering the cosmos. Eventually, Dawson's body turned into a duplicate of Grodd's original gorilla form [Fucking typical.]. Sometime later, Grodd somehow regained his power to control the minds of others and his mind-over-matter powers [Somehow? Probably an editorial snafu.], and could use all these powers in his gorilla form.

Dawson's mental essence returned to Earth and transformed an anonymous derelict into a highly evolved human form, into which Dawson's mind projected itself. Calling himself Psykon, Dawson used the great psionic powers he had acquired to battle Grodd. Grodd forced an exchange of minds with Psykon, but Grodd's own psionic powers were too weak to maintain Psykn's physical form, and Dawson, now in Grodd's body, used his fading mental powers to cloud Grodd's mind and to turn Grodd's body back into his own human form.

Grodd has since regained his full intelligence and mental powers and has psionically transformed himself back into his gorilla form. He is currently imprisoned in Gorilla City [This might be the most confusing character in the old DC Universe. I think maybe it was Grodd that was the reason for the Crisis on Infinite Earths. "Hey? Does anybody know if Grodd is currently a gorilla?" "I think there is a gorilla named Grodd but the mind of Grodd is in some guy named Dawson!" "But isn't Dawson currently a bum that looks like a Gorilla?" "Fuck it. Start the whole thing over."].

POWERS & WEAPONS
In addition to his natural telepathic ability, Grodd possesses extraordinary "force of mind" powers. These enable him to mentally control and transform matter, to levitate immense objects, to project powerful mental force beams, to control the minds of others, and to transfer his own mind into another body, among other feats. Grodd's mind is so powerful that it can transform the human bodies into which he has projected his consciousness into duplicates of his original gorilla body.

Like other members of his species, Grodd possesses colossal physical strength that is far greater than that of either a human or an ordinary gorilla.

Grodd is a scientific genius who has mastered Gorilla City's advanced technology and created many incredible inventions of his own.

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