Gorilla Grodd is one of the Flash’s oldest and most deadly villains. There are two origins for him in the main DC Universe. The first says that he was a normal gorilla before an alien spaceship crash-landed in the jungle and awoke sentience and psychic powers in him. The second goes that he is the prince of the sentient ape homeland, Gorilla City, and all of their abilities stem from the Speed Force. Over the years about everyone who has carried the Flash mantle has battled the dastardly ape, and he just made his debut in the Absolute Universe in the cutest way possible.
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After a scuffle with the Absolute version of the Rogues, Wally runs away, and the new Captain Cold decides it is time to unleash their secret weapon. He tells his team to get Grodd, which the others question the sanity of, but ultimately comply. Their heavily-armored truck opens to reveal the most adorable little supervillain of all time.
Instead of an eight foot tall, hulking, intimidating gorilla, Grodd is a little green monkey. His scalp comes apart and stretches up, resembling a crown of sorts, which could be an homage to his mainline universe’s role as prince and king of Gorilla City. Whatever the reason, it also exposes the top of his brain, which obviously hints to his psychic abilities. This Grodd doesn’t look or seem like the power-mad monster his counterpart is, instead he just scratches his head and looks confused about what’s going on. Likely because he’s not usually let out of his cage.
What Does This Redesign Mean for Grodd?
This redesign has major implications for our lovable psionic ape. For one, considering he’s a monkey and not a gorilla, he can’t exactly go by Gorilla Grodd in this universe, so he’ll likely be sticking with just Grodd. And much like our soon to be Flash and potentially the Rogues, it seems like Grodd was given his abilities as a result of the experiments done at Fort Fox, the military base Wally’s dad oversees. Grodd was even potentially experimented on by Dr. Barry Allen himself.
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Clearly, Fort Fox is in the business of making superpowered beings on some level. In fact, in the first issue of Absolute Flash we saw various glass orbs of some kind that housed other primates, some with attachments on their heads or their heads slightly opened like Grodd’s. In fact, we saw our first look at Grodd in that issue as he scared Wally, though we didn’t know it at the time. Grodd appears to be Fort Fox’s first or most controllable success in making telepathic and telekinetic primates.
And of course, it is very important to note that Grodd is green specifically. As we have not heard about him anywhere else in the Absolute Universe yet, this new color scheme could point to a connection with the superhero and close friend to Wally West, Beast Boy. As Beast Boy is green and has the ability to transform into animals, it could very well be possible that his origin will be in some way connected to Grodd’s moving forward. Maybe it will be revealed that he was a secret project of Fort Fox’s, or he may wind up infused with some blood from Grodd or another of the green experiment apes. It could simply be a reference to him, but it could just as well be a preparation to introduce him in later stories. They both served as members of the Teen Titans and Titans, after all.
What is the New Grodd’s Place in the Absolute Universe?
With as cute of a design as they’ve given him, and how his introduction paints him as a very innocent looking little guy, it seems unlikely that Grodd will stand as a major villain for the Absolute Flash for very long. In fact, in the flash-forward at the end of the first issue, we see Grodd and Wally communicating telepathically, and they seem cordial and curious with each other. Another screen shows an army of green apes invading a burning city, one clad in very familiar looking armor, most likely representing Grodd’s main political adversary in the main universe, Solovar. It’s possible that we will see Flash and Grodd team up to stand against the evil army of sentient green apes. Instead of a villain, the new Grodd could very well be a mascot and sidekick for the Flash, and with how cute and marketable he is and how the story seems to be shaping up, that is very likely.
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