DC's Absolute Universe has built its reputation on breaking the heroes and villains it reimagines, and its newest casualty is one of the Flash's oldest enemies.
The death lands in Absolute Flash #17, due in September 2026 from writer Jeff Lemire and artist Haining. As with everything in the Absolute line, the Grodd of this world is not quite the Gorilla Grodd longtime readers know.
This continuity splits the character in two. There is a younger, gentler Grodd, a telepathic primate raised as a test subject who has become an ally to Wally West, and there is his father, the original Gorilla Grodd, a far darker figure whose hatred of humanity is matched only by a telepathic reach powerful enough to subdue an entire crowd.
It is the elder Grodd who meets his end. After the younger Grodd is spared at the urging of Wally West and Linda, the Trickster steps in and kills the father outright a single issue later, a cold and sudden execution that fits the Absolute Universe's appetite for turning familiar names into genuine horror.
The move is of a piece with everything the imprint has done, from its unsettling reinvention of Solomon Grundy to its stripped-down, crueler takes on DC's biggest icons. Death here is rarely permanent in spirit, but it is almost always brutal.
And in Grodd's case, the timing is pointed. Even as the comic writes him out, DC Studios is writing him in. Co-CEO Peter Safran has confirmed a Gorilla Grodd series is in the works for HBO, with filming expected to begin this year and Jimmy Tatro attached to the role.
It is a strange kind of send-off: dead on the page, and only just being born on screen.
