FLASH #106 (1959)
by John Broome & Carmine Infantino
With a cover like this…
…this is naturally the first appearance of Gorilla Grodd.
We’ll also cover Pied Piper shortly, but for now let’s focus on Grodd.
We begin with a strange vehicle reaching America by burrowing a tunnel all the way from Africa.
But first we have to deal with an actor famous for playing a gorilla (?????) and who is worried by the sightings of a mysterious gorilla stalking Central City.
The actor asks Barry Allen to investigate, leading to one of the most hilarious Silver Age panels:
Batman has some serious competition for “world’s greatest detective” now.
While looking for “The Gorilla” Flash notices the vehicle from the beginning, and he follows it leading to a gorgeous page of Infantino artwork.
The vehicle pulls a crazy 90 degree turn, and it’s enough to ditch Flash. Don’t think too hard why friction is a problem NOW and not every other time he runs.
The actor is having blackouts at night, so maybe HE is The Gorilla?
Nope! Turns out that The Gorilla is actually *gasp* a gorilla!!!
He’s here to track Solovar, the king of Gorilla City…
…and he uses his telepathic powers to figure out the secret of telepathy. Wait, what?
Solovar manages to escape, from his cage, using his “super-scientific senses” to track “speed-radiations”.
Sounds legit.
Solovar goes directly to Flash because he is clearly the most brilliant human on the planet.
Not only we learn The Gorilla is named Grodd, but we also discover his objective:
You just have to love the uniforms of Gorilla City’s soldiers.
0.0000000000001 nanoseconds later, the Flash wins.
I’m not kidding! I’m not skipping a single panel: this is the ENTIRE fight.
And that’s because Flash completely fried Grodd’s brain.
And so we end with Barry Allen reassuring the actor. To be perfectly honest, I had completely forgotten that plot thread.
Moving to the cover story, this time we completely skip the mystery: Pied Piper is introduced immediately, committing a crime by mind-control. And he didn’t even have to infiltrate a zoo to do that!
Uhm, hate to break it to you Pied Piper, but ANYONE can blow into a flute and send a message into the air. That’s how sound works!!!
I’m just kidding: what Pied Piper actually does is project the sound far away. You would expect it would be something heard throughout the city, but instead he projects the sound into a radio studio!
Kind of underwhelming that Pied Piper needs the radio. Isn’t that going against his own brand?
Fastest ghosting ever.
Okay Pied Piper looks absolutely ridiculous, sure, but he’s able to stop the Flash.
TWO PANELS LATER:
0.0000000000001 nanoseconds later, the Flash wins.
Let’s go through the Gorilla Grodd story first.
Historical significance: 8/10
Not only Gorilla Grodd is a pivotal villain both for Flash and for DC Comics in general, but Gorilla City has a surprising impact.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
There’s an entire city full of super-intelligent and sometimes telepathic gorillas, but what gets me are the “super-scientific senses”.
Does it stand the test of time? 6/10
There’s nothing wrong with the story, but for today’s audience it’s far too simplistic. Also the plot about the actor gets dropped surprisingly fast… there simply wasn’t enough space for anything but the barest of plots.
How close is this to the modern character?: 9/10
Honestly, how hard would it be to screw up “evil telepathic supersmart gorilla who wants to take over the world”? The only thing that prevents a perfect score is the weirdness of how his powers are shown… he can read minds but can only control minds if he reads the mind of someone who has that power? What?
What’s that? Flash actually needs 3 more pages before he catches Pied Piper?
That’s because Pied Piper can create earthquakes with sound (?????).
But Flash still stops him easily, this time for real.
And so we end with Iris forgiving Barry since he didn’t ghost her, he just went to buy the newspaper.
Wait wait wait… I can accept that all the separate run-ins between Flash and Pied Piper took less than five minutes. It’s stretching it, but it can be forgiven. But… the reporters wrote the story AND the newspaper printed it in a few minutes!?
How fast are the journalists of Central City!?!?
Thanks to the fake ending gag (sorry but I’ll never get tired of it) we’ve already done the Gorilla Grodd story, so let’s focus on Pied Piper.
Historical significance: 4/10
Pied Piper is a regular member of the rogues gallery, sure, but not exactly the most prominent one. Honestly he’s quite forgettable pre-Crisis.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
Average nonsense for the times. Even the fact that Flash is fast enough to go to Africa in less than a second in the Grodd story, while here he’s clearly not faster than sound, is just the norm.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Noticeably worse than the Gorilla Grodd story. He’s more of a threat to Flash, sure, but Pied Piper completely lacks any personality or backstory.
Ridiculous Flash feat of the day
From the Pied Piper story. Please nobody tell him that it doesn’t work like that.
How close is this to the modern character? 2/10
Like I said, the pre-Crisis Pied Piper is a classic villain but a rather forgettable one.
Which might be one of the reasons why he retired from crime after Crisis and (spoiler alert) the death of Barry Allen.
In a surprising move, however, Pied Piper actually managed to stick around and become a recurring character, befriending Wally West once he became the new Flash.
He even managed to make a bit of history in 1991, by being one of the first supervillains out of the closet (perhaps THE first? Any contenders?).
He’s still around. I don’t keep up much with Flash since the return of Barry Allen, but I assume Pied Piper is still between anti-hero and anti-villain these days.
He had a fantastic interaction with Wally West… add that to the pile of reasons for disliking the return of Barry.
