When we Flashinados last gathered to celebrate the Silver Aged (as opposed to the Golden Aged, Bronze Aged and Dark Aged) Flash, the Gorilla Grodd had tweaked the mytronic beacon at the North Pole to not only remove all memory of the super gorillas from existence, but all memory of himself as well. And, as long as he was there, added a little something to doom not only Solivar, the leader of the gorillas, but the Flash in the bargain.
Both Solivar and the Flash have dreams where they battle each other, but apparently these were just practice runs and anticipation of the real thing. In the dreams, they each end up being killed by one another. Once awake, they both independently head to the North Pole so see if the mytronic beacon is the source of their nightmares. They each suspect each other of monkeying (intended) with the beam and a battle royal between the two ensues. When Grodd shows up in a flyer to check on the action, the Flash captures his ship in a super speed tornado which tears apart the flyer leaving Grodd in a tornado of white snow crystals. Solivar then uses his force of mind to freeze Grodd in a block of ice.
It’s only later when they’ve returned that they can identify Grodd and put him on ice (ha!) in a gorilla hoosegow. The key to the Flash and Solivar realizing that they were duped is that the Flash dreams in super speed, and his Grodd induced dream was “far too slow to be authentic”.
The art by Don Heck makes this one of the top five Grodd stories ever. Almost twenty years into its run, The Flash has returned to form in a big way. And it looks like the transformation isn’t over since the next issue billboard at the bottom of the page announces not only the return of the Elongated Man (the reason I have a source of the stretching serum ginkgo tree in my yard, remember?), but the return of the most formidable Flash artist of all, Carmine Infantino!
