DC Studios is bananas about Superman‘s pal, Jimmy Olsen. After making his big-screen debut as The Daily Planet photojournalist in James Gunn’s Superman, Skyler Gisondo is apparently set to investigate monkey business in a planned Jimmy Olsen spinoff series on HBO Max. Gisondo is reportedly reprising his Superman role in what is being described as a crime anthology series that will feature rogues from across the DC Universe. (The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the news of spinoffs for Gisondo’s Jimmy Olsen and Edi Gathegi’s Mr. Terrific.)
The first villain of the as-yet-untitled Jimmy Olsen show will be Gorilla Grodd, according to The Insneider. Primarily a Flash villain since making his debut in the pages of 1959’s The Flash #106, the telepathic ape with psionic powers and a genius-level intellect is a would-be conqueror hailing from Gorilla City. The super-gorilla has the ability to mentally control the minds of others and usually runs afoul of Barry Allen’s Scarlet Speedster.
Gorilla Grodd has been a member of the Injustice League, the Anti-Justice League, and the Lex Luthor-led Legion of Doom, and as such, he’s waged gorilla warfare on the likes of Superman, Batman, the Wally West Flash, the Hal Jordan Green Lantern, and the various incarnations of the Justice League.
The Gunn-penned Creature Commandos hinted at an ape-calyptic possible future for the DCU when the Flash rogue made a cameo in “Chasing Squirrels,” where the clairvoyant Wonder Woman villain Circe (Anya Chalotra) showed Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) a vision of the future in which Pokolistan Princess Ilana Rostovic (Maria Bakalova) destroyed the world with Gorilla Grodd.
There’s precedent for DC big bads being linked to Jimmy Olsen: Darkseid debuted in the long-running Superman spinoff comic Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen, which also featured the first appearances of DCU hallmarks like the Fourth World and Project Cadmus. Jimmy Olsen’s title — which featured the works of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, Supergirl and Krypto co-creator Otto Binder, Action Comics and Superman artist Curt Swan, and Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby — was famous for its weird transformations of its titular character, who at times became an interdimensional imp, the stretchy Elastic Lad, a giant Turtle Man, and a “gorilla reporter” when he switched minds with — what else? — a gorilla.
Gunn previously paid homage to Grodd in Peacemaker season 1, where the “11th Street Kids” — Peacemaker (John Cena), Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), and a chainsaw-wielding John Economos (Steve Agee) — fought escaped zoo animal Charlie, a talking gorilla that hosted one of the parasitic aliens known as Butterflies.
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