American President Theodore Roosevelt vs. Gorilla Grodd
The Dakotas, 1885
Roosevelt found Solomon Star genuflecting at the foot of a gnarled old fir, one arm outstretched as if to prise something unseen from its boughs. The older man hung his head, nearly bolted when he heard Roosevelt’s footfalls. But all he did was let out a gasp and drop to both knees.
“Mayor?” Roosevelt whispered.
“Seth,” Star managed. “By God, it was Bullock.”
Roosevelt crouched down by the man’s side, saw the wet blade discarded in the needles before him. Saw the white hand held fast against a ruptured belly. “Said not a word to me,” Star managed. “Walked right up to me as I pissed over the weeds and–”
He crumpled then, but Roosevelt turned him by the shoulders, sat him low against the tree. Star wove his fingers together over the wound and kept his gaze high, focused on some distant point. He hummed softly to himself. No tune, but a long and quivering note. “Not a word.”
Roosevelt had risen cautiously, scanning the trees. He held the rifle low, felt a slick layer of sweat between his palm and the gun. He prodded at the fine-hilted knife on the ground with his bare toes. No burglar’s weapon. Finer even than the kit Star and Bullock would have stocked in Deadwood. Something to cherish. But surely Bullock cherished his friend Sol Star all the more. The mayor had been mistaken. They’d been laughing together, huddled about a meager fire just hours before. It was a mistake. A trick of shadows. Some thief had come upon them with a stolen blade. But why leave it with Star? And where in blazes was Seth Bullock?
“Wish I could explain it,” said Bullock. He came through the brush in his reddened long-johns. It was the casual way the man’s arms rested, crossed at his chest that frightened Roosevelt most. No tension in his shoulders. No sign of trauma to his face aside from the streaks of his partner’s blood running along his cheekbones. “Was a compulsion, is all.”
“That your knife, Bullock?” Roosevelt said, never taking his gaze from the other man’s eyes.
“He gave it to me Christmas ’79. Nice, right? True pearl.”
Behind them, Sol Star muttered the name of a girl he knew in childhood and died in a quiet tremor.
“Oh, Sol,” said Bullock, the glint of hot tears betraying his stoic expression. “It truly wasn’t my idea.”
Without lowering his arms, without even a sneer, Seth Bullock charged headlong at Roosevelt and the steady barrel of his hunting rifle. Roosevelt took a step back, pivoted right, and fired into the trees. Something took wing and flew off into the night beyond. Bullock turned and rushed at Roosevelt, ramming a head into the young man’s shoulder. His arms went limp at his side and he thrashed out with a cry more sad than aggressive. Roosevelt lifted the gun and struck Bullock in the collar bone with the butt of the weapon. Then once more into the man’s upturned ear. The man fell to the ground, then rose up with impossible speed and pounced at the knife. “No!” Bullock roared, batting at his own head with the heels of his hands. But he finally found the knife and clasped it, raising it up as if in ritual.
Roosevelt fired into his friend’s shoulder.
“Higher,” offered a voice. It came from a deep place. A low place. An old place. Roosevelt found a spot at the center of Seth Bullock’s head and fired. Seth Bullock fell back and he looked neither relaxed nor sad nor enraged.
“I didn’t want to do that,” Roosevelt said to no one in particular.
“Sure you did.” said an ape. It spoke with the same voice that had guided Roosevelt’s hand. “They called you boy. But you are a man. They called you Teddy like sweet Alice did.”
“Her name for me.”
“They slander her.”
“They were my friends.”
“They are meat.”
“What are you?”
“I am Grodd.”
“I will kill you.”
“You will try and I will open your head and devour your brain.”
“No.”
“I am already there. In your mind”
“I am stronger.”
“You are just a man.”
“I am a man and a hunter too.”
With that, the spoon was drawn.
American President Theodore Roosevelt vs. Gorilla Grodd
Who wins?
Show your work!
Find us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our RSS Feed
Some rights reserved.
I heart Gorilla Grodd.
Teddy Roosevelt will unleash his terrible pack of Teddy Bears who, while ferocious have heads filled with cotton and are impervious to Grodd’s mental attacks. While he is battling them Teddy will devestate him with a cavalry mounted sword attack. Roosevelt finishes the day drinking scotch and staring at the stuffed Grodd in the corner of his study.
That damn spoon!
Teddy once took a bullet to the chest during a speech. He finished the speech before receiving full medical care. I’d give him a fighting chance.
Roosevelt hated to be called “Teddy” so I’m sure a steady stream of psychic whispers a la “Teeeeeedyyyy” would totally poach his egg and make him first course for Grodd. Grodd for the win.
I think a member of the “Bull Mose” party wins vs a gorilla just on principle alone. I’m serious though, if you can get shot and still deliver a speech you can overcome all adversity. The rough rider wins hands down.
Would that be his favourite brain eating combat spoon ?
@Shallam Or whichever one he favors in 1885.
This is my favorite thing
ever
Oh God No!
Teddy strains against Grod until his mustache literally pops off his face, swiveling through the air like a sharpened boomerang before embedding itself in Grod’s skull. The badly wounded simian has to limp away, but in final revenge he plants a deep seated need in Roosevelt’s brain for the name Kermit. This explains both the name of TR’s second born son, but also the Soft Sock Puppet Scandal of 1909, in which a Aloysius J. Henson was banned from ever performing his “Frog-Scapades” within the the continental borders of the United States again.
Thank you for that, Paul. You just made my night. Its been a crappy day, sure, but thanks all the same.
There was then a fierce and vicious battle there upon the Dakota plains. Grodd eventually gained the upper hand, but was swayed by Roosevelt’s audacity and charisma and chose to spare him. The two became fast friends.
Grodd eventually chose to shave all his fur so that he could serve as Roosevelt’s running mate and Vice President under the alias “William Howard Taft”. Grodd himself became President and later Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, the two had a falling out over Grodd’s implementation of Roosevelt’s progressive policies. For instance, Grodd could never quite understand that humans didn’t have the necessary stomach enzymes to digest undercooked or tainted meat and thus let Roosevelt’s enforcement initiatives in the meatpacking industry go underfunded.
Later, after becoming disillusioned with American jurisprudence due to the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee, Grodd decided to return to supervillainy.
@gaffergamgee: you sir, just made my night with that comment.
@RazorEdge757 you are quite welcome
Roosevelt.
@Ohcaroline Like all tragic heroes, TR could only be beaten by himself. He chose not to run for re-election. He selected Taft as his successor. Much too late he found that Taft was not the man he thought him to be and tried to take it all back with his Bull Moose Party. During that election he fought off a bullet in the chest, but could not quite convince enough people to break from the Republican party he had helped make so popular. He cost Taft re-election, but could not quite get back on top. Damn you Grod!
Are you kidding? Grodd’s melon is headed for a wall in the Rose Room.
Unfortunately, we learned too late that Roosevelt’s brain had been replaced by the Ultra-Humanite, and that Grodd was trying to save the world…
hahahaha deadwood
@gaffergamgee @Quinn Good, good replies!
This is the bulliest of articles. Unfortunately, no beast, no matter what his brain power, can possibly best Colonel Roosevelt.