Glorious Godfrey

Glorious Godfrey
Glorious Godfrey from Forever People #7, artist Jack Kirby
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Forever People (vol. 1) #3, (June 1971)
Created by	Jack Kirby (writer & artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Glorious Godfrey
Place of origin	Apokolips
Team affiliations	Darkseid's Elite
Notable aliases	G. Gordon Godfrey, Reverend G. Godfrey Goode, Godfrey
Abilities	Powers of persuasion

Glorious Godfrey is a DC Comics villain created by Jack Kirby, originally as part of The Fourth World series of comic books in the early 1970s. He first appeared in Forever People vol. 1 #3 (June 1971).^[1]

Fictional character biography

Godfrey has a sister named Amazing Grace who is also a member of Darkseid's Elite. Both siblings have similar powers. Whereas Amazing Grace's speciality is manipulation, Godfrey's is persuasion.^[1]

Godfrey remained a relatively unimportant character until 1986 (he had a total of 3 appearances over a decade and a half), when Legends (the first crossover since the Crisis on Infinite Earths) was published. In it, Darkseid attempts to deprive the world of its heroes, not only so that they would be ineffective against Darkseid, but also in the hope that the people of Earth would more willingly surrender to his rule.

G. Gordon Godfrey,
artist John Byrne.

The first phase of the plan consists simply of creating immense amounts of collateral damage by sending creatures to Earth to fight the superheroes. The public begins to resent the heroes in their midst, and therefore Darkseid starts the second phase of his plan by sending the master manipulator Glorious Godfrey to Earth.

Assuming the identity of G. Gordon Godfrey (a play on the name G. Gordon Liddy), he starts a hate-campaign toward the superheroes that proves to be very effective, riling the public, ultimately leading to a presidential decision to outlaw any super-heroic activity. The final phase of the plan consists of the Apokoliptian warhounds, cybernetic creatures that are bonded to human hosts, for which Godfrey is able to find an ample amount of 'volunteers' among his hypnotized public. He leads his charges to Washington D.C., only to be confronted by a cadre of assembled heroes.^[1]

The heroes are able to defeat the Warhounds and separate them from their human hosts, and Godfrey makes one last ploy by putting on the helmet of Doctor Fate in hopes of obtaining his awesome might. Instead, the helmet mindwipes Godfrey, leaving him nothing more than an empty shell that is sent to Belle Reve sanitarium, where he would later be broken out of by the Female Furies under the order of Darkseid.

Godfrey has subsequently made brief appearances among assemblages of all the Apokoliptian Gods.

Final Crisis

In Final Crisis #1, an African-American Reverend Godfrey Good (who physically resembles the Reverend Al Sharpton) appears on a TV news report, decrying the situation in Blüdhaven and the lack of government aid and assistance in dealing with the crisis in the ruined city. In-between Final Crisis #1 and #2, Good is captured and transformed into a host for the essence of Glorious Godfrey. Godfrey taunts Dan Turpin and Batman, as Batman is imprisoned and Turpin transformed into the final host body for Darkseid.

In Final Crisis #4, Godfrey is present when Darkseid takes control over Turpin's body, upon Turpin learning of Mr. Miracle (who represented the spirit of freedom) was shot. However, in Final Crisis #5, Darkseid responds to his minion's impending death (presumably due to the fact that Godfrey's host body was not modified to successfully contain Godfrey's dark essence) by watching them die in front of him.

In other media

Television

Justice League

A different version of Glorious Godfrey appeared in the Justice League animated series. This version of Godfrey had blonde hair, rather than the comic version's orange. In the two part episode "Eclipsed". "Glorious" G. Gordon Godfrey (voiced by Enrico Colantoni) is the host of a sensationalist talk show which he uses to attack the Justice League's credibility. It is not revealed if he is connected with Darkseid or has his powers of persuasion; it appears that he is a normal human. After the Justice League successfully prevented the destruction of the sun, his sponsors dropped him and the network moved his show to four o'clock in the morning. At one point on his talk show, Godfrey holds up a book called The Innocent Seduced and refers to its author, Dr. Frederic. This is a reference to Seduction of the Innocent, an actual book written by Fredric Wertham which had great influence during the early 1950s and accused comic books of corrupting minors.

Smallville

Godfrey appears on the tenth and final season of Smallville played by actor Michael Daingerfield. Godfrey, who is a radio personality against vigilantes and illegal aliens, is heard on the radio in the episode "Shield" and appears in the following episode "Supergirl". He ends up as one of Darkseid's host bodies, and through him, he becomes a famous author for a best-selling anti-heroes book, trying to break the heroes' spirit. Despite apparently being freed from Darkseid after the confrontation with The Blur and Kara Zor-El, on the episode "Abandoned," it is shown that he becomes one of a trinity of minion-prophets for Darkseid, the Lord of Apokolips, with Granny Goodness and Desaad. In the series finale When Apokolips descended to Earth, he, Granny Goodness and Desaad had meeting with the corrupted Oliver Queen. They gave him a Gold K ring so he could remove Clark's powers, leaving no one to stop Darkseid, but, unknown to them, Clark managed to remove Oliver's Omega symbol. As the final moments of Apopkolips' rapture approached, Oliver appeared to the prophets, now cleaned of their influence. Godfrey was shocked by this and the three tried to kill him though before they could, Oliver used his arrows to destroy them all.

External links

• Glorious Godfrey at the Guide to the DC Universe

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} Wallace, Dan (2008), "Glorious Godfrey", in Dougall, Alastair, The DC Comics Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 138, ISBN 0-7566-4119-5, OCLC 213309017