Villain Profile: Solomon Grundy

Poetry. It sticks in your head. I was an English Major in college (shocking right) and one thing that I remember from Professor Armstrong’s poetry class stating that a poem, once memorized, tends to stick there and is one of the last things lost if someone develops Alzheimer’s disease. I thought he was crazy, but almost two years later I can still quote ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen almost perfectly. Two years isn’t much, but hey, it’s a start.  Now, imagine remembering a poem after death. That’s where Cyrus Gold comes into things. Let’s get to it.

He looks good for being dead for fifty years.

Cyrus Gold was a wealthy merchant in the last 19^th century. He made a few enemies while making profits, and was mysteriously murdered. His body was dumped in Slaughter Swamp, near Gotham City, where it rotted for half a century. In the late 1940s, a combination of mystic forces and a lightning storm revived Cyrus as a shambling corpse. Think a zombie if a small part of their mind survived the reanimation. Oh and he was stuffed with mud, bits of bark, and random debris you’d find in a swamp. Gold murders two escaped criminals, steals their clothes, and keeps shambling until he enters a hobo camp. The hobo’s welcome Gold, despite his pale skin and the smell of rotting flesh, and ask him his name. Being dead for fifty years caused some severe brain rot, so Cyrus Gold had no idea who he was. All he could remember that he was “born on a Monday.” One of the hobos mentions a poem, “Solomon Grundy,” that begins with the lines “Solomon Grundy, Born on a Monday,” and Gold adopts that name as his own.

Grundy demonstrated to the hobos that he was super strong and nigh invulnerable by beating the heck out of one of them and then standing in a fire. The hobos, whom were a disreputable bunch, decided to make Grundy their “boss,” and went on a crime speed. The destruction he and his gang caused caught the attention of the first Green Lantern, Alan Scott. Despite Scott’s mystic powers, Grundy proves to be a very difficult opponent, as the undead being is unkillable by most conventional means and Scott’s Green Lantern powers can’t effect Grundy. The original GL couldn’t effect wood with his ring, and Grundy’s magically reconstructed form is made of a lot of wood. At one point, Grundy tossed Scott off a balcony. Grundy assumed he’d killed the GL, and was quite pleased by the bright green light that flashed when Scott “died.” He actually started murdering his hobo-henchmen, in the hopes of seeing the light again, until one of them told Grundy to stop. Scott, as it turns out, was still alive and but hit a car on the way down. He spent a few days recovering before trying to take on the gory gray giant again. Scott finally defeats Grundy, using a train. Unfortunately, this didn’t destroy Grundy for good.

Somebody is going out on the town.
Wait, that's a noose, not a tie.

An evil scientist known as the Professor, it was the 40s they were still figuring out the name thing, found the monster’s body and revived Grundy by injecting him with concentrated chlorophyll. The revived Grundy again fought Alan Scott, who was eventually able to trap the monster in a bubble of green plasma. He remained stuck in said bubble until another freakishly powerful storm freed him. He targets Alan Scott again, but this time faces not only the GL but the entire Justice Society of America. The combined powers of the Justice Society were able to overpower the undead villain, and stranded him on the moon.

Grundy has grown to be one of the most dangerous villains of the DC Universe, menacing many heroes, including the bigwigs Batman and Superman. His immense strength and nearly indestructible body make him a challenge for even Superman to pummel. His depictions tend to vary from story to story. Some show him as a barely coherent monster, lashing out at movement like an angry amusement park T-Rex. Some stories give him a sort of Frankenstein’s Monster vibe, that he’s not all that evil but is a victim of tragic circumstances. This becomes most apparent in the Blackest Night story. In this story, Grundy has somehow reverted back into Cyrus Gold. Gold wakes up in Slaughter Swamp, and then returns to Gotham City. He’s shot and killed by police after he attacks a charity worker. In the police Morgue he transforms into Grundy again and escaped the morgue. He ends up in Gotham’s sewers, and has a brawl with its most famous resident, Killer Croc. Grundy gets the upper hand, but is exhausted from the long fight. He transforms back into Cyrus Gold. He discovers his own grave, and is visited by one of the DC Universe’s paranormal investigators Phantom Stranger. The Stranger informers Cyrus that he has a week to figure out who killed him, which will undo his curse. Why does the Stranger what that? Because he knows that “An unholy night coming, as black as the dead’s blood. And it’s best that Solomon Grundy was not around for it.” Yeah, I can understand not wanting to see a monster like Grundy as part of the Black Lantern Corps. Alan Scott is also recruited to help guide Cyrus. Needless to say, he’s less than thrilled about helping Cyrus.

During the week that Cyrus had to figure out his death, he also had to deal with the demon Etrigan, whom was trying to take him into the bowels of Hell. Gold, whom was used to his near invulnerability and immortality from being a zombie, gets killed a lot. He resurrects as Grundy, causes some damage, and then returns to Cyrus after he exhausted himself. Despite these setbacks, Cyrus did discover how he died. Turns out, Cyrus Gold killed himself. Discovering that he kind of screwed himself, he was kind of forced into Hell with Etrigan. Unfortunately, Grundy was still resurrected by a Black Lantern Ring. The now Lantern powered Grundy attacks another freakish character, Bizarro the clone of Superman. The Black Lantern Grundy hoped to use their past friendship to give him an edge on Bizarro. Bizarro was eventually able to stop Grundy by flying him into the sun, destroying Grundy and his ring. That being said, I highly doubt that Solomon Grundy will be gone for good. It’s hard to keep a good/bad Zombie down.

Yeah, totally dead. No chance CYRUS GOLD is coming back.
Hint hint, subtle hint.

Cyrus Gold had no superhuman abilities. After his death and rebirth in Suicide Swamp, he developed superhuman strength, a nearly invulnerable body, rapid regeneration for those rare times he’s actually damaged, and immortality. He’s unaffected by things like heat or energy, and is highly resistant to magic. His body took on a lot of plant matter while he rotted in the swamp, which made him largely immune to the original Green Lantern’s power ring. His intelligence varies from forgetful but still more-or-less functional, to rampaging screaming monster.  

Grundy has a creepy habit of reciting the poem upon which he took his named. “Solomon Grundy / Born on Monday / Christened on Tuesday / Married on Wednesday / Ill on Thursday / Worse on Friday / Died on Saturday / Buried on Sunday / That was the end / Of Solomon Grundy.” This simple rhyme, describing the steps of a Christian man’s life, is incredibly disturbing when uttered by the zombie Grundy.

Grundy has appeared in a number of DC media, though never against his original nemesis, or any of the Green Lantern Corps. He’s actually gone up against Batman the most, outside of the comics.

He appeared in a number of episodes in the Justice League cartoon. This version described his origin as a mobster that was killed and dumped into a mystical swap. Twenty-five years later, as opposed to fifty, he was resurrected as soulless creature, doomed to forever seek out his lost soul. Think a more morbid form of Peter Pan and his shadow. He battled the Justice League on several occasions, but never seemed to have a personal grudge against the heroes. His most ground breaking episode was “The Terror Beyond,” where he helps the Justice League and the sorcerer Doctor Fate battle an alien god called Ichthultu. While handling the crisis, he actually befriends several members of the Justice League, but specifically Hawkgirl, whom he affectionately calls Birdnose. Upon learning that Ichthultu is a devourer of souls, Grundy rushes in to destroy it, believing that he can get his soul back that way. He’s fatally wounded in the attempt, but his attack gives Hawkgirl the opportunity to finish off Ichthultu. Hawkgirl comforts Grundy in his final moments, assuring him that he’ll see his soul in the afterlife. She buries him with a headstone that simply reeds “Solomon Grundy – Born on a Monday.”

Despite his perma-death, Grundy returns in the sequel show Justice League: Unlimited. In “Wake the Dead,” a group of wannabe necromancers get their hands on an actual magic book and accidently summon a powerful demon. The said creature, born of chaos magic, escapes and fuses with Grundy’s remains. The magically enhanced Grundy goes on a rampage, easily besting many of the Justice League. He’s only stopped when Hawkgirl, whom had been in a sort of self-imposed exile for some time, returns and does her best to talk him down. Grundy submits to Hawkgirl, whom sadly does her duty and puts Grundy out of his misery.

He must kill the Bat.

We see a version of Cyrus Gold appear in the second season of Arrow. He’s introduced in the episode “State v. Queen” as the only survivor of a dangerous bio-enhancement experiment. He was injected with Mirakuru, a Japanese Super Soldier Serum, that greatly enhanced Gold’s strength, stamina and healing abilities. He’s tasked with stealing machine parts that the villainous Brother Blood need to mass produce the Mirakuru. He battles and seriously injures The Arrow in “The Scientist” as he gathers the parts. Gold is defeated in “Three Ghosts,” when the Arrow shoots a machine next to Gold, which doses the super soldier in acid, seemingly killing him. As a nod to his comic book character, Oliver and Company discover a book of nursery rhymes in Gold’s apartments while searching for him. The opening lines are recited by Oliver’s friend and partner Diggle, with Oliver himself quoting the final two lines upon Gold’s death.

Batman: Arkham City also has a version of Grundy and his background. In game, he was a monster that the villain The Penguin discovered in the basement of a building he’d bought and turned into the Iceberg Lounge. He uses Grundy as a means of getting rid of disloyal henchman and threats, like Batman. He creepily recites the Solomon Grundy poem as the player tries to defeat him. His entire background is fleshed out in some of the games extra content. Like the comics, he was a man killed in Suicide Swamp that resurrected years later. He became part of a traveling circus before being discovered by Ra’s al Ghul. Ra’s surmises that Grundy had actually fallen into a Lazarus pit, bought the creature, and experimented on him to discover more about the pits effects. He killed Grundy repeatedly, and Grundy kept getting back up. He was left in the ruins of Ra’s Wonder City, when the World’s Fair style attraction shut down, until he was rediscovered by Penguin.

Solomon Grundy is an interesting character. He was one of the firsts, if not the first, Zombie to be depicted in modern comics. Which is cool in and of itself. He’s also immensely strong, destructive, and at times very sympathetic. The fact that he’s significantly more popular and well known that the character he was originally created to battle is also an interesting little tidbit. I especially like the Justice League version of the character, whom was not only funny, but sympathetic as the story went on. It was sad to see him go at the end of “The Terror Beyond,” which made it all the more horrific to see him return in “Wake the Dead.” He’s also a nice twist on the traditional Zombie, as most of the time he’s significantly more intelligent than the usual undead monster, and has, to my knowledge, no desire to eat brains. It’s the little differences that make him memorable. He’s the undead horror, the shambling dead, the unkillable Solomon Grundy. Next time, Gone, Gone the form of Man, Rise the Demon, Etrigan!

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