Just who is Solomon Grundy?
Some of you have been asking us just recently to tell you some of the history of Solomon Grundy in DC Comics. As you know this villain makes regular appearances over the years and is firmly entrenched as part of the DC Comics mythology. I will give you a few clues below to finding him in various comics and graphic novels, without giving too much away, so you can hunt some down and really enjoy your Halloween reading.
First you may know that “Solomon Grundy” is a traditional 19th century children’s nursery rhyme and was presented by an English Shakespearean scholar. James Orchard Halliwell-Philips in 1842. The poem was meant as a riddle in which the life of Solomon Grundy appears to take place in just one single week.
Solomon Grundy,
Born on a Monday,
Christened on Tuesday,
Married on Wednesday,
Took ill on Thursday,
Grew worse on Friday,
Died on Saturday,
Buried on Sunday.
That was the end of
Solomon Grundy.
However it is soon apparent that the answer to the riddle is that each day’s events represent the so called seven ages of man.
But did you know, a fine piece of trivia we found for you to treasure, that the name “Solomon Grundy” is said to have first derived from the English food Salmagundi, which was integrated into the English language from the French in the 17th century? This is a salad, not for vegetarians, of cooked meats, lettuce, anchovies and eggs, with other condiments. The name of the salad was corrupted, particularly in the United States in the 18th century, to Solomon Gundy.
In Batman the Long Halloween DC Comics expert writer Jeph Loeb used the already well established DC villain Solomon Grundy but with a new twist on the lyrics, to include words illustrating the week’s prevailing weather rather than just about Solomon’s ‘brief’ life:
Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday,
Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday,
Married on a gray and grisly Wednesday,
Took ill on a mild and mellow Thursday,
Grew worse on a bright and breezy Friday,
Died on a gay and glorious Saturday,
Buried on a baking, blistering Sunday.
That was the end of Solomon Grundy.
The original DC Comics version of Solomon Grundy depicts him as a large, heavy, strong creature type supervillain perhaps bearing some resemblance to that old classic, Frankenstein’s monster. The sorry tale begins in the late 19th century when a wealthy merchant named Cyrus Gold is brutally murdered and his sorry body dumped in the dreadful Slaughter Swamp, near Gotham City. However some fifty years later, the submerged decayed corpse is reanimated as a huge shambling zombie-like figure merged and entangled with putrid swamp matter. Solomon by now has understandably scant memory of his past debauched life.
Gold discovers and murders two hapless escaped criminals who are hiding out in the soggy marsh and steals their, at this stage quite useful, clothes to cover his obvious embarassment at being naked. He then finds his way to a somewhat sombre hobo camp. When questioned over his name, one of the few things he can recall is that he was “born on a Monday”. One of the men at the camp recalls the nursery rhyme character Solomon Gundy, who was born on a Monday, and Gold adopts that name and the rest is DC Comics history.
Strong, vicious, and having virtually lost his mind, Solomon Grundy quickly and naturally falls into a life of terrible crime. Over the years he regularly battles Green Lantern and his fellow members of the Justice Society of America. There are run-ins with Superman including classic combats across two Earths before – or should that be after? history is changed with DC Comics pivotal Crisis on Infinite Earths.
In Batman: The Long Halloween Grundy forms a strange friendship with newly-disfigured Harvey Dent when he escapes to the sewers to plot his revenge on the ruthless crimelord Carmine Falcone.
Prior to Infinite Crisis, Solomon Grundy is manipulated by Gorilla Grodd via mind control into attacking Batman and Superman for President Luthor for the bounty of one billion dollars in Superman/Batman. In Infinite Crisis #7, Solomon Grundy is seen fighting against the Blood Pack in the Battle of Metropolis.
As if not enough, through the years the villainous Solomon Grundy has also crossed paths with Starman, Green Arrow, Doctor Fate, Hawkgirl and many more famous DC Comics characters
Solomon Grundy later appeared in The Batman animated series. Here Grundy takes the form of a zombie as created by the poorer citizens of 19th century Gotham City. They cunningly made him in order to get horrible revenge and wreak havoc on the selfish rich landowners that polluted the local lake with toxic industrial waste. This incarnation of Grundy is shown as less heavy but certainly a good deal more ghoulish than the earlier Justice League monster version. There bears a closer resemblance to an actually rotted, desiccated corpse. Being “born” in Gotham, he naturally becomes a true Batman villain of the first order.
Local Gotham City legend has it that Solomon Grundy will again arise on a Halloween night when there is a total lunar eclipse in order to take more revenge by attacking the descendants of the rich landowners; fearful Gotham City residents therefore refer to this Halloween as “Grundy’s Night”.
Lunar Eclipse 2897
Fortunately for the residents of Gotham City, although total lunar eclipses do occur on Halloween, they are not very often. The last one took place over 800 years ago, in 1175. The next will occur in 2897, 889 years from now. Let’s hope the timeless Batman will still be as vigilant as ever!
