ALL-AMERICAN COMICS #61 (1944)
by Alfred Bester & Paul Reinman
Green Lantern was a bit disappointing in his fight with Vandal Savage; let’s see if he can redeem himself with the first appearance of Solomon Grundy.
The cover is a good start.
We begin with a couple of crooks stumbling into Slaughter Swamp (!!!), where they accidentally witness a zombie rising from the swamp.
The zombie doesn’t remember his name but recalls he was born on a Monday (or knows that today is Monday? WTF!?) so he gets the name “Solomon Grundy” from the nursery rhyme.
I already like him.
Grundy is not a giant like on the cover, but he’s pretty damn big.
To be fair to the cops, it’s not like there were a ton of zombie movies at the time.
Green Lantern and *sigh* his sidekick Doiby show up to stop the robbery. Very weird to see Green Lantern using his fists instead of, you know, his ring.
Grundy is not impressed.
That Green Lantern’s ring didn’t work on Solomon Grundy is weird, since it’s supposed to work on anything except wood.
The fact that Grundy had a ring belonging to a famous dead gangster is going to be important for the plot, but why is it newsworthy!?
Solomon Grundy is kind of awesome.
Round two! Time for Green Lantern… to get his ass handed to him a second time.
Great job, guys.
With Green Lantern knocked out, this looks like a job for Doiby Dickles! SOMEHOW.
Once Green Lantern wakes up, he realizes what happened and runs to save Doiby… WITHOUT HIS RING.
So he fights Grundy hand-to-hand, throwing him into an incoming train!!!
That gets rid of Grundy (???), but get ready for an AMAZING leap of logic.
WOW. I mean… wow. Even by Golden Age standards that makes no sense whatsoever!!!
And so we end with Green Lantern wondering if he’s ever going to meet Grundy again.
Historical significance: 8/10
Easily one of the most enduring Golden Age supervillains that doesn’t originate from Superman or Batman comics. Even if he’s little more of a footnote for Green Lantern.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
That is a “we ran out of space to give the explanation so the hero figures out everything in the span of two panels” if I ever saw one.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
The atmosphere is fantastic and Grundy is a great villain. Unfortunately he’s utterly wasted on a throwaway story! Green Lantern himself is immensely boring, the story doesn’t seem to have any idea what to do with his powers, and of course his final leap of logic is absurd.
How close is this to the modern character? 10/10
Solomon Grundy is not big on consistency, but he’s typically A) undead B) dumb C) a somewhat tragic figure. For all its flaws, this comic nails all three.
Despite originating as a Green Lantern villain, Solomon Grundy actually spent the better part of the Golden Age fighting the Justice Society.
Being a prominent JSA villain allowed him to have multiple appearances in the Silver Age, especially with all the crossovers with the Justice League.
There was also a Earth-1 version of Grundy, a sort of clone grown out of parts left behind by the original.
Showing up in the Super Friends cartoon certainly helped his staying power.
He’s one of those characters who seem to have become MORE popular post-Crisis when compared to the Golden and Silver Age.
Solomon Grundy tends to show up all over the place… when you need a big team of villains or monsters he’s almost guaranteed to be there. His powers are also vague enough to allow him to fit anywhere, whether it’s fighting Superman or Green Arrow.
In addition to fighting the Justice League, there seems to be a push to have Grundy as a Batman villain.
I really like Solomon Grundy, but I wish Batman would just stop stealing villains from other rogues galleries. Doesn’t he have enough villains already!?
Also why is he always fighting Grundy in the sewers? If you want to have Batman fight a scary monster in the sewers, that’s what Killer Croc is for!!!