Solomon Grundy #1 Review

Solomon Grundy #1

Story, Art and Cover by: Scott Kolins
Letters by: Sal Cipriano
Colors by: Michael Atiyeh

Originally a children’s nursery rhyme written in 1842 by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, Solomon Grundy represents the seven ages of man. It makes sense then that this limited series is seven issues long. I didn’t read the issue 0 that came out as part of the Face of Evil series last month, so I felt a little lost reading this issue. Regardless, I soldiered on and finished it.

The last time I read the Grundy character was when he was an intelligent zombie fighting in the pages of Justice League. He’s since reverted back to be a blabbering idiot, although who knows why other than it fits with that particular story’s needs. I actually kind of enjoyed him as an intelligent zombie, it made me curious how he got that way. I’m guessing at this point we’ll never find out.

Phantom Stranger introduces the story and tracks down Cyrus Gold (Grundy’s original human form before he was killed and turned into Grundy) along with Alan Scott. Perhaps this was referenced in 0, but miraculously the Phantom tells Gold that he has one week to find the instrument of his death and his murderer and forgive him. Well forgive me but considering they are in present day and Cyrus was killed a century or so ago how is he supposed to do that? I got a feeling they’ll clear this problem up, but it leads to more questions like why is Cyrus Gold still alive? Who is interfering and how? Why wasn’t any of this mentioned before? This book also makes a quick nod to the upcoming Blackest Night series, so does this play into that in someway or is it just a faint to keep us off track?

Eventually, he gets into a fight with Etrigan for seemingly no particular reason. I don’t mind a good fight, instead this one just feels shoe-horned into the book. I’ve never known these to characters to have any kind of personal feud beyond the usual good guy, bad guy sort of stuff. I suppose they threw him in because he’s a magic based character similar to Grundy.
The books ends with a hint of a possible Bizarro fight, but again its unclear why these two are going to fight. Maybe they’re fooling us and they’ll actually join forces, but somehow I doubt it. That could actually be fun.

I mainly bought this book because of Scott Kolins, as if it isn’t already clear that I’m not terribly familiar with the Grundy character. Kolins art does not disappoint. There are some great pages, along with the way he brought Alan Scott to life in the few panels he was featured. The coloring is also worth noting, with its dark tones and excellent use red when the fire is reflected against Etrigan’s skin.

The writing is decent. Kolins’ rhymes are fun, harkening back to the original poem, but they don’t add much to the book as a whole, or give any formidable insight into who Grundy is. Instead we’re left learning more about Cyrus in a typical back story that a lot of villains seem to be stuck with. It’s early in the series so it may be a bit unfair but I will say that the Justice League cartoon show did a great job allowing the viewer to sympathize with Grundy and I can only hope this book will do the same.
C+