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The Justice League 2022 Annual features an unusual comment that gives a definitive link between the origins of two of DC’s zombies.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Justice League 2022 Annual #1, on sale now from DC Comics.
The DC Universe is filled with wild and weird occurrences and coincidences. After more than eighty years of history and thousands of characters, it can be hard to see which ones intersect and which don’t. Some characters may even be the perfect opposites and it wouldn’t even come to mind until someone decided to point it out. That’s essentially what happened in the Justice League’s latest adventure, as one of DC’s newest characters discovered the link between two of its oldest.
Some strange time anomalies took place in the Justice League 2022 Annual #1 (by Brian Michael Bendis, Sanford Greene, Matt Herms, and Josh Reed). This chronal crisis saw the League split up, with Aquaman, Green Arrow and Black Canary joined by Jon Kent’s Superman on a visit to Gotham’s other infamous prison, Blackgate. The newest Man of Steel used his x-ray vision to look ahead and the League expected him to see the undead villain Solomon Grundy. Although that wasn’t who was there, Jon let slip an interesting detail that links Grundy with a seemingly unconnected DC hero.
According to Superman, Grundy is made up of “plant stuff” and, when asked to elaborate, he explained that Grundy is made up of the same “plant stuff” as Swamp Thing. It’s surprising that the League didn’t know that and, what’s even more surprising, is that this hasn’t been a bigger thing until now.
The connection makes total sense. Swamp Thing and Solomon Grundy basically have the exact same origin. Both were people killed in swamps and brought back to life by the mysterious forces of nature that lived within their final resting places. Only subtle differences in their origins changed the result. There has been a connection made between the two in the past, briefly, with Grundy once being referred to as a potential Earth Elemental just like Swamp Thing. The only reason he wasn’t one was that he was corrupted by something called the Grey, the opposite of the Green. The Green is the source of Swamp Thing’s powers and connects the hero to all plant life. The Grey, on the other hand, is the source of fungal life on Earth and seeks to consume where it can.
If it wasn’t for the Grey, would Solomon Grundy have become a hero like Swamp Thing? It’s possible. He could even have become the first Swamp Thing, as Cyrus Gold’s death predates the more recent demise of Alec Holland by a century. As he is now, Grundy has no idea who he once was as Cyrus Gold. Although there are claims that Gold was a horrific criminal in his own right, there are conflicting tales that paint him as simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Swamp Thing, on the other hand, is fully aware of Alec Holland and the life he lived when he was human. The Green didn’t just resurrect him, it made him a part of it and able to communicate with all plant life across the planet. Thanks to the Grey, Grundy is completely cut off from all life, even his own.
Despite being made from the same stuff, Solomon Grundy and Swamp Thing are truly polar opposites. Swamp Thing is an embodiment of life and has an awareness of himself and everything around him. Whereas Solomon Grundy is a horrifying zombie. He’s the dead reanimated and completely disconnected from life, both in terms of his previous life and the life that resurrected him. That makes it all the more surprising to realize that their origins are exactly the same, to the point that they’re made from the same stuff.
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