Leave a comment

Happy 500th post, Nev! :D k9feline March 13 2011, 15:27:11 UTC

It's hilarious comparing your reaction to "Accio fist" to Esther Inglis-Arkell's in 4th Letter. She was like, "Accio fist? Is that like, some kind of HP ref?" While you are over the moon gushing (as was I) over the fact that it's TOTALLY an HP ref! :D

But my favorite line was "But there's no way we'd make it across the Grundy fields..."

Heh. Grundy fields. As in Solomon Grundy, probably the single most popular villain from the Golden Age of DC Comics who wasn't a foe of either Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. He was a foe of the original Green Lanter, Alan Scott (who IMHO is a Helluva lot more likeable and interesting than Hal Jordan).

As the story goes, in 1894 some guy named Cyrus Gold was murdered in Slaughter Swamp and his body was left to decay there. Then 50 years later, on a Monday in 1944, because...well, just because, Gold's body transformed into a semi-intelligent, chalk-white, super-storng, well nigh invincible (including to GL's ring), rampaging giant (not Godzilla-giant, more Goliath-giant). He first encountered some crooks (hence, why he's a criminal) and told them he had no name but knew he was born on a Monday. This led the crooks to name him Solomon Grundy after a now-obscure nursury rhyme that began, "Solomon Grundy, born on Monday." (Google it, it does exist).

He's made numerous appearances in the decades since then, including as a regular villain in the 1970s Saturday Morning Cartoon Challenge of the Super Friends, which means millions of people who were little kids at the time (like yours truly) are aware of him even if they never picked up a comic book.

There wasn't much of an explanation at the time for how exactly a 50 year old corpse became Grundy. Many writers since then have tried their own "Secret Origin" for Grundy and none of them have stuck. So it was hilarious to me to see this casual ref to "the Grundy fields" as a possibility as to where Grundy came from, made by a character who might know, but doesn't really care.

Hope my little history lesson didn't bore you. Anyways, hilarious issue, may be the funniest one yet. HP and Golden Age Comic ref FTW!

Reply


Leave a comment

Up