Standing 13 inches tall and sporting a removable chest piece that reveals his internal organs, DC Collectibles' $90 Arkham City Solomon Grundy figure is the most hideous rendition of the character yet.
With DC's resident mutant zombie set to make a return in the portable installment of Batman: Arkham Origins, now is the perfect time for DC to release the latest action figure in its line of video game tie-in figures.
For those of you unfamiliar with the character, Solomon Grundy in his various incarnations has pretty much always been a criminal brought back from the dead and bulked up by swamp matter, hence his huge size and strange coloring. He gets his name from the famous nursery rhyme, which goes as follows:
Solomon Grundy / Born on a Monday / Cause that's my fun day / My I don't have to run day
As with many heroes and villains reimagined for the Arkham video game series, whether or not this is a good rendition of Solomon Grundy is up to the viewer. I personally prefer the more old-school large grey man with no shoes in a suit from the cartoons of my childhood, or maybe the more recent animated renditions of him as the white Hulk.
But this isn't about the classic look. This is about the Arkham City look.
Let's see.
Yes, that's the man who pummeled my Batman, officer.
The one problem I have with the figure is the odd chest mechanism. Those aren't very good stitches, you see, and with a little bit of tugging and pulling, we get this:
Now I am no doctor, but this man has been dead for more than 100 years. There is nothing red inside him. Everything in this chest cavity should be as grey as lunch meat that's been in the sun too long. There should also be a smell feature, and it should be horrible.
Oh well, nothing a little pain can't fix.
Overall, this is a fine rendition of one of the most massive characters in the Arkham universe. He's certainly to scale with the rest of the line.
Of course collectors will snap him up as an integral part of their collections. Fans of the game might be inclined as well, as his scene was a complete jerk and he deserves to be punched in the face in-person for it.
That leaves hardcore Solomon Grundy fans. Are there hardcore Solomon Grundy fans? I hardly ever see him cosplayed. There's never been a Grundy-centric DC Comics event. He's kind of just a big dead guy that looks vaguely like the Hulk, with half the personality.
I'm sure there's a fan out there who is way into Grundy. He has t-shirts custom made. He has every appearance of Solomon Grundy from the comics, and every cartoon appearance on DVD. He knows the nursery rhyme has nothing to do with the Bangles. He might like this one. If he did, he could get it here.