Siskoid and Bass’ coverage of DC Comics Presents continues with issue #8 (April 1979) by Steve Englehart and Murphy Anderson, starring Superman and the Swamp Thing! It’s “The Sixty Deaths of Solomon Grundy!”.
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Steve Englehart? Are you sure this wasn’t written by Bob Haney? There’s a lot of weirdness and out of character stuff in this issue.
There is one cross and characters that came to mind swamp thing the cartoon version (you’ll see why in a minute.) teams up with the toxic crusaders and sgt Kabuki man . from a group of aliens who want to alter the planet thou pollution to be like there home planet killing the earthings only the swamp thing , the toxic crusaders and sgt kabuki man can stop or the would be doomed also the aliens look like duke nukem from Captain Planet except the males are green and females are purple. The males wear Hawaiian shirts and swim trunks and have breads in different styles
The females all wear pink jump suits with skulls on them .
Ah, so this story is why Murphy Anderson drew the Solomon Grundy page in Who’s Who!
I first read this story in Best of DC Digest #54. I thought it was cool that Swampy lost an arm and regrew it, just like in the movie, which I had seen on HBO and VHS by that point. This story does seem like it may have suffered from some budgetary page cuts. The Super Suppository idea is hilarious and very disturbing!
But no love for Grundy? Shocking! I’ll try not to let him hear this episode, or he might be heading North for a visit!
Great chat about a bonkers issue.
I read that issue where Grundy appears on Earth 1. It seems in that time, the Superman writers were trying to add some 70s pizzazz to some old villains. Toyman (305), Bizarro (306), and Metallo (310) all get facelifts, including things like Bizarro’s cold vision switch and Metallo’s Bronze Age look.
As for this issue, I do think this idea of linking Swamp Thing and Grundy carried a bit. In Rick Veitch’s run on Swampy, Swamp Thing was trying to find some body for the Tefe Elemental Spirit to possess. I am 99% sure that Grundy was a failed attempt at creating an Earth elemental because some of the mandatory parts (fire burning the body, immersion into a swamp/bog) weren’t 100% fulfilled. But Veitch did flesh out some of the origins of prior Elementals that our Swampy met when he first learned of the Parliament of Trees (in the Moore run).
Has Bass read the much later DCCP by Moore where these two team up again? Much better story!
This issue was bonkers, and I can’t really get enough of Swamp Thing and Grundy in the sewers working together. Ish. The comment that Grundy is basically a mushroom blew my mind and made me think of the Alan Moore Swamp Thing run when he starts growing tubers and The Floronic Man eat one.
Anyway, fun recap or an issue I don’t think I would have even thought to read.