Saturday, February 7, 2009

Faces of Evil: Solomon Grundy #1

I'm not sure how the writing was split up between Scott Kolins and Geoff Johns but this wasn't as good as a normal Johns comic. It wasn't awful, and it did acknowledge the many iterations of Solomon Grundy, but it wasn't tremendous either. I'm curious how Grundy became the Hulk like he was at the end of this issue. I think I'm most used to him in that angry undead persona, the one in the first summary panel fighting GL. I never was ok with the kind Grundy in Starman or the scheming one in JLA, I think it weakens the character having so many different versions running around.

I'm also annoyed that this is essentially issue 1 of a new mini-series featuring Grundy as he tries to break free from his curse. I guess that curse is that he is constantly reborn as wildly different personalities? I actually could buy in to a series starring GL, Grundy, and Phantom Stranger, but I'd want to know that those heroes actually appear in every issue. I'm just not interested enough in Grundy to read an extended story delving into his origin.

Kolins' art is as fantastic as always. He's one of my favorite artists, and I loved seeing his stuff here. The attack on the shelter worker and the police officers was brutal and I loved the shot of Grundy running away followed by his encounter with the truck. Overall, the art was great and the story was average, going too far into a character I'm just not that interested in. What lowers the grade is that this was a preview issue billed as a one shot.

Average

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