Solomon Grundy

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**Cyrus Gold** later known as **Solomon Grundy**, is a Zombie super-criminal who has clashed with many heroes over the years, including Green Lantern, Superman, Batman, and the Justice League. Solomon Grundy frequently dies and resurrects in new incarnations, each of varying levels of strength and intelligence.

## Biography

### Early Life

As a child, **Cyrus Gold** lived a life of misery and hopelessness. His father, Gold Sr., had moved to Gotham City before Cyrus was born to gain fame and fortune, changing his last name to "Gold" as a sign of things to come. However, this dream of a powerful future very soon diminished, leaving the Gold family in ruin. The elder Gold was reduced to working on the docks on the city, being forced to work in horrible, unregulated working conditions. To add insult to injury, he was regularly mugged by his boss, who forced him to hand over all the gold he had, leaving the Gold family with nothing but crumbs. Hatred filled his heart, and the elder Gold began to use his family as a way to vent off the hate he felt towards his superiors.

### A Cruel Father

He regularly beat his wife, Cyrus' mother, and would abuse his son. The cruelest form of torture he implemented on the young boy was to bury him alive on his birthday; every year the boy would be buried alive in a grave, a way of teaching him that he was less than the dirt that covered him. For years the young Cyrus Gold was maltreated, coming to a head when his mother packed her belongings, kissed him goodbye and abandoned him, caring more about herself than what the monster she married might do to her son. Not long after that, Cyrus sneaked down to the docks to watch his father work. A crate hovered above his father, its weight breaking the chains and rope holding it in place. With a sickening crunch, the crate fell on top of Cyrus Gold's father, killing him instantly. The man who ran the pier merely scoffed at the incident, kicking the broken body of the older Gold into the waters below the pier.

### Deal of a Lifetime

Now Cyrus Gold, young and helpless, was all alone. Forced to survive on nothing. It was then that he swore to himself to make his own riches and power. He wouldn't die a pauper like his father did. Growing up, Cyrus was beaten up by many people and treated with as much hate as his father had given him in his youth. One day, bleeding in a slump after an encounter with a gang of savage bullies and thieves in an area known as Dugan's Alley, a girl named Pearl, whom Cyrus was close to, found him and prayed for his safety. But the curmudgeon Gold brushed her aside; he had no time or place for a God, let alone believe in the existence of one. Bleeding, in pain, and near the end of his ropes, a mysterious stranger went up to him and offered Cyrus the deal of a lifetime; he could become rich and powerful, but only if he would serve him until the day he died. Cyrus Gold shook the stranger's hand, sealing his fate forever just for the mere chance of gaining the riches his father slaved for for so long.

### Promise of Power and Wealth

Cyrus Gold soon became wealthy and powerful, by ways not very honest. He killed the men who abused him and his family when he was young, stealing their riches and becoming a veritable mobster. In an act of rage and wrath, he tracked down his long-departed mother and stabbed her to death. He then dumped her body in the waters of Slaughter Swamp, where many victims would end up as time went on, culminating with the death of Cyrus Gold himself. During this period, Cyrus wed the girl Pearl (although there are clues that suggested that Gold killed her previous husband to be with her) and the two had a little boy and little girl. Initially a happy family, Cyrus became as brash as his father, staying out late, drinking and being verbally abusive, oftentimes in front of the children. After a while of anger and abuse in the marriage, in a fit of rage, Cyrus Gold drowned Pearl.

But Cyrus' sins would come back to haunt him. A mob formed and chased him into the swamps, ready to avenge their broken families with his slaughter. Gold didn't want to die by their hands and subsequently stabbed himself through the heart, sinking into the cursed waters of Slaughter Swamp, the very place where he laid to rest a lifetime of victims and killers. But Cyrus was not yet finished with life.

### Solomon Grundy, Born on a Monday

The deal he had made for life long servitude was shattered, and so was the little humanity he had left. The swamp, filled with unknown acids and chemicals, bonded to the preserving corpse of Cyrus Gold, fusing his body through time with wood, stone and anything else that was unlucky enough to fall into the morbid soup. About fifty years after he died, an event occurred that can only be described by one word, evil!

In the dead of night, a moaning was heard. The waters rippled and parted as a hideously decayed white hand reached out. That night, from the remains of a selfish and evil man, came a hulking behemoth, one who could never remember himself. Stumbling through the marshes on newly reborn legs, the zombified creature found two criminals hiding in his swamp, the swamp his considered both his home and mother.

In a inhuman rage, it slowly and methodically killed the trespassers, then squeezed its huge frame in their clothing as best as it could. Snarling, the beast walked to a derelict homeless shelter, where, his curiosity piking, he managed to speak a few words to the vagrants staying there. He was asked about who he was and where he came from. The newly reborn monster didn't remember, in fact he didn't remember anything from his past human life. But there was one thing he did remember, he was born on a Monday. The vagrants laughed a bit, and told him that his birthday reminded them of a famous poem. That poem being the life and death of a certain **Solomon Grundy**.

## Powers and Abilities

* **Unique Physiology**: Solomon Grundy is arguable one of the strongest criminals that any vigilante has ever faced, if not one of the heaviest hitters regardless of evil or good intentions.
	+ **Energy Absorption**: Grundy has also proven to be able to absorb certain forms of energy and manipulate them at will. This ability has always been subconscious to the point of being accidental, though, but it would suggest that Grundy is even more powerful than he has the intelligence to realize.
	+ **Invulnerability**: The weird elemental energy that imbues his form with pseudo-life makes him virtually indestructible - he is impervious to bullets, fire, and extreme cold, and can survive indefinitely without food, water, or oxygen.
	+ **Resurrection**: Even when he is destroyed, he has always been reborn sooner or later. The soul of Cyrus Gold enjoys his pseudo-life through Grundy, even though Gold's whole personality is never present in Grundy's "life." Grundy's personality differs from incarnation to incarnation, but he seems to retain some memories of his experiences from one time to the next.
	+ **Superhuman Stamina**: Grundy can perform physically strenuous tasks for an indeterminate period of time before tiring.
	+ **Superhuman Strength**: Solomon Grundy possesses tremendous strength and stamina, the level of which varies with his different incarnations. Sometimes, he can be held by a group of normal humans. On other occasions, even Superman has not been able to defeat him.