The Hulk versus Solomon Grundy!
The world breaker vs someone who is pretty much a zombie.
An almost invincible force versus a super villain who is proportionally as large as
he is.
While this hypothetical battle seems like it has a clear winner, we’re taking a closer
look at these two characters and seeing how they would fare in a battle.
Let us know who you think would win with either hashtag Solomon grundy or hashtag hulk in
the comments below!
Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Versus on top 10 nerd, the video series where we take your favourite
characters and put them in the ring with one another.
Today we’re looking at a DC villain and at a Marvel hero.
So lets start this off by looking at their origins.
Origins Let’s start off with the Hulk.
Bruce Banner first appeated in 1962 in the Incredible Hulk issue 1, created by legends
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
Part Frankenstein’s monster, part dr.
Jekyll and hyde, the scientist would get blasted with gamma radiation when he saved a teenager
who had strayed onto their testing field for an experimental detonation of a gamma bomb.
That night, Banner would transform into the Hulk – who was initially grey and only came
to be in the night time.
This would eventually change to the transformation trigger being Bruce’s temper.
Solomon Grundy on the other hand, was initially depicted as a murder victim.
Yikes.
The character was introduced in 1944 as an enemy of then Green Lantern Alan Scott.
So the first version of his origin story is that he was once a man named Cyrus Gold who
was murdered with his body being dropped off at the aptly named Slaughter Swamp near Gotham
City.
Fifty years later his corpse was reanimated, but was now a huge lumbering figure due to
his body melded with swamp matter.
He kills some criminals, steals their clothes, and ends up in a ‘hobo camp’ where, when
he’s asked his name, he can only recall that he was born on a Monday.
One of the other homeless men at the camp makes a remark about the nursery rhyme Solomon
Grundy, so that’s the name that Gold takes.
That origin is still the Earth-2 origin of the villain, with the now canon earth one
origin being that Grundy is created when the Parasite uses a crystal to metabolically quicken
the growth of residual cells left over in sewers from when the original Solomon Grundy
had crossed over from his home on Earth 2.
This makes a mega Grundy, who dukes it out with Superman often.
His new 52 origin is also different – the character was a man in 1898 who worked at
a slaughterhouse, and when his wife was raped and murdered by his foreman, he was forced
to feed her body to the crocodiles and he snapped, murdering the foreman, his coworkers
and then committed suicide.
Then something odd happened, which was unexplained, and he ended up becoming the Grundy we know
today.
Now let’s talk abilities and weaknesses.
The Hulk has a bit of a reputation for being overpowered; the character’s abilities have
grown exponentially over the years, pretty much granting him limitless abilities.
For starters though, he has a genius-level intellect as Bruce Banner, having “a mind
so brilliant it cannot be measured on any known intelligence test”.
As the Hulk, he’s got superhuman strength and durability.
Which, over the years, has evolved into a seemingly limitless potential – the angrier
he gets, the stronger he gets, and in most cases, in battle, he just gets angrier.
The cosmic entity Beyonder once analyzed him and stated that his strength has no finite
element inside.
His durability, endurance and regenerative health abilities also increase in proportion
to his temper.
He’s withstood nuclear attacks.
He’s grown stronger from radiation.
He can resist psychic control.
His future self, the Maestro, was able to recover from being blown to dust.
He’s destroyed planets.
And the one of the only viable weaknesses the character had was written out in the 70’s
– that if he was exposed to a large dose of gamma rays, he’d transform back into
Bruce.
These days, it seems his only weakness is one that’s rather adorable – puppies.
But let’s be real – Solomon Grundy ain’t gonna bring a crate of puppies to a battle,
let alone convince that many to hang out with him.
That being said, Hulk is vulnerable to powerful magic – Doctor Strange has been known to
hold him off, and Zeus’ lightening has also proven to wound him.
Adamantium has previously cut through his flesh, even though he still regenerates, and
in Old Man Logan, he eats Wolverine who later regenerates from inside his body and tears
him apart.
The power cosmic has also taken a toll on him too.
Moving on to Solomon Grundy!
Grundy has superhuman strength and stamina said to rival that of Superman’s, although
this has varied wildly over the years.
During the Long Halloween, Batman was able to defeat him.
Grundy is indestructible and immortal due to the elemental energy that gives him his
pseudo-life.
He’s invulnerable to magical and energy attacks and most physical attacks, and fire
and low temperatures don’t really affect him.
He has a powerful healing ability.
And in addition to that, he also has a resistance to Alan Scott’s Green Lantern power ring,
which is due to him being partial plant elemental and has plant-essence.
So how would a fight go down between these two?
Well, it’s a no brainer.
Even if Solomon Grundy has strength equally that of Superman’s, which the Hulk pretty
much equals at his base level, the angrier he gets, the more power he has.
It’s only a matter of time before Grundy is over powered and defeated.
And the winner?
The Hulk.
At the end of the day, Solomon Grundy can be destroyed, even though he has typically
returned to the DC universe despite being killed.
Unlike the Hulk, whose regenerative powers work much quicker.
So, do you agree with our pick?
Does poor Solomon deserve another chance?
Let us know your thoughts in those comments below!
If you dug this video, hit that like button and hey, if you’re new, subscribe!
We’ve also got a ton of other versus videos you can check out in the playlist that’s
currently flashing on your screen.
In the meantime, thanks for watching!
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
Catch you all in the next one.