As Gothamites patiently wait for season 4 of FOX's Gotham, those who have followed the mean streets of Batman's city will know that things are about to get a lot darker for the Dark Knight, with the arrival of villains like Solomon Grundy. Season 3 may have seen some notable villain departures, but fans also saw the cryptic tease that someone would be coming back from the dead as another famous face from DC's rogue's gallery, e.g. Mr. Grundy.

The show's action-packed season 3 finale saw the loyal Butch Gilzean gunned down and left for dead. However, with Butch's body taken to the morgue, the show dropped a bombshell to reveal that his real name was Cyrus Gold. For those up on their comic book history, you may know that Gold was the name of the nursery rhyme-obsessed villain Solomon Grundy.

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Speaking to Comic Book, executive producer John Stephens revealed what's next for Butch and how closely his Grundy origin story will relate to DC's comic books:

“Well, in many ways, his entrance is kind of quite canonical because he is gonna rise again in the Slaughter Swamp. I think when he first comes in, we hit this mixture that I really like of both of the comical and the terrifying because we envisioned him, in some ways, as very much like a Frankenstein monster at the very top, someone who is very simple and is shaped by his environment."

First introduced in 1944, Gold was a wealthy man who was murdered and left to rot in Slaughter Swap, then resurrected under the moniker of Solomon Grundy. The character became DC's very own bloodthirsty zombie and has been a staple of the comics since. Stereotypically depicted as a supervillain, a reinvented Grundy has taken on more of an antihero role for the DCAU. While Stephens refused to reveal whether Solomon would be siding with the heroes or the villain of Gotham, he teased that maybe even Butch himself doesn't know who to pick:

 “As he comes in, he could almost kind of go either direction, like he could be good or he could be malicious and violent. Unfortunately, Gotham tends to turn people towards the latter.”

Stephens has already told us that "new" Gilzean will be teaming up with The Riddler at some point this year, however, fans will have to wait and see how this unfolds during his story arc. Butch has so far served as a faithful secondary character to the likes of Fish Mooney and Barbara Kean, but with season 4 on the horizon, Gilzean's demise may give him the chance to start again:

“And so you actually watch this sort of blank slate, who's incredibly strong and powerful and has a difficulty dying, become more and more violent as he goes forward. But also it asks the question too of if there's any of Butch or Cyrus Gold actually left in there, or is it only the creature Solomon Grundy that we're watching?”

Alongside the emergence of a young Caped Crusader and Jim Gordon at odds with Bruce Wayne, season 4 is also said to draw from the Year One and The Long Halloween arcs from the pages of Batman's comic book history. Given that Grundy features prominently in The Long Halloween, it makes sense that the character comes shambling out of the swap for season 4. Fans of Gotham can certainly expect to see a lot more of Drew Powell's bumbling bodyguard in the next run of episodes.

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Gotham season 4 begins with 'Pax Penguina' on Thursday, September 21st on FOX.

Source: Comic Book