Grendel (comics)
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- For the monster from the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, see Grendel.
Grendel is a long-running series of comic books originally created by author Matt Wagner. First published by Comico, the property has now passed to Dark Horse. Originally a noir comic concerning a criminal mastermind, it has evolved into, in Wagner's words, a study of the nature of aggression.
The first Grendel was Hunter Rose, a youthful genius who wrote novels by day and ran a criminal empire by night. He first appeared in in 1982 in the anthology Comico Primer, followed by a three-issue black and white miniseries in 1983, and his complete story was reworked and told in Grendel:Devil by the Deed, serialised as a backup story in Wagner's series Mage and since collected. Wagner returns to Hunter Rose from time to time, such as in the two Batman-Grendel crossovers, and occasional miniseries of short stories.
There followed an ongoing series, which lasted 40 issues. It was written by Wagner and drawn by a variety of artists, including the Pander Brothers, Bernie Mireault, Tim Sale, John K. Snyder III and others. It began with a story set in the near future, with Hunter's granddaughter Christine Spar taking on the identity of Grendel to pursue a mission of revenge, but ultimately being consumed by it. The identity passed briefly, and tragically, to her deluded boyfriend Brian Li Sung. After a brief return to stories of Hunter Rose, Wagner then spun the series further into the future, with the Grendel identity affecting a a variety of people, and ultimately a whole society.
The publishing rights were tied up for several years after Comico's bankruptcy, but Grendel resurfaced at Dark Horse Comics.
After a ten part series, Grendel:War Child, following on from the end of the previous series, Dark Horse launched Grendel Tales, stories set in the world established by Wagner, created by other writers and artists, including Darko Macan and Edvin Biukovic. The story has also continued in novel form, written by Greg Rucka.
Publishing History
The early stories
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Comico Primer #2 (1982) contained the first Grendel story, introducing debonair master-criminal Hunter Rose and his nemesis, Argent the wolf. Grendel soon got his own black and white title, which lasted 3 issues. Wagner considers these stories a "rough draft".
Devil by the Deed
As a backup story in his other series, Mage (1984-1986), Wagner reworked and retold Hunter Rose's story in its entirety. It was collected by Comico in 1986. A new edition, recoloured by Bernie Mireault, was published by Dark Horse in 1993.
The story begins with an extraordinarily gifted boy, his name only given as Eddie. Because victory in his endeavors came so easily to him, it all seemed meaningless. In despair, he threw a world-championship fencing match, and began a torrid affair with Jocasta Rose, a fellow fencer. When Jocasta died, Eddie left behind his former life and took on a new persona - or rather two. He became Hunter Rose, successful novelist and socialite, and Grendel, elegant costumed assassin and crime boss. He was hunted relentlessly by Argent, a man-wolf cursed with a thirst for violence, working for the police in an effort to turn his curse to good.
Hunter adopted a child, Stacy Palumbo, the daughter of a slain mobster, who was also befriended by Argent. But when Stacy discovered Hunter was Grendel she sold him out to the wolf. The two antagonists met on the roof of a Masonic temple; the battle left Argent paralysed, and Grendel unmasked and dead.
Grendel - the series
The ongoing Grendel series was published by Comico from 1986 to 1990, with Wagner as writer collaborating with a a variety of artists.
Devil's Legacy
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The first twelve issues, written and coloured by Wagner and drawn by Arnold and Jacob Pander, were set in the near future and told the story of Stacy Palumbo's daughter, Christine Spar. When her son, Anson, was kidnapped by a Kabuki dancer (and vampire) called Tujiro, Christine took on the identity of Grendel in her quest to rescue and/or avenge him. As she became more and more consumed by the Grendel identity her actions became more and more violent, and attracted the attention of the police, in particular Captain Wiggins, a chic, flamboyant New York detective with a cybernetic eye that also functioned as a lie detector. Wiggins enlisted the aid of Grendel's old arch-enemy Argent. Eventually Christine and Argent fought, to both their deaths.
A collected edition was published by Comico in 1988. Dark Horse re-published Devil's Legacy, recoloured by Jeromy Cox, as a 12-issue miniseries in 2000 and a collected edition in 2002.
The Devil Inside
Issues 13-15 were written by Wagner, drawn by Bernie Mireault, and coloured by Wagner, Mireault and Joe Matt. The story followed directly on from Devil's Legacy.
Brian Li Sung, the stage manager with the Tujiro's Kabuki group, had met and romanced Christine Spar during her time as Grendel. After her death Captain Wiggins hounded him in the hopes of recovering Christine's journals. Brian became more and more confused and irrational, believing "Grendel" was telling him to take action. He made himself a Grendel costume and attempted to murder Wiggins, but the attempt was clumsy and Wiggins shot him dead.
A collected edition was published by Comico in 1990. It was republished as a miniseries by Dark Horse in 2001 and a collected edition in 2004.
Devil Tracks and Devil Eyes
When Bernie Mireault asked Wagner if Grendel could ever inhabit a crowd, Wagner was inspired to re-imagine the whole series. Starting with #16, he broke from the "next person puts on the mask" pattern he was establishing.
The retired Captain Wiggins, decades later, was prevailed upon to write something about Grendel, as he was the last person alive to have been involved. Not wishing to dredge up old ghosts, Wiggins elected to tell stories concerning Hunter Rose, the only Grendel he had never met. Issues 16-19 featured two of his stories. One centers around rather ordinary police Lt. Lewis Polk who investigates a diamond smuggling affair supposedly engineered by Grendel. The other is an expanded story on informant Tommy Nuncio, who was briefly mentioned in Devil by the Deed.
Devil Tracks appeared in Grendel #16-17; Devil Eyes appeared in Grendel #18-19. Both were written and drawn by Wagner. Dark Horse republished them as a miniseries, Grendel Classics, in 1995, and collected them as Grendel: Devil Tales in 1999.
The incubation years
The next four issues contained short, one-off stories, each taking place further into the future, beginning with Wiggins following the success of his Grendel novels. He had become wealthy and famous, but the vision in his cybernetic eye was becoming distorted. Everyone appeared as grotesque caricatures, even his new young wife. Doctors put it down to the stress of his newfound celebrity, but what Wiggins was seeing out of his lie-detector eye was the true ugliness of the sycophants that now surrounded him: their greed, shallowness and desire to use him for his fame and wealth. All of this came to a climax when Wiggins, pushed over the edge by his spoiled wife's incessant nagging, murdered her in a brief fit of liberating rage, before calmly waiting for the police to come to arrest him.
The actions of Christine Spar and Wiggins' books had made Grendel a household name. The following three issues became more experimental, depicting the growth of the concept of Grendel from pop-culture villain to synonym for Satan, against a background of political upheaval, social breakdown, nuclear war and environmental catastrophe. These four stories ran in Grendel #20-23, and were written by Wagner and drawn by Hannibal King and Tim Sale.
God and the Devil
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The storyline resumed in the 26th century, when much of the world was contaminated. America had fragmented into a number of corporate "systems" dominated by a corrupt Catholic Church, now based in "Vatican Ouest" in Colorado and led by Pope Innocent XLII. Innocent was bleeding the systems dry to build a huge, ostentatious tower.
Orion Assante, a corporate auditor and wealthy aristocrat, tried to work within the system to stem the Church's financial corruption, but his efforts were upstaged by the acts of a lone anti-Church terrorist, blasphemously dressed as Grendel. This was Eppy Thatcher, an insane factory worker fuelled by a designer drug called "Grendel" and convinced God hated him. To combat him, the Church established a second Inquisition, and hired Pellon Cross, head of the mercenary Confederacy Of Police (COP) to provide security. Innocent, in reality the vampire Tujiro, used Cross to retrieve the materials needed to complete the weapon he was building at the top of his tower - a weapon designed to block out the sun. As an afterthought, he turned Cross into a vampire.
Assante, driven to desperate measures by the death of his sisters/lovers, led a small private army to destroy the "sun-gun". At the same time Pellon Cross, who had escaped Tujiro's clutches and turned a number of his fellow COPs, led an army of vampires against the Vatican, and Grendel also staged an attack. The Vatican was destroyed before the sun-gun could be activated. Tujiro and Grendel apparently perished in the conflagration.
God and the Devil, written by Wagner, drawn by John K. Snyder III and Jay Geldhof and coloured by Joe Matt, ran in Grendel #24-33. It was republished as a 10 issue miniseries, recoloured by Jeromy Cox, by Dark Horse in 2003.
Devil's Reign
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The evil at its heart exposed, the corrupt church collapsed, and much of society with it. A community of vampires, led by Pellon Cross, established itself in Vegas. Orion Assante, using his corporate connections and private wealth, gradually restored order with an army and a broadcasting network both called "Orion's Sword". In securing its borders, the newly united North America absorbed South and Central America and Australia, presenting these conquests as corporate mergers. However the other world powers, including China, Japan and Africa, were alarmed.
On a state visit to Africa, the world's only nuclear power, Orion's wife Sherri Caniff was abducted by an African nationalist faction. Suspecting African government involvement, Orion sent forces to simultaneously seize Africa's nuclear silos and free Sherri. Now in control of Africa, Orion discovered that the instigator of the kidnap plot was in fact Japan. A state of cold war developed, with corresponding military build-up. The unauthorised conquests of territories in Asia by a renegade general brought Orion's Sword to the borders of China. The formerly aloof superpower reacted by allying itself with Japan, and global war resulted.
The war did not go well for Orion. His forces were overstretched and suffered many reverses. In the midst of this, Sherri Caniff died of cancer.
Orion had long been nicknamed "Grendel" for his role in bringing down the church, but he had now come to believe he was actually possessed by the devil. He disappeared. In an effort to understand his condition he tracked down Eppy Thatcher, still alive and living in the sewers beneath Vegas. Interrogating Eppy, Orion had a brainwave. Adapting the technology of Tujiro's sun-gun, he developed a terrible new weapon, the Sun-Disk, with which he devastated Japan. China surrendered, and Orion was now ruler of the world. Embracing his originally derogatory nickname, he declared himself Orion I, the first Grendel-Khan. His troops became known as "Grendels", and to be a Grendel became an honourable, high-status position in society. Grendel had, in effect, conquered the world.
Devil's Reign, written by Wagner, drawn by Sale and coloured by Mireault, ran in Grendel #34-40, bringing the series to a close. It was republished as a 7 issue miniseries, recoloured by Matt Hollingsworth, by Dark Horse in 2004.
Silverback
In 1989 Silverback, a three issue miniseries written by Wagner and William Messner-Loebs and drawn by Messner-Loebs and John Peck, told the story of Argent's origin in a tale based on Native American mythology.
War Child
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As Devil's Reign came to a close, Wagner thought of an idea for a new storyline, which was intended to run as Grendel #41-50, after a brief publishing hiatus. Before that could happen, though, Comico went bankrupt. Finally, after Wagner regained the publishing rights, Grendel: War Child saw print in 1992 as a 10 issue miniseries from Dark Horse, written by Wagner, drawn by Patrick McEown and coloured by Mireault. A collected edition was published in 1994.
Ten years after the death of Orion I, his son Jupiter was kidnapped from his home/prison at a base in the Dakota Black Hills by a lone Grendel in full-body black body armour, known as Grendel-Prime (although none of the characters in the story call him that). The regent, Orion's widow Laurel Kennedy, sent the empire's elite Red Devils after the renegade Grendel and his hostage, further neglecting and alienating her daughter Crystal in the process.
Jupiter and the Grendel fled through wastelands and the wreckage of cities, across the ocean, and into the jungles of Africa. Along the way, they encountered not only the Red Devils but also bandits, mutants, pirates, dangerous wildlife, and other Grendels (both friend and foe). In the OPEC wastes, Grendel and Jupiter were captured by a band of rebels opposed to the misrule of Laurel Kennedy. Grendel-Prime was disassembled and revealed as a solar-powered cyborg created by Orion I to protect Jupiter from political manipulators until he was old enough to assume the throne of the Grendel-Khan.
Jupiter was abducted from the rebel base by a group of vampires who took him back to their lair in Siberia. The rebels and their charismatic leader, Azif a-Barouk, accompanied Grendel-Prime to rescue the boy, and Grendel-Prime managed to slay the vampires' lord in the process - who turned out to be none other than Orion Assante's old foe, Pellon Cross.
Laurel Kennedy's rule was undermined by the lack of an heir, so she tried to arrange a suitable dynastic marriage for her daughter, Crystal. But Crystal, who had begun an affair with her green-mohawked guard, a Grendel named Susan Veraghen, escaped the Black Hills complex and fled into the wilderness. Laurel became increasingly irrational, and effective rule of the empire passed to her minister, Abner Heath.
Ten years passed. Laurel Kennedy had been quietly displaced and imprisoned by Abner Heath, who took on the role of world leader. In attempting to hold the empire together Heath wanted to learn how to activate the Sun-Disc, Orion's most formidable weapon, but was met with continual failure. But during a televised worldwide broadcast Jupiter - now a young man - and Grendel-Prime made their move. Grendel-Prime and his team captured the Imperial palace, and Jupiter raided the Black Hills complex, encountering a wasted and frail Laurel Kennedy. It turned out that the missing component of the Sun-Disk was contained within the body of Grendel-Prime. He activated the weapon and destroyed the government's broadcasting satellites, enabling Jupiter to take over the airwaves and announce his succession. After Jupiter's coronation, Grendel-Prime took his leave of Jupiter and disappeared off into the wastelands.
Batman/Grendel I
A two part Batman/Grendel crossover, Devil's Riddle and Devil's Masque, was written and drawn by Wagner and coloured by Matt at the time of the Comico series, but was delayed by Comico's bankruptcy. It was eventually published by DC in 1993. Hunter Rose came to Gotham City to carry out an audacious crime and pit his wits against the city's protector.
Grendel Tales
Grendel Tales, an irregular series of stories by other writers and artists set in the world Wagner had created, was intended to follow the original Comic series. In fact, Grendel #40 had contained a short story by Steven T. Seagle and Ho Che Anderson. But Comico's bankruptcy had scuppered that plan. Grendel Tales finally began in 1993, published by Dark Horse as a series of miniseries.
- Four Devils, One Hell by James Robinson and Teddy Kristiansen (1993)
- Devil's Hammer by Rob Walton (1994)
- The Devil in Our Midst by Steven T. Seagle and Paul Grist (1994)
- Devils and Deaths by Darko Macan and Edvin Biukovic (1994)
- Homecoming by Patrick McEown (1994)
- Devil's Choices by Darko Macan and Edvin Biukovic (1995)
- The Devil May Care by Terry Laban and Peter Doherty (1995)
- The Devil's Apprentice by Jeffrey Lang and Steve Lieber (1997)
Devil Quest
Wagner wrote and painted a series of short stories as backups in Grendel Tales, starting in 1994 and collected in 1995. Set several centuries after War Child, it featured the new Khan's attempts to find Grendel-Prime. The cyborg, disillusioned by the decadence of the world, was attempting by a bloody experiment/ritual to contact the soul of Hunter Rose. At the conclusion of the experiment he disappeared, only to reappear, badly damaged, some distance away.
Batman/Grendel II
This tied in with the second two-part Batman crossover, Devil's Bones and Devil's Dance. A museum in Gotham was holding an exhibition of famous murderers, including as its prize exhibit the bones of Hunter Rose. Grendel-Prime's experiment had thrown him back in time, and he reappeared in the museum, drawn by the "true skull". With the aid of a kidnapped Waynetech engineer he built a device intended to send him back to his own time, but also to kill thousands in a blood sacrifice intended to contact Hunter Rose's soul. Batman managed to prevent him carrying out the sacrifice before he was hurled back to the future, badly damaged in an explosion.
Black, White and Red
Wagner returned to Hunter Rose in 1998 with a four issue miniseries, Grendel: Black, White and Red, featuring short stories drawn by an array of artists. As the title suggests, the stories were drawn in black and white with red spot-colour. A second series, Grendel: Red, White and Black, followed in 2002. Some of the artists included D'Israeli, Duncan Fegredo, David Mack, Mike Allred, Teddy Kristiansen, Chris Sprouse, Jill Thompson, Kelley Jones, Andi Watson, Ashley Wood and Michael Zulli.
Devil Child
In 1999 a two-part series, Grendel: Devil Child, written by Diana Schutz and drawn by Tim Sale, told the harrowing story of Stacy Palumbo and the birth of her daughter, Christine Spar.
Past Prime
In 2000, Grendel: Past Prime, a novel written by Greg Rucka with illustrations by Wagner, was published, following the adventures of Grendel-Prime and Susan Veraghen after the accession of Jupiter I.
External links
- Grendel Zone on darkhorse.com (http://darkhorse.com/zones/grendel/)
- The Grendel FAQ (http://www.hytti.uku.fi/~vaisala/GRENDEL/faqgrend.htm)
- Ninth Art reviews Grendel (http://www.ninthart.com/display.php?article=145)