From: [j--s--n] at [crocker.com] (Jeremy B. Holstein) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.alternative Subject: GRENDEL FAQ (v2.1) Part 1 Date: 26 Sep 1995 18:53:48 GMT Well, still not quite done, but here's the next revision. Changed sections are marked with a *. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE GRENDEL FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions list) Version 2.1 September, 1995 Compiled by Jeremy Holstein ([J--ls--i] at [crocker.com]) Please send all submissions/comments/corrections to the above address. INTRODUCTION: This list has been compiled to answer questions about Matt Wagner's Grendel that have been asked in the rec.arts.comics newsgroups. As a long time Grendel-phile, it's been a pleasure to construct this list, and to try to answer some of the questions of who and what Grendel is. I'm not sure of the all the answers myself. To that end I'm always open to comments corrections at my email address: [J--ls--i] at [crocker.com.] It should also be noted that this list covers only Matt Wagner Grendel appearances. All non-Wagner Grendels will be included in the Bibliography section, but not in the history section as the "Grendel Tales" stories add little to the chronology and can be treated as separate entities. They will only be mentioned where approriate. Thanks you, and, as always... VIVAT GRENDEL! -Jeremy Holstein ============================================================ CONTENTS: 01: What is Grendel? 02: Who is Grendel? 03: Can you provide me with some history for the character? 04: In what comics has Grendel appeared? 05: Who is Matt Wagner? 06: In what comics has Matt Wagner's work appeared? 07: Who is Argent? 08: Is Grendel a Spirit? 09: Whatever happened to [insert favorite Wagner title here]? 10: How do I get that damn Newsletter? 11: I've heard Grendel is open to submissions. How do I submit? 12: What projects are forthcoming from Matt Wagner? 13: What Grendel/Matt Wagner comics is Jeremy missing? ============================================================= 01: What is Grendel? ANSWER: Grendel is a comic created by Matt Wagner. Under the Grendel title, Wagner has published some 60 odd stories about the character. The book is highly experimental in terms of story-telling, but under Wagner's guidance has still managed to maintain a consistent quality. Wagner, a somewhat sporadic creator, has done his most work with the Grendel character to date. Currently the series is continuing under the banner "Grendel Tales" with little to no direct involvement by Wagner. However several Wagner reprints have been issued by Dark Horse, and most feature new Wagner covers. See section (05): Who is Matt Wagner? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 02: Who is Grendel? ANSWER: This is a far more difficult question to answer than 01, for there have been MANY Grendels throughout the history of the title (see 03). But all the Grendels to date have at least two things in common: 1) All the Grendels have worn the same mask, or a variation thereof. The mask is black with two large white oval eyes, and a small white circle over the nose. Running perpendicular through the ovals are two spear shapes which run the height of a head. The mask is generally attached via a set of straps, tied at the base of the skull. Later versions of the mask have dropped the circle, relying far more on the oval/spear shape displayed over top the wearer's eyes. 2) All of the Grendels have been refereed to by Wagner as "The Spirit of Aggression." Despite some argument as to whether this applies to the current situation of a Grendel in the current storyline, to date all Grendels have certainly been portrayed as aggressive people. In addition, the majority of the Grendels to date have used a weapon refereed to as a "Fork". The weapon appears as a staff, with twin parallel blades perched upon one end. Many variations of the weapon have appeared in the title. Since the "Tales" series began, Grendel has now taken on a more ritualistic and military style of identity. A Grendel is a position of honor which few can obtain. However the above two rules still apply to all the central protagonists. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 03: Can you provide me with some history for the character? ANSWER: The following is a history of the character which was originally printed as a back up for the War Child series. A summary of War Child has been included. It should be noted that since War Child has ended several "Grendel Tales" series have appeared, but as very few of them are interconnected I have chosen to exclude these stories for now. It should also be noted that while this will give you a history to enjoy Grendel in the present, it is in no means a substitute for the original comics, recommended reading all. These summarys are bare bones outlines of some very complex storylines, and they conver over 500 years of continuity. Many details and events have been excluded for brevities sake. THE LONG AND TWISTED HISTORY OF GRENDEL Part 1: Hunter Rose THE PRODIGY Somewhere in the latter part of the twentieth century, in an ordinary midwestern town, to a pair of very ordinary parents, there was born an extra-extraordinary child whose true name is known to us now only as Eddie. A genius of immeasurable depth, Eddie excelled at his every form of endeavor. At the tender age of four, he had memorized his own local phone book as well as that of the surrounding half-dozen counties. By six he could quote any line of Shakespeare, and by eight he had written over a dozen plays and fifty short stories, and was working on drafts for several different (apparently unfinished) novels at once. Unfortunately for both Eddie and the world, neither his parents nor his pedestrian teachers took much notice of his young achievements, and so the lad was nurtured solely on boredom. Initially Eddie found release from his frustrations in the world of competitive sports, but here, too, he overachieved and soon found himself competing at an international level on the fencing strip. True to form, Eddie took his zeal to the tournament finals, only to secretly throw the match in an agonizing denial of how very easy it all had been. It was at this point that Eddie met the woman who would be the most influential person in his young and tragically brutal life. Jocasta Rose was a trainer for the British fencing team; she found herself fascinated with the daring young prodigy who, she was sure, had just deliberately relinquished his claim to the world championship. A hot-blooded iconoclast herself, Jackie confronted Eddie after the match and swept him off his tired and lonely feet into a world of glorious sensation and romance. Over the space of the next year- which would prove to be the rest of Jocasta Rose's life - she and Eddie never parted company again. A terminal illness killed her less than thirteen months after they first met. THE ASSASSIN The death of his lover devastated the young genius, but her fiery spirit lingered in his soul. His will to fight and achieve was twisted by twisted his grief into a monstrous and insatiable ideal. Returning incognito to the States, he adopted the name of Hunter Rose and soon wrote several best sellers, taking the literary world by storm at the age of seventeen. But, still, there remained an empty fury in Hunter Rose's heart. The need to achieve became the lust to control, and so another alias to an already fractured personality was born. The crime families of Manhattan were soon confronted with a presence even deadlier and more , heartless than their own. The name of the masked assassin Grendel was spoken only in whispers, and many a seasoned killer prayed to avoid running afoul of whoever held Grendel's contractual reins of the moment. In less than two years, Grendel had moved into a position of power over one of the major families, and he soon consolidated his realm to include most of the criminal activities within the entire metropolitan area. Once again, he had won easily over seemingly insurmountable odds. But where was the challenge that would unseat him, the battle he could never win, the heart of fire that would rival his own? THE CHILD AND THE WOLF In fact, it was early in his nefarious career that Grendel first encountered the two lives that would ultimately prove to be the undoing of his own. The adopted niece of a crooked real-estate mogul, Stacy Palumbo captured what little empathy still existed in Hunter Rose's icy heart by her unnatural resemblance to his first love. Following the death of her uncle at Grendel's hand, Stacy came to live with Hunter as his legal ward. Ironically, the only other friend to this lonely child was Grendel's greatest enemy, Argent, the mysterious wolf. In Stacy, Hunter saw the potential and innocence that might have been his own lot, and, in Argent, he found the fury and power that were indeed his fate. This pathetic triangle was destined for tragedy, of course, and Stacy's discovery of her mentor's true identity precipitated the climax. Grendel and Argent met in a final, ferocious battle that left the wolf broken and withdrawn, and proved to be the ultimate doom for the man the world had known as Hunter Rose. THE LEGACY Stacy Palumbo spent the rest of her days in an institution. She was briefly released around the age of twenty-five to marry her analyst, but, here again, tragedy clouded her young, hopeless life. The wedding night became a rape/suicide, the result of which was the birth of Stacy's only daughter, Christine, who was soon given up for adoption. Following this, the tortured stepdaughter of Grendel lapsed into a stupor that lasted the rest of her days. Christine would never know her real mother until, years later, she interviewed Stacy for a book she was writing on the life of Grendel: Devil by the Deed. The Wolf went into seclusion and was rarely seen in public again. Part 2: Christine Spar A MOTHER IN PAIN The daughter of Hunter Rose's adopted ward Stacy, Christine Powell spent her entire life trying to shake off the ugly vestiges of a legacy she never really knew. Even the untimely death of her husband, war correspondent Peter Spar, served only to remind her of the bloody heritage thrust upon her not only by the world at large but, indeed, by her very lineage. Finally, Christine decided to exorcise these inner demons by undertaking an in-depth examination of the man whom her mother had actually ~ succeeded in killing. ' This investigation served instead to awaken in her an even deeper fascination for the man known as Grendel, and the result was the now infamous book Devil by the Deed. It was shortly after the advent of her newfound notoriety as an '-. author that Christine and her young son Anson attended a kabuki theater performance at Radio City Music Hall. At first, Christine found herself entranced with the star dancer, Tujiro XIV, but in a subsequent backstage meeting she was soon repulsed by his boldly lascivious manner. As she tucked Anson into bed later that night, little did Christine suspect that this would be the last time she would ever see her only son alive. A NIGHTMARE IN DISGUISE When police investigations yielded nothing on Anson's disappearance, Christine took up the chase herself and soon made a startling discovery: a trail of disappearances, all of young boys and all coinciding with the nationwide tour schedule of Tujiro's kabuki troupe. Grief-stricken, but focused with a cold and unreasoning hatred, Christine set about the task either of rescuing or of revenging her missing child. Knowing this would take her into a realm outside the law, Christine resolved to disguise herself behind a persona that literally embodied the contemptuous emotions in which she was slowly drowning. Stealing the original mask and fork of Hunter Rose, she set off for the west coast—and the spirit of Grendel was thus born again. In San Francisco, she eventually caught up with the traveling show and began a cover espionage of her suspect, which soon revealed even more shocking facts. Tujiro was, in fact, a vampire who not only displayed a marked taste for young boys but also doubled as the head of an international slavery ring. It was here that Christine Spar's trail of vengeance hit an unexpected snag. Throughout her intricate hunt for the monster, Tujiro, she had, found herself becoming involved with the stage manager of the kabuki theater's latest venue, Brian Li Sung. When Christine discovered that Tujiro intended to kidnap Brian to serve as the latest slave in his insidious schemes, her rage finally exploded— and the stage was set for the final confrontation. After a fierce and bloody battle that failed to bag her intended prey but did succeed in breaking the vampire's ring of power, Christine was forced to flee both the city on the bay and the gentle young man she had so quickly come to love. A MONSTER IN HIDING Although she did her best to leave both the persona and her actions as Grendel behind, Christine soon found herself swept along in the hatred and fear that had marked the life of her predecessor. Back in New York, she was immediately hounded by both the police and Grendel's original nemesis, Argent the wolf. When Brian Li Sung followed her back to the east coast, he soon fell victim to this police brutality, and Christine finally gave herself over to the overwhelming anger of Grendel. In a battle that seemed written by the cruel hand of destiny, she finally met her end at the hands of the vicious Argent—but not before she succeeded in killing the monstrous wolf as well. The legacy of Grendel, it seems, had at last seen its end—or had it? Part 3: Brian Li Sung INNOCENCE ADRIFT The death of Christine Spar left another, all-but-unnoticed casualty in its bloody wake—the bruised and tortured spirit of her young lover, Brian. Firm in his blind ambition to steer Chris from her seemingly fated path, Brian had no idea how this vortex of violence would eventually prove too much for his own fragile soul as well. His tragic catharsis first began at the very moment of Christine's death as Grendel. It was only later that Brian began to realize the full extent of her isolated madness—a lonely certainty that she passed onto him in the form of Grendel's logs. These copious journals—which included not only those volumes stolen by her mother, Stacy, from the original fiend, Hunter Rose, but also Christine's own account of her life as Grendel—were secretly buried by their jealous owner in the unmarked wilds of Central Park. Nestled under the pillows of the same bed in which he and Chris had shared their last moments together, Brian discovered both a map and the key to this strongbox containing the festering memoirs of demons. Unable to leave these infamous relics behind, Brian was also quite sure the encroaching eyes of the police would never allow him to smuggle the journals out of New York either. He soon found himself taking a low-paying job off-Broadway as well as making do with dreadful living conditions—all to ensure that he might spend his evenings slowly drowning in the lives of two people possessed by violence. SUBSISTENT RAGE Lost not only in the past, but also in the harsh, day-to-day existence of New York, Brian soon found himself victim to all the pent-up anger and frustration revealed in the pages of his newly sacred texts. A recovered alcoholic, Brian desperately began drinking again. He experienced memory losses as well as outbursts of temper and even started keeping secret journals himself. Eventually, he became convinced he had actually encountered Christine's ghost in the seedy confines of the theater he managed. In an effort to once again call forth his lover's spirit, he finally donned a crude Grendel mask which he had fashioned to act as a talisman. Although the apparition never materialized, its presence was felt when Brian, still masked, viciously battered a security guard who had interrupted the ritual. Although outwardly sickened by this startling change in his demeanor, internally Brian continued to nurture his growing rage.The evolution of Brian's violence finally peaked with the killing of a would-be assailant in Central Park. In his obsessive zeal to know and understand Grendel he had in fact become the fiend. continually hounded by the flamboyant Captain Wiggins of the New York Police, Brian then began to perceive his condition as an actual possession. The spirit of Grendel had somehow burrowed its way into his soul and there it gestated, a diabolic consciousness that cared naught for anyone—most especially the hapless host body it so viciously toyed with. TERMINAL EVICTION The final stage in Brian's madness came when his delusions focused on the person of Captain Wiggins. Convinced that Wiggins was keen to the truth of his masked excursions, "Grendel" next decided to stalk and eliminate the troublesome cop. Here Brian's tragic downslide reached its conclusion—but not without a final moment of redemption. Bound by the demon's desires to hunt down his persecutor, Brian nevertheless strove to break what he saw as Grendel's control over his body and mind. Unable to resist, he trailed the detective over the course of an evening until his path eventually led to Central Park and the site of Brian's one and only act of murder. In these last moments of confrontation, Brian fought an internal battle for the sake of his very soul. His defiance finally triumphed, as Brian barely managed to stay his own attack by a crucial fraction of a second—all the time necessary for Captain Wiggins to turn and shot this latest Grendel dead. Part 4: The Incubation Years A PERSONAL NIGHTMARE With the death of Brian Li Sung, the force he had perceived as a conscious, aggressive entity went into an extended period of apparent remission. It was to be almost five hundred years before another singular incarnation of Grendel would walk the earth again. This is not to say that Grendel had no effect during this time. Far from it. In fact, human civilization continued to feel the weight of Grendel's rage -- but in a far more subtle and, in the long run, insidious manner. As the one surviving person to have been directly involved with the succession of criminals known as Grendel, Captain Albert Wiggins suddenly found himself having an unexpected celebrity status. Eventually, he left COP (Confederacy of Police) to retire in the tropics and spin out a series of best-selling tales about Hunter Rose, the only Grendel Wiggins had never actually met. With this success came all the trappings of luxury as well as all the pressures of wealth. It was later in life and new career that Albert Wiggins finally began to go mad. Spurred on by an apparent malfunction in his prosthetic eye, Wiggins began seeing the world around him as distorted and grotesque. Fans, publishers, agents, even his doctor took on a hideous demeanor behind the waves of Wiggins' dementia. Finally, his sense of reality lost, Wiggins succumbed to his own inner rage and stabbed his nagging young wife to death. Grendel, it seemed, had managed to strike again. A CORPORATE WEAPON A century passed before the presence of Grendel would be so directly felt again. In that time, the power of civil government had dwindled. Mega-corporations now controlled most everything, and the biggest of these was Omni Broadcasting and Entertainment Systems (OBES). At the head of the board of directors sat Charles Dore', a rather complacent executive who nonetheless saw Omni's bevy of Grendel entertainment products as an effective tool for spreading into an even wider world market. At the opposing end of Omni's management sat Harold White. While Charles Dore' strove for constant expansion, Harold's schemes were entirely directed towards eliminating competition. Harold deemed the world's civil governments to be both obsolete and deserving of nothing less than absolute destruction. In the end, this doubled-edged greed led from mistrust to misconception to tragic global mishap. The result was the world's first extended nuclear conflict, the near eradication of the mideastern OPEC nations, and the total contamination of a major portion of the world's crude oil supply. From within the very core of the system itself, Grendel had struck again. A RITUAL PENANCE The resulting social upheaval caused by this environmental tragedy affected life on earth as had no other event in over a millennium. the world's major power supply had been severely crippled, and, finally, the people of earth were forced to adopt alternative sources of energy. Many methods were developed but none more successfully than solar power. In a world now even more dependent on the sun, life in the uppermost northern hemisphere soon became undesirable. In a mass exodus unlike anything seen before or since, the world populace began slowly to situate itself closer to the equator. In America, the United States now became the United Californian Systems of America, and the already crumbling east-coast megapolis soon became an immense ghost town of concrete and steel. A few savage tribes/gangs continued to linger in the ruins, constantly fighting amongst themselves for control of the few oil storage tanks that still retained some usable sludge in their depths. One of these clans, the Forx, adopted the figure of Grendel as their totem. They believed that the oil should be torched rather than be put to any use whatsoever -- a nihilistic penance for what they saw as man's never-ending aggression. Grendel, at last, had gained a welcome foothold in the psyche of a race -- as opposed to that of an individual. A SOCIETAL ARCHETYPE Several hundred years passed before the world again took on some semblance of a civilized structure. The rising new world order was mishmash of opportunistic religion, obsessive personal indulgence, and the slogging advances of a technology not yet sure of itself. The battle for control of the fading American Empire was fought in the church pew as well as in the boardrooms, and, perhaps most importantly, in the chemical-swilling minds of the public at large. Drugs were big business in this world of the future, and corporations strove incessantly for that elusive stimulant mixture that would provide the greatest euphoria with the fewest side effects. It was these zealous experiments that culminated in a heinous accident, which unleashed a new and dangerous drug on an already imbalanced populace. This drug, whose laboratory designation was Arcana-Prime, ultimately became known by the infamous term that the Church itself had even adopted to replace the more antiquated name of "Satan". The kingdom of Grendel was at hand. [CONTINUED IN PART 2]