Note: This is the first of a four part series looking at Matt Wagner’s later Grendel works, God and the Devil, Devil’s Reign, War Child and concluding with the second Batman/Grendel miniseries. Parts 2-4 will be published over the next two weeks.
I’ve never known what to make of Matt Wagner’s Grendel stories that were not focused on Hunter Rose. Hunter Rose was Grendel and Grendel was Hunter Rose so what really were all of those other people like Christine Spar or Brian Li Sung or, in the distant future, Eppy Thatcher who wore the familiar black and white mask? Christine and Brian’s story make sense because of their direct lineage to Hunter; he was Christine’s adopted grandfather and Brian was Christine’s lover and confidant in the end. But after Brian’s story, Wagner jumps the story hundreds of years into the future, to an apparently theocratic world where the Vatican is California, most of America and a large chunk of the world is a nuclear wasteland, and Grendel is a mythical pop figure on the same level as Dracula and Frankenstein. Hunter Rose is the stuff of legend and story in this world where an Elvis impersonator was at one time Pope and where bananas can usher in the destruction of mankind.
In Grendel: God and the Devil (originally published in Comico’s Grendel #23-#33), Wagner begins telling a much broader tale than he had previously. Instead of focusing on one character and his or her enemies, Wagner takes his story to a societal level, adding in politics, business and religion to the Grendel mythos. In this story where the Catholic church is the ultimate world power, our “hero” Orion Assante sees past the daily religious pomp and circumstance to see the corruption and evil that heads up the church. As Pope Innocent XLII begins the construction of a tower that will supposedly reach up to the heavens, the cynic Assante, whose own family has already been excommunicated by the church, begins building a case against the church, putting together the evidence needed to topple the establishment. While he doesn’t know exactly how evil the church is, he can see enough to know that it is not the benevolent organization it claims to be.
As Assante begins mounting his attack against the church, a madman dressed as a ragged Grendel rampages into the marketplace, throwing over tables and spilling the collection plates, and driving the money changers out of the temple. Unlike Hunter or Christine who wore the slick, black, skin-tight outfits, this Grendel is in tatters, with tatters of fabric flying everywhere. It looks like he pulled his Grendel costume out of an old garbage pile, barely stitched it together and flung on without a worry about how it actually looks. This thrown together Grendel throws both Innocent and Assante’s plans off. As Grendel attacks the church, both characters are left scrambling to figure out how to capitalize on the chaos of Grendel.
The idea of Grendel is much more ingrained into the consciousness of 2530 than it was in Hunter’s time. Grendel is practically an entertainment franchise in the future, as evidenced by all the tv shows and movies that are about him. Grendel isn’t a person as much as he is a character. Seeing Grendel attack the church had to have been like what it would be for us to see someone dressed Dracula or even Genghis Khan attack a church today. At worst, it’s fiction; at best, it’s history coming to life. We know the symbolism and we know the history and can place those in the context of the actions. Seeing a Grendel in the temple sets off all kinds of alarms in the church and in the forces backing Assante. No less a force than Hunter or Christine, Eppy is a much more unfocussed character, prodding the actions of Orion and Innocent rather than leading them.
Like Hunter Rose’s story, this is a story about power and what you’ll do to get it and keep it. The Pope has the power and, while he may not admit it, there are parts of Orion that want the power (we’ll see more of Orion’s quest for power in the next Grendel book, Devil’s Reign.) While Wagner knows that his entire Grendel mythos is built up on Hunter, this story owes much more to Christine Spar and her time as Grendel. When a previous Grendel’s name is finally brought up, it’s not the controlling Hunter or the lost Brian Li Sung but it’s Christine Spar’s name, who was driven to be Grendel because she had no other recourse. As the church continued to ramp up its attacks against Orion and his cause, he can only think:
Through Orion, we get a marvelous summary of Christine’s time as Grendel and what set her apart from the other Grendels. She was surrounded with no other way out but to become Grendel. Orion is even put into similar situations as Christine as his family is attacked and theres no higher power that he can turn to for help or assistance. And even though we have a “Grendel” running around in God and the Devil, it is Orion who feels sympathy for those who have come before him, laying sound groundwork for story threads that Wagner will follow up in Devil’s Reign.
Let’s just admit that the allure of Hunter Rose was how sexy and unfettered the character was. That’s what makes him popular and full of stories but every Grendel after lacks. From Christine to Brian and to Eppy, the form of Grendel gets farther and farther away from Hunter and becomes more base and emotional. The farther away we get from Hunter, the more control is lost by the main character. It’s like Wagner created the ultimate form of Grendel in Hunter and then spent the next 20 years tearing that form apart until we’re left with something that will eventually be more robot than human as seen in the even more futuristic Grendel: War Child. The ultimate loss of control is Eppy, who borders on being a anarchist terrorist. After Eppy’s time as Grendel, the story becomes more about control as Orion and Grendel Prime carefully construct their own worlds.
Once you get beyond the sexiness of Grendel, Wagner focuses on two subjects that will dominate Grendel’s future; politics and religion. Wagner takes his jabs at the Catholic church in this book, setting them up as the villains of the piece and having them led by an actual monster in Pope Innocent. In this book, religion and politics are practically one with religion having come out on top of that age-old fight. Wagner’s commentary comes across heavy handed and obvious but I don’t think subtlty is what he was trying to achieve here at all. He’s not trying to imply that there’s corruption in the church; he’s outright saying “THERE’S CORRUPTION IN THE CHURCH!” He wants to beat you over the head with that in this story. God and the Devil is about tearing the old ways down and that’s what Wagner is doing in this story– taking a flame torch to the old, evil institutions.
Monsters have always been a part of the Grendel myth, from the wolf-like Argent to the vampiric Tujiro XIV. Pope Innocent is another tie back to the whole story of Grendel, being a monster hiding behind the mask of another monster. He provides a concrete link to Wagner’s previous stories and helps establish the futuristic world, a cross between Blade Runner and the Road Warrior, that will fuel all other future Grendel tales and ties everything back to Christine Spar’s short time as Grendel.
God and the Devil is the first part of a trilogy that continues into Devil’s Reign and concludes in War Child. Wagner’s stories become less personal than his previous Grendel stories but much more intriguing, as we see the diabolical workings of the characters against a much bigger canvas than before. God and the Devil is not about personal power, safety or sanity like Wagner was writing about before. While those are still essential elements to his story, Wagner creates a whole new world in God and the Devil that’s already been cursed by a Grendel but needs a Grendel nonetheless.
Grendel: God and the Devil
Written by: Matt Wagner
Drawn by: Tim Sale, J.K. Snyder III, Jay Geldhof & Bernie Mireault
Colored by: Jeremy Cox
Lettered by: Bob Pinaha
Grendel: God and the Devil is available on Amazon.com.
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Tags: Bernie Mireault, Grendel, J.K. Snyder III, Jay Geldhof, Matt Wagner