Opinion

Grendel: Red White and Black

Writer: Matt Wagner
Artist: Jill Thompson, Andy Kuhn, Stan Sakai, Jim Mahfood, Tom Fowler
Published by Dark Horse

Grendel, the character, has a fascinating history. Now over twenty years old, Grendel first appeared as the masked assassin persona of socialite Hunter Rose, in a story that first gained wide visibility as a back-up in creator Wagner's Mage series. It was the next version of the character which opened the world's eyes to how much more Grendel might actually be. When the daughter of one of those most closely affected by Hunter Rose found herself in circumstances where she was impelled to take up the mask and weapon that had been Grendel's trademarks, it began to be apparent that Grendel wasn't an identity one assumed; it was something one became. In the succeeding twenty years, Wagner and a series of co-creators have told stories of Grendels in many different times and places, each of which demonstrated that Grendel is an eternal entity, a force of violence and terror. Now, Grendel: Red White and Black brings everything full circle. These are Hunter Rose stories.

I should say up front that I haven't seen all of the Grendel stories that have comprised the cycle described above, but I've seen a fair few, and was there for the Mage back-ups and a number of the early follow-ups, then came back relatively recently. Some stories have worked better than others, but it's the ones written by Wagner himself which have (unsurprisingly) been the best interpretations of the character.

The return to the earliest (written) of the Grendels works very well. Hunter Rose was always a character that seemed there was more to be done with, and at the time we first met him, the mythology that has since become clear was unknown. It's fascinating to return to a time when Grendel was just a particularly violent assassin with an unusual 'civilian' life, and even more so to see how this unusual figure got his start.

The first issue of this series contains five stories, each presented, as the title suggests purely in red, black, and white (there are shades of grey too, but you get the idea). Each is illustrated by a different artist, and each shows a story from the early days of Hunter Rose's entry into the service of a crime family. (Strictly, the first story provides an overview of the original Hunter Rose Grendel stories, before we're thrown back to their precursors.) Each of the artists maintains their own style, and is well-served by their individual stories, which allow for very visual storytelling. Among the five in this first issue (and each of the following three issues will have a different selection of artists working on them), my favourites are Jill Thompson's and Tom Fowler's, though the others are almost as good.

Thompson's is the 'what we already know' story, told in the style she has become known for in her 'Little Endless' Sandman stories. In this case, the story of Grendel's conflict with arch-foe, Argent, and the involvement of the little girl Stacy Palumbo is told in the style of a child's story, which in the end we realise is being drawn by the traumatised woman that Stacy grew up to become. The depiction of ultra-violence in this childish style is extremely effective.

Fowler's story is quite different, showing the specific effect of Grendel's attentions on a corrupt politician. Its use of the progressive reddening of the victim's skin as he is pursued by the assassin could only be as effective presented in this limited-palette style, and the technique of never really presenting a clear shot of Grendel helps create a sense of how fearsome his mere reputation has become.

The rest of this series will unfold more of the previously-untold story of Hunter Rose's Grendel, and I'm certain it will contain the same kind of tightly-controlled, high-impact storytelling that makes issue one the best Grendel in quite a long time.