Customer Reviews

Grendel: Devil Child

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One of my favorite Grendel comic books is Devils child that covers the story line from Hunter Rose through his death and the rise of Christine Spar. Stacy Palumbo is the adopted daughter of Hunter Rose, and in the Devils Child, we learn more about her and her character. Tragic from the beginning, from the death of her parents through the end of her life and the legacy that she leaves behind in the series is one of the better darker story lines in the Grendel series.

Hunter Rose and Argent are friends who do real-estate business with each other, and other business that is not so savory. As a child, Stacy is infatuated with Argent until he has an accident that is set up by Rose, in front of Stacy. Stacy ends up having nightmares about the accident with Argent, and has trouble sleeping at night. From there as she gets older, she is able to understand Hunter Rose's dual role as Hunter and as Grendel, where she learns to hate the Grendel character. She ultimately plots Rose's downfall while he is acting as Grendel. To help her do this she enlists the aid of Argent, who has never forgiven Rose for causing the accident.

The final battle between Argent and Hunter leaves Argent paralyzed for life, hunter dead, and Stacy going to a mental institution. She eventually marries her therapist who rapes her on her wedding night, and then commits suicide. Stacy is pregnant from the rape, with the child Christine Spar that would be the next installment of the Grendel legacy. Stacy eventually dies alone in the mental institution. Overall this is not a book for children, the art work is impeccable, but the story line is dark and broody. Betrayal is a core element of the Grendel series, and this book has no happy endings, and betrayal, violence, death, despair, and eventual dissolution of personality in such a way that there is little to no hope for any of the characters in this book.

As a comic book, this was a ground-breaking series that opened the door to a number of other books and comic books inspired by Matt Wagner and the Hernandez Brothers. This series also showed comic books as a way to tell a serious story line that is usually reserved for literature. Overall, if you like your artwork and story line dark, then this series is a series you want to own. Five of Five stars, I have enjoyed this series when it first came out, and now that it is out in graphic novel form, it is a good thing to see them out on the market again.

Painful and disturbing (while beautifully drawn), this volume makes explicit something often tacit in Matt Wagner's Grendel cycle, the multiple connections between aggression and gender, and the way it plays out within families. Filling in a bit of the Grendel story only alluded to in Wagner's work, Devil Child explores the tragic experience of Stacy Palumbo, Hunter Rose's adopted daughter and the mother of Christine Spar, the second Grendel.

Although this book is not so attractive as Hunter Rose or Grendel Prime stories, it is well written AND illustrated story of a girl who suffers consequences of killing her stepfather.

I don't like Grendel character and I don't know well the facts and the storylines. I love Tim Sale art (i bought this for the art). I read it and I perceived anyway a good "horror/thriller" mood.......Certainly great if you love the series, anyway a good well executed (but short) book...