lordenglishssbm's review against another edition
3.0
Less experimental than the first one, with the tradeoff that it also has fewer holes in the narrative. Christine Spar's story is just more complete than Hunter Rose's, though I miss the wildly varying art styles, and the art is a downgrade more generally.
Still, I found plenty to like here, and I even think I might like this one more than the first. I just appreciate the tragedy more, and while Rose's story could get a bit repetitive (more so in how it's told) Christine's does a good job going through a few different emotional beats and then caps it off with the ending it deserves. I'm not a fan of the shorter stories that follow it, however.
Still, I found plenty to like here, and I even think I might like this one more than the first. I just appreciate the tragedy more, and while Rose's story could get a bit repetitive (more so in how it's told) Christine's does a good job going through a few different emotional beats and then caps it off with the ending it deserves. I'm not a fan of the shorter stories that follow it, however.
slipperbunny's review
2.0
I didn't enjoy this as much as the first Omnibus. The first story was very good, although creepy, but I didn't enjoy the rest of the book at all. Maybe it was the art.
bstratton's review
4.0
The Christine Spar storyline is not my favorite Grendel story. I've also never liked the Pander Bros. artwork. But I'm a huge Bernie Mireault fan, and Matt Wagner's stylistic tribute to Harvey Kurtzman in the final story is almost worth the price of admission alone.
pmileham's review
4.0
Not much of a fan of the Pander Brothers art, but that said, the rest was phenomenal.
adelaidemetzger_robotprophet's review
3.0
I originally gave the first Grendel omnibus, Hunter Rose, a 2-ish star rating. This surprised me when I went back to read my pros and cons list review because I remember loving that book and have come to adore Hunter as a character and really treasure that omnibus as a piece of art.
But then I remembered how disturbed I was by the amount of graphic sexual content and that had a lot to do with my original final rating. I still find that content disturbing, but comparing this second omnibus to the first really makes me appreciate the first more.
The first thing I noticed was the dramatic difference in the art style. The first omnibus had more than 7 different artists including Matt Wagner himself as it spanned through the life of Hunter Rose as Grendel up until his death. This second omnibus sees only two or three different art styles as it spans issues mainly related to Hunter’s granddaughter, Chris, who is compelled to take up the mantle of Grendel after her son goes missing. While I was blown away with the eye candy of the first omnibus I wasn’t impressed with the slightly cartoony art of this second omnibus that reminded me of Batman Beyond.
Wagner wrote this collection of issues as well, so the noir-esque voice of both Chris and her insane mother (in just the first two issues) remains pretty much the same as with Hunter. I think my main problem with having trouble connecting with Chris is just the dramatic difference of her world. Much like how Batman Beyond was so different in aesthetic and setting compared to Batman: The Animated Series, Grendel: Legacy’s futuristic setting just makes it FEEL so much more different than the origin volume.
Chris vs. Hunter. It was just amazing to see the difference in WHY Chris became Grendel compared to why Hunter decided to create the persona. Hunter was an eccentric, rich child who was too smart for everyone else and was tortured by the spontaneous loss of his first and only love. As Grendel he ran the underground crime of the city playing kingpin and killed out of necessity to keep his organization running smoothly, but also out of indulgence.
Chris, on the other hand, puts on the mask when the police do nearly nothing to help find her abducted son. So she takes matters into her own hands and goes after the cannibalistic creeps who took her kid. When she realizes that her son is most likely dead, her motivations go from the need to rescue, to revenge. Of course her hate and anger quickly spiral into chaos as the persona of Grendel takes over, but she has a good reason to become Grendel in the first place. A very good, and real-world, relatable reason.
This omnibus also shows the briefly lived Grendel after Chris, but it didn’t leave as much of an impression. He just went crazy from sadness and started killing random people.
Although Grendel: Legacy hit some thought-provoking ideas, it didn’t evoke the powerful emotions that the Hunter Rose omnibus did for me. 3 solid stars. Now I shall go back and up my rating for the first omnibus.
But then I remembered how disturbed I was by the amount of graphic sexual content and that had a lot to do with my original final rating. I still find that content disturbing, but comparing this second omnibus to the first really makes me appreciate the first more.
The first thing I noticed was the dramatic difference in the art style. The first omnibus had more than 7 different artists including Matt Wagner himself as it spanned through the life of Hunter Rose as Grendel up until his death. This second omnibus sees only two or three different art styles as it spans issues mainly related to Hunter’s granddaughter, Chris, who is compelled to take up the mantle of Grendel after her son goes missing. While I was blown away with the eye candy of the first omnibus I wasn’t impressed with the slightly cartoony art of this second omnibus that reminded me of Batman Beyond.
Wagner wrote this collection of issues as well, so the noir-esque voice of both Chris and her insane mother (in just the first two issues) remains pretty much the same as with Hunter. I think my main problem with having trouble connecting with Chris is just the dramatic difference of her world. Much like how Batman Beyond was so different in aesthetic and setting compared to Batman: The Animated Series, Grendel: Legacy’s futuristic setting just makes it FEEL so much more different than the origin volume.
Chris vs. Hunter. It was just amazing to see the difference in WHY Chris became Grendel compared to why Hunter decided to create the persona. Hunter was an eccentric, rich child who was too smart for everyone else and was tortured by the spontaneous loss of his first and only love. As Grendel he ran the underground crime of the city playing kingpin and killed out of necessity to keep his organization running smoothly, but also out of indulgence.
Chris, on the other hand, puts on the mask when the police do nearly nothing to help find her abducted son. So she takes matters into her own hands and goes after the cannibalistic creeps who took her kid. When she realizes that her son is most likely dead, her motivations go from the need to rescue, to revenge. Of course her hate and anger quickly spiral into chaos as the persona of Grendel takes over, but she has a good reason to become Grendel in the first place. A very good, and real-world, relatable reason.
This omnibus also shows the briefly lived Grendel after Chris, but it didn’t leave as much of an impression. He just went crazy from sadness and started killing random people.
Although Grendel: Legacy hit some thought-provoking ideas, it didn’t evoke the powerful emotions that the Hunter Rose omnibus did for me. 3 solid stars. Now I shall go back and up my rating for the first omnibus.
stevenk's review
3.0
Four stories of Grendel: Devil Child, Devil's Legacy, The Devil Inside, and Devil Tales. Grendel has become more of an evil spirt, infecting the lives of those who inherit even a portion of Hunter Rose's legacy, and these stories are a mixed bag. Devil Child is the disturbing tale of Stacy Palumbo, Rose's adopted daughter ruined by Grendel and Argents battles and her tragic life leading to the birth of Christine Spar. Devil's Legacy is Spar's story, and my original introduction to the character. When her child is kidnapped she take on the identity of Grendel and descending into darker and darker places until the end with erratic art resembling a Patrick Nagel print in a Max Headrom Future. The Devil Inside is a good concept, Grendel driving Spar's lover into madness, but the art and layout drag this story down. Finally, Devil Tales, stories told by Wiggins, the cop who helped bring down Grendel's 2 & 3, about hunter Rose, written and drawn by Wagner that make this volume end on a high note.
nigellicus's review
5.0
In the Grendel Cycle, the spirit of Grendel is the spirit of violence, passing down through generations, spoiling and corrupting everything around it. In the case of Stacy Palumbo. Grendel's adopted daughter, there is no escape from horror and trauma in her life after Grendel, and the opening story in this collection is profoundly horrible, graphic and disturbing, featuring rape and abuse and severe mental breakdown. it's a stark, brutal nasty story, far from the sleek, smooth, sinister and seductive design of Devil By The Deed, utterly stripping the entire concept of Grendel of any hint or shred of romanticisation. With that nasty bitter taste in the reader's mind, it's onwards chronologically though backwards in print order to Devil's Legacy, and Christine Spar, Stacy's daughter, who goes from chronicling to embracing the Grendel legacy in her efforts to first recover and then avenge the son stolen from her by a monstrous vampire. Despite her good intentions, Grendel takes over her life and the lives of those around her, drawing the fatal attention of Hunter Rose's nemesis, Argent.
The Devil Inside is a bleak tale of urban alienation and obsession, as Christine's lover descends into a hellish world of hostility and sleaze, battling with tangled, jagged emotions he tries to channel into a misguided and self-destructive effort at revenge.
Devil Tales revisits the heyday of Hunter Rose once more, albeit from the point of view of characters almost too minor to be noticed by him. A cop stumbles on a tangled and complex family conspiracy in a claustrophobic noirish tale of tiny panels and small print that reads like a classic piece of detective fiction. The story of Tommy Nuncio, a stoolie who hears something he shouldn't - or does he? And ends up in a state of almost existential terror and dread, is another kind of classic crime fiction, as the walls slowly close in around a hapless small-fry caught up in something way bigger than him.
The Devil Inside is a bleak tale of urban alienation and obsession, as Christine's lover descends into a hellish world of hostility and sleaze, battling with tangled, jagged emotions he tries to channel into a misguided and self-destructive effort at revenge.
Devil Tales revisits the heyday of Hunter Rose once more, albeit from the point of view of characters almost too minor to be noticed by him. A cop stumbles on a tangled and complex family conspiracy in a claustrophobic noirish tale of tiny panels and small print that reads like a classic piece of detective fiction. The story of Tommy Nuncio, a stoolie who hears something he shouldn't - or does he? And ends up in a state of almost existential terror and dread, is another kind of classic crime fiction, as the walls slowly close in around a hapless small-fry caught up in something way bigger than him.
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