Grendel Omnibus Volume 3: Orion's Reign

I love the Grendel series, so it's pretty hard for me to stay objective. This collection puts together one of the most unique story lines I've ever read in a comic, very mature, but not just because of sex/violence.

While it is in many ways more interesting in second half of Grendal legacy, the consequences of legacy still play out over time. The tie between Grendel-Kahn and the Christine Spar line (and also the Hunter Rose comics) travels through both Lt. Wiggin's decline and the return of the vampire previously known as a Kabuki dancer, who has now become Pope. "God and the Devil" tells this story and is the more interesting of the two involving Assante. However, by the time we get to Reign of The Devil, we get a comic book told almost entirely through exposition. While this worked in smaller scale stories around Hunter Rose, it reads like an interesting but under-written science fiction story. While the flashes of the vampire culture are interesting, most of this reads like a way to bridge "God and the Devil" to the Grendal Prime tales.

Grendel is amazing. Especially when it was Hunter Rose. Grendel Legacy was bogus. I hope this book is better. Or maybe prime will be rad. Fingers crossed.

Grendel has its beginnings in the early-1980s black-and-white comic book boom, a minor interest title published from March 1983 to February 1984 by the then-upstart company Comico. Ostensibly the story of an assassin-for-hire named Hunter Rose, Wagner took his inspiration from pulp characters Diabolik and The Shadow and, in the startlingly experimental and masterful back-ups of his first Mage series, The Hero Discovered (1985-1987) --itself benefiting from a significant maturation in style mid-way through its run -- Wagner subsequently refashioned Rose as a criminal mastermind and celebrated author. The initial black-and-white series, which Wagner now refers to as a "rough draft" -- it was not included in the first volume of the Omnibus series, Hunter Rose (2012), though it was reprinted in the non-canon Grendel Archives, a standalone volume published in 2007, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the character's inception -- was cancelled due to Comico's financial troubles at the time. One year later, in a light-years leap forward in artistic acumen, Wagner began a series of Grendel back-ups in his subsequent Comico title Mage. These were later collected as a 48-page, European-style album-sized "graphic novel" Devil By the Deed (1985), revitalizing interest in the character. After Mage concluded, Comico quickly launched a second Grendel series; a different artist was used for each "incarnation" of Grendel as Hunter Rose died at the end of the Mage back-ups -- a similar method was used to great success in Neil Gaiman's Sandman --the Pander Brothers for Christine Spar (Devil's Legacy, issues 1-12 [1986-1987]), Bernie Mireault for Brian Li Sung (The Devil Inside, issues 13-15 [1987]), Wagner for the Hunter Rose stories (Devil Tales, issues 16-19 [1988]), Tim Sale for Captain Wiggins and Grendel-Khan (The Incubation Years, issues 20-23 [1988] and Devil's Reign, 34-40 [1989-1990]) and John K. Snyder for Eppy Thatcher (God and the Devil, issues 24-33 [1988-1989]). Part-way through the run of the second Comico series run, Mireault asked Wagner what would happen if the "spirit" of Grendel, which had by then "infected" individuals Spar and Li Sung, instead came to infect an entire population. This suggestion inspired Wagner to substantially alter the concept and scale of the comic, catapulting it to the far future of the 26th century; Rose's story took place in the 20th century while Spar, Li Sung and Capt. Wiggins' storylines were set sometime in a mostly-recognizable early 21st century. The Incubation Years, as they later came to be known, set the tone and plot for what followed, to the extent that the Grendel mythos can be said to occupy two wholly distinct periods: that of the early, character-driven stories of Spar, Li Sung and Capt. Wiggins, collected in the second Dark Horse Omnibus, The Legacy, and the large-scale epics of the third Omnibus, Orion's Reign, centered around the reign of the first Grendel-Khan Orion Assante, which also collects The Incubation Years (the first time those issues have been reprinted; the original art had deteriorated too much for earlier technology to successfully reprint them), and the fascinating, epic futuristic tales God and the Devil and Devil's Reign, which significantly expand the Grendel mythos. This volume not only explores the expansion of this Grendel infection in greater depth, contrasted with a similar infection of vampires--the metaphor is taken to painful lengths in the flip-flopping narrative of Devil's Reign--but also manages to explore such heady ideas as political and papal corruption and environmental and social collapse. Numerous mini-series, one-shots and crossovers appeared in subsequent years, each of them exponentially expanding an increasingly labyrinthine narrative. A fascinating installment of the Grendel mythos, it also arguably represents the last truly impressive Grendel material produced to date.

Love any thing by matt wagner

The truth is some of the story is weak. Better than volume 2 by far through. I would say worth reading

Thanks for the books

Great to complete the collection.

Variable artwork, but for me the stories in this volume (along with the Grendel Tales books sadly omitted from these omnibuses) are what makes the Grendel series so fascinating. It starts with a couple of odd, patchy stories that barely mention the Grendel character and basically just serve to fast forward a couple of hundred years. They give some interesting background to the epic that follows, but aren't anything special in themselves. However, the next arc, set in a post-apocalyptic US, is brilliant. Covering a battle for power between a grotesquely powerful incarnation of the Catholic church and the calm, controlled, directed Orion Assante, the story is, like Christine Spar's in Volume 2, a slow-burning and complex battle between two hugely different but hugely capable opponents, in this case complicated by the re-emergence of Grendel and a corrupt (and swiftly further corrupted) police force. We also get brief stabs of social satire, with Saint Elvis and the constant battles over TV coverage. It's no Transmetropolitan (what is?), but it provides a rich backdrop for a well-written and memorable good vs evil yarn. Following this fairly traditional, high-action comic book story, we get to the most bizarre and ambitious part of the whole Grendel series. A 50/50 mixture of prose and small illustrations (brilliant stuff by Tim Sale) tells how the preceding "God and the Devil" arc triggered events that change the world, taking Grendel from a shadowy gremlin to emperor of the world. It's unusual fare - no fights, no tights - that most recalls Wagner's great original Batman vs Grendel mini-series. The dry, matter of fact writing might not be to everyone's tastes, but it's an amazing transformation of the series, and sets up the baroque, pulpy excesses of Grendel Child (in vol 4) perfectly. Experimental, brave, unpredictable, and exactly why Grendel is so good.

I really loved the grendel series, and bought the omnibus editions as soon as they came out. Overall, I'm pleased with them but they're printed in kind of a small format for such a text heavy graphic novel. The text can be a bit hard to read in places, and/or hard on the eyes. Still, if you loved the series but weren't able to collect it all, these may be for you.