Nightmare Fuel: You know how Beowulf is usually presented as a badass? Well, imagine being on the other side of that ass kicking. In this version, Beowulf is terrifying.
One-Scene Wonder: The dragon only appears in one chapter really, but his conversation with Grendel is probably the most important scene in the whole book and leaves one hell of an impact.
What Do You Mean, It's Not Didactic?: On quite a few reading lists, as an introduction to Existentialism. Probably was written for this in mind, however.
Hunter's distaste for child molesters can come off as hypocritical depending on whether the reader views Hunter's love for Stacy as parental, or as a reminder of Jocasta. Stacy, for her part, fantasizes about marrying Hunter.
Try to get a read on Jocasta Rose. Does she love Hunter? Is her love for him genuine or is she a manipulative, child-abusing sociopath? Does she truly know what she molds Hunter into or is she an Unwitting Instigator of Doom? The fact she conceals her terminal illness from Hunter and all of the recollections are filtered through his biased perspective makes it even harder to discern.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: After Grendel Prime’s tragic fall from an admired Paladin into an insane child-killing monster, Devil’s Odyssey finds him decapitating Donald Trump.
Complete Monster: Tujiro XIV is a vampiric Kabuki dancer from the 21st century who runs a Human Trafficking outfit where countless innocents are sold into slavery, as well as having his own taste for little boys. Tujiro favors kidnapping the boys, draining them and eating one eye while keeping the eye as a trophy, the fate that befalls the son of the second Grendel, Christine Spar. Escaping justice, Tujiro returns in a new guise as Pope Innocent XLII in the 26th century, where thousands are worked to death by the church. Tujiro runs a regime of despotic repression with countless innocents tortured, and children trafficked to loyal priests within the Vatican, all to keep others under his sway. Tujiro intends to use a gun to completely blot out the sun forever, allowing he and his vampires to reign over a world where human beings are nothing but cattle.
Crosses the Line Twice: Hitchcock Blue massacring the inhabitants of a Bad Guy Bar... and then urinating on them all. Through a solid-gold codpiece.
Fridge Horror: Eddie and Jocasta are only together a few months, and Hunter Rose's first novel is published shortly after Jocasta's death. With Hunter's skunk stripe and rise to fame, one would expect someone from his fencing tournaments, or even a schoolmate or parent, would recognize the missing Eddie. No one ever comes forward.
Harsher in Hindsight: Tujiro XIV becoming Pope Innocent XLII. Written well before the Catholic priest pedophile sex scandals became huge international news, Tujiro's ascension nonetheless comes off like a planned Take That!.
Magnificent Bastard: Hunter Rose was born Eddie in New York. A natural genius with exceptional physical talent, Hunter reinvented himself and returned to New York as the mysterious Grendel. Dominating the criminal underworld, Hunter brought most criminal syndicates under his thumb while showing no mercy to traitors, child pornographers or pimps. Viewing everything as a game, Hunter manipulated the cops and criminals alike, as well as his archnemesis, Argent the Wolf. Constantly a step ahead of his enemies, Hunter even tricked Argent into being seen as a savage beast in front of Hunter's adopted daughter, Argent's beloved Stacy, to destroy her love for him. A ruthless, charming manipulator, Hunter reflects the darkness of New York and constantly shows himself a step ahead of all challengers.
What Hunter Rose does to Lucas Ottoman in Behold The Devil, what Tujiro does to Christine Spar's son in Devil's Legacy
For other people, Hunter's event horizon comes from his murder of Stacy's beloved uncle and public humiliation of Argent in Devil by the Deed. Both actions mark Stacy, and when she finds out Hunter's responsible, it leads to his death.
Also in Behold The Devil, Hunter manages to see his entire legacy in the future through supernatural means. He then tears the pages describing this out of his journal, causing much heartbreak later on, simply because he can't fathom anyone else being Grendel.
According to Word of God, Christine Spar's murder of Detective Riley was intended to be this, although Riley was sufficiently unsympathetic that many readers didn't see it that way.
That being said, when she was stalking Detective Riley, she killed an innocent cabbie while trying to kill him. Before this, she had made a point to only target those who were either evil or knowing accomplices. Even when she blew up Tujuro's troupe, most of them didn't seem to realize his true vampiric nature, but they were fully aware that he was in the human trafficking business, and helped him in his operations.
Grendel Prime using the Life Energy of slaves to power his time machine... and the younger the better.
Many stories detail what it's like to have Grendel after you: an unstoppable terror in black and white, ruthless, remorseless, unstoppable and he will not rest until you're dead.
Argent is a source of genuine terror at times. A massive, humanoid wolf, fast and strong as you get with a paralyzing thirst for blood who isn't always choosy about his definition of 'criminal' to prey upon.
Devil Child contains one of the most nightmarish sequences in Grendel: Stacy's wedding night. With her hunger for fatherly affection, she misses some gigantic red flags about her husband Erik Olliver who brutally rapes her on the wedding night, with the whole thing seen from Stacy's point of view in utterly horrific detail.
There is no happy ending for Stacy Palumbo. After her adoption by Hunter Rose, she languishes in miserable solitude, with Hunter having no true idea how to parent her. She's broken by the reveal that Hunter is Grendel, her love for Argent is stolen from her and she ultimately arranges the death of Grendel, growing up in severe therapy, marrying her therapist, only for him to lose his mind and brutally rape her. She spends the rest of her life institutionalized, sad and broken. Hunter stole her life and destroyed her completely, and by the end at her funeral, after she'd managed to make peace with her estranged daughter Christine, one of the few to attend to say goodbye to her? Argent, who never stopped loving her.
From the above, Christine tracks down her mother, which goes incredibly poorly as Stacy isn't capable of true affection to her any longer. Christine returns years later, now older, wiser and pregnant with her husband dead. Stacy gives her Hunter Rose's journals, and for the first time they are able to briefly connect as parent and child, with Stacy kissing her daughter for the first and final time, admitting she has nothing left, not even her pain.
Devil's Legacy ends with the death of Christine Spar, who performs a mutual kill with Argent after she succumbs to the Grendel Entity, dying in the arms of her lover Brian.
In Issue #1 of "Devils Legacy" Christine was on the Phil Donahue show where she discussed the legacy of Grendel in her family. She mused that Donahue must be about 70 by now. According to recent estimate (based on when the idea of the original Hunter Rose stories being set in the early-mid 80s), Christine's story arc would have to take place somewhere in the mid 2020's. That would make Donahue more likely to be in his 90s by then. Donahue's long running show ended in 1996 and he had a short lived show between 2002-2003. The fact that the second show didn't last a year might reflect how relevant Donahue was in the 2000s (not very). Even if he's still alive, the "serious" talk show format is out of vogue. So no one is really holding their breath thinking that he'll try again anytime soon.
During Brian's tenure as Grendel, someone was discussing going home and watching David Letterman although they felt that the "old fart just aint funny anymore". Letterman retired from Late Night host in 2015; that would be about ten years before the events in the comic.
Averted now that Letterman has a new talk show on Netflix.
Like the majority of 1980s era cyberpunk, the near future failed to anticipate mobile smartphones, the ubiquitous internet, and other technological developments.
Hunter Rose's era is restricted to having occurred no later than the mid 1980s. Much of what he accomplished (including erasing all traces of his former "Eddie" identity) would not be possible with tracing and forensic technology that would be available after that. It certainly would not be possible in the digital age and post 9/11 age of surveillance.
Possibly averted; the exact length of Grendel's reign is never clear. Behold the Devil begins during the early days, when Grendel's existence is an open secret to the general public. This would have to be before Grendel takes over the eastern seaboard (he announces this feat to the press), and the epilogue of Behold the Devil takes place nine months after the events of the comic, shortly after Grendel's death. Given Hunter Rose is The Ace both as a writer and as Grendel, as well as Stacy Palumbo not visibly aging during her time with Hunter, it's entirely possible that the Hunter Rose identity only lasts two or three years in total, a relatively short time for anyone to seriously investigate Hunter in the first place.
Additionally, Eddie was a minor, with fewer records than an adult — mostly grades, and the tournament. His social security number would be the biggest problem.
