Creator, writer, and artist Matt Wagner, now preparing to enter his fifth decade of Grendel stories, has crafted a comics epic that spans from Western civilization’s romantic origins to its far future, reaching the furthest projections—centuries beyond the 21st—in this week’s issue. Grendel: Devil’s Odyssey told the tale of Grendel-Prime crossing the cosmos in search of a new habitable planet for humanity’s future as society collapses amidst drastic, changing conditions on Earth. It was the sort of story that, despite the murderous cyborgs and cult-like worship of a masked crime boss, reflected very real anxieties about our planet’s future as climate change ravages ecosystems, a pandemic exacerbates social ills, and democracies crumble into authoritarianism. The heightened darkness in Grendel allows readers to appreciate genre elements amidst all-too-convincing predictions.
