!The comic series

!!The "Grendel" entity
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3038140_maslungrendel.jpeg]]

* BlueAndOrangeMorality: May be literally "evil", but more likely a force of aggression and domination.
* DemonicPossession: Has been shown to be a literal demon.
* HunterOfMonsters: Grendels tend to be thrown into conflict with supernatural entities, with Brian Li Sung being the only significant exception -- assuming the entity itself doesn't count.
* TheImp: Though never directly shown in art, the Entity is sometimes represented as an impish Red Devil in asides.
* ManipulativeBastard: It's hinted that it may have somehow arranged the events that drive people to take on the "Grendel" mantle, in particular Stacy Palumbo's rape and the murder of Christine Spar's son.


[[foldercontrol]]

!!20th Century

[[folder:Hunter Rose]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/259571_124782_hunter_rose.jpg]]

* TheAce: Hunter Rose, an Olympic-level fencer, best-selling novelist, millionaire socialite, master assassin and ruler of the largest criminal empire in North America. Only three other individuals are shown to be able to match him on an intellectual or physical level. One is Argent, an unaging, [[SuperStrength Super Strong]] werewolf, the other two (via crossover) are Franchise/{{Batman}} and Radio/{{The Shadow}}.
** Averted in the original Batman crossover, as Hunter assumes Batman is less a threat than Argent. Hunter underestimates Batman constantly, leading to Batman quickly seeing through his plans, and [[CurbStompBattle savagely beating]] Grendel, nearly capturing him but for a child in danger.
* BaitTheDog: His stories are written out of chronological order - if you read them in order of writing Hunter becomes more unambiguously evil and less cool with each story.
* ByronicHero: Initially conceived as such, but his "hero" status is increasingly undercut.
* ColdBloodedTorture: He's happy to perform it for interrogation purposes.
* DevilsPitchfork: His trademark weapon is a polearm referred to as the "Devil's Fork", which is similar to a short-handled naginata with two parallel blades, which can be electrified for extra damage. Christine Spar stole his weapon from a museum and used it, and Eppy Thatcher used a similar device.
* DiabolicalMastermind: A suave supervillain who ends up taking over the whole of American organised crime.
* TheDreaded: Terrifies absolutely everyone in New York.
* DoesntLikeGuns: Frequently slaughters dozens of gun-wielding opponents armed with only his trademark [[ExoticWeaponSupremacy fork-sword-spear-naginata-thing]]. Even when deprived of this weapon temporarily during his crossover with ''Radio/TheShadow'', he instead opts to wield a hunting knife rather than a firearm. As the aforementioned co-star notes, this seems to come from "a romantic attachment to bladed weapons", rather than particular issues with firearms.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Hunter Rose itself is a pseudonym - it's revealed at one point that his original first name was Eddie.
* EqualOpportunityEvil: When he discovers that one of the gangs he took over includes a {{Gayngster}} who is about to be executed by his homophobic cohorts, he intimidates them into sparing him. Now, if the man had stolen from them or betrayed them, fine. But he doesn't see gayness as a good reason to kill someone just because an, in his words, "[[Literature/TheBible antiquated text]]" says so.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Violently opposed to paedophilia and violence against children.
%%* ExoticWeaponSupremacy
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Hunter Rose was once a boy by the name of [[EmbarrassingFirstName Eddie]] from the suburbs gifted with superhuman intelligence.
* GentlemanThief: A deconstruction of the character type. His personality and aesthetics follow it closely. However, rather than a likeable thief from people who can afford it, he's a ruthless and extremely violent gangster.
* JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: He favors torturing people to get them to talk, carving them up with his blades.
* LegendaryInTheSequel: Thanks to, in particular, Christine and Wiggins.
* LikesOlderWomen: Hunter's first lover was Jocasta Rose. She was '''36'''. He was '''14'''.
* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: Implied to be the source of Hunter Rose's exceptional physical and mental abilities- his autopsy suggests the he may have had "some advanced genetic mutation, resulting in much higher usage of our almost limitless mental capacities".
* NormalFishInATinyPond: Hunter is more or less a supervillain that came straight out of a comic book into real life, but is just as effective in a realistic mundane world as he would be in a comic world. It's very telling that the only person who could stop him was an immortal, super strong werewolf. In the Batman and later Shadow crossovers, when Hunter tried to challenge the Dark Knight and the Scourge of Crime, he put up a decent challenge but still got his ass kicked. Batman and the Shadow had faced many enemies of Hunter's calibre before, but Hunter had almost never had to fight people as good as or better than he was.
* ParentalIncest: While not literally happening, it's heavily implied that this was the basis for his attraction to Jocasta Rose, and sometimes implied as his real reason for adopting Stacy. Though it's a little weird... Well not weird in the wanting to sleep with your parent kind of way but because we know very little about either of Hunter's parents, and he left them without hesitation and its implied that he didn't even like them. The only thing we hear mentioned about Jocasta Rose and his mother was a "motherly face". The hints involving Stacy were retconed later.
* ParentalNeglect: He is a horrible father to Stacy. While he does love her, Hunter is unaware of how to be a parent and assumes she enjoys being a social conversation piece. Stacy has no friends her own age, and Hunter is shown to disdain normal child activities, refusing to even allow Stacy to watch cartoons and not noticing as she slips further into darkness.
* PetTheDog: He does truly care for Stacy (the form of which varies depending on the story), and he is depicted as protecting children in danger when he sees them in his adventures.
* SingleTargetSexuality: While Hunter is considered a playboy, he's never shown doing more than kissing a date's hand. The only genuine affections he ever developed were for Jocasta Rose and Stacy Palumbo.
* SwordCane: Hunter Rose's "fork on a stick" can collapse into a cane for disguise purposes.
* TeenGenius: Was a best-selling novelist and major underworld figure before he was out of his teens.
* VillainousBreakdown: Has a mild one when he discovers that he may owe his abilities to a separate entity, and that he'll have successors, some of whom might even outmatch him. Also comes close to it in ''Batman/Grendel'', when Batman beats him in one-to-one combat, and his actions nearly cause the death of a little girl.
* WickedCultured: Goes with the GentlemanThief stuff.
* WouldntHurtAChild: Pretty much his sole redeeming feature. [[spoiler: Subverted, as he unwittingly does anyway by depriving Stacy of her beloved uncle, and by shaming Argent in her eyes.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Wolf, Argent]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/argent_5.jpg]]

* TheAgeless: Has lived for several centuries.
* AntagonistInMourning: Goes into depressed retirement between Hunter's death and Christine becoming Grendel.
* BullyingADragon: Christine would have given up being Grendel voluntarily if he and Wiggins hadn't kept harassing her and her friends.
* CreepyGood: Everybody except Stacy (for a while) is terrified and/or repelled by him.
* DependingOnTheArtist: His depictions vary as to how human or animalistic his face and skeletal structure are.
* DesignatedHero: Less that he's a good guy than that Grendel's bad enough to justify the police working with him.
* TheDreaded: Terrifies absolutely everyone in New York.
* TheFatalist: Argent lives his life by the belief everything is destined, putting him at firm odds with Hunter's individualist approach.
* GoodIsNotNice: In his more sympathetic moments.
* HandicappedBadass: After his back is broken in his final fight with Hunter.
* HeroAntagonist: Played with. While Argent is definitely the antagonist his methods are every bit as brutal as Hunter's, and quite a bit less focused than Christine Spar's.
* MagicalNativeAmerican: Said to be originally an Algonquin. He appears to use some kind of Native American magic to regain the use of his legs before his final battle with Christine.
* ManlyGay: The reason for his curse.
* MoralityPet: He loves Stacy unreservedly, even after she rejects him. He even visits her grave after her death with clear sorrow.
* MundaneFantastic: He's popularly viewed as something of an enigma, but pretty much accepted as part of New York.
* MutualKill: With Christine.
* NinetiesAntiHero: In his less sympathetic moments.
* PetTheDog: He loves Stacy. Unreservedly. For all his savagery, he is always kind and gentle with her.
* PunnyName: "Argent" is French for silver, the traditional weakness of werewolves, although it isn't depicted as such in ''Grendel''.
** His identity as a werewolf is not, however, a reference to Beowulf, whose name means "bear."
* RetiredBadass: Argent, in ''Devil's Legacy'' was crippled by Hunter in their final battle and resides in a mansion, resting in a wheelchair.
* SanitySlippage: Christine Spar taking up Hunter's legacy makes Argent snap for one final chance for a showdown with his nemesis. By the end, he's raving, cackling and devolves into a savage brute.
* SavageWolf: He's very gratuitously violent.
* VigilanteExecution: As in "bits strewn across the street".
* VigilanteMan: Argent pursues criminals outside the bounds of the law and is happy to slaughter them himself.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: While he does share faint similarities with Literature/{{Beowulf}} in his fights with Grendel, he is not intended to be a modern incarnation of Beowulf, instead having his own mythology and background.
* WolfMan: Permanently and non-shiftingly.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Stacy Palumbo]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/345558_92740_stacy_palumbo.png]]

* AccidentalMurder: Maybe. Stacy's governess drowned when she fell off a pier when she and Stacy were out one day. Stacy isn't sure she pushed her and claims she didn't know Nancy could swim. Given her deteriorating mental state and the presence of the Grendel Entity, it's very hard to tell what's true.
* BornUnlucky: Nothing ''ever'' goes right for Stacy. Her beloved uncle dies and she's adopted by Hunter, which turns out to be a wretched life, culminating in her love and faith in both Hunter and Argent destroyed, whereupon she spends years in therapy, marries her therapist, is raped by him and spends the remainder of her lfie in an institution.
* BreakTheCutie: After the horrors of her childhood, gets violently raped by the man she loves on their wedding night and goes permanently insane.
* BrokenBird: Shattered by childhood trauma and marital rape, Stacy has nothing left by the end, not even pain.
* TheChessmaster: This unassuming little girl concocts a genius scheme that makes Argent and Grendel her pawns. It works flawlessly.
* CreepyChild: Although it's pretty inevitable given her circumstances.
* DissonantSerenity: She begins to lose her emotions to contrast the horror of her actions, first by placing flies in spiderwebs with a completely relaxed, cool expression on her face.
* EmptyShell: After Erik rapes her and kills himself, something in Stacy shatters. With nothing left, she becomes a sad, lonely figure in a mental facility, acknowledging by the end she has given up everything, even her pain.
* EnfantTerrible: May have (possibly unintentionally) killed her governess because she cramped her style, and her plans of revenge against Hunter.
* ManipulativeBastard: Ends up setting up Hunter and Argent to fight to the death.
* MoralityPet: Deconstructed. Her relationship with Hunter means that she doesn't have a real childhood because of him using her as a social conversation piece, when she finds out he's Grendel she's so shocked she causes his death, and the whole of her life is blighted by her association with him.
* ParentalAbandonment: She couldn't care for her daughter Christine, never even holding her after she gives birth at age 25, letting Christine be taken in elsewhere.
* RapeAsDrama: Stacy Palumbo was raped by her husband (and psychiatrist) on their wedding night. He promptly committed suicide, while she remained catatonic for the rest of her life. This produced her one and only daughter, who would grow up to become Christina Spar and the new Grendel.
* TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior: It should've become very apparent that something was horribly wrong with Stacy much sooner. Hunter doesn't notice she becomes more prone to outbursts, and she eventually adopts a disturbingly serene persona, culminating in her murdering her nanny.
* WoundedGazelleGambit: How she sets up the final battle between Hunter and Argent, by making Hunter think Argent has taken her hostage.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Larry Stohler]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2827185_letter_3.jpeg]]

* AteHisGun: When the police come looking for him after Hunter's death, he kills himself via a shot through the mouth.
* CampGay: By implication.
* TheConsigliere: To Hunter. Larry is his right hand and the one who helps build his empire.
* InformationBroker: Acts as Hunter's spy in high society.
* ItAmusedMe: Larry gains nothing for assisting Hunter, but the pleasure of doing so. Ironically, this is also why Hunter lets him live -- as the only person to figure out on his own that Hunter was Grendel, Larry's amused indifference to the fact itself amuses Grendel.
* SecretKeeper: The only person who knows Hunter is Grendel and who Hunter allows to live.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lucas Ottoman]]
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lucas_ottoman.jpg]]

* AintTooProudToBeg: When cornered by Hunter Rose, all he can do is feebly beg for his life. It does him no good.
* DidntThinkThisThrough: In his rush to investigate Hunter Rose, he fails to cover his tracks and doesn't consider speaking to his editor and doorman will get back to Hunter before he can go underground.
* DoomedByCanon: It is long established that Hunter was only unmasked as Grendel after his final battle with Argent, so Lucas's quest to stop him is doomed to failure.
* HeroAntagonist: Lucas is set against Hunter, but he's just a humble, goodhearted reporter out to expose a mass murdering mobster and see him fall as he deserves.
* IntrepidReporter: He's a hell of an investigator who seeks out stories on criminals and corruption, and the entirety of his plot ''Behold The Devil'' is him seeking out Grendel's identity.
* MalignedMixedMarriage: His relationship with Detective Liz Sparks has the potential for controversy. [[SubvertedTrope not because he's black and she's white, nobody cares about that.]] He's a reporter and she's a detective, so it's seen as a breach for both of them.
* OhCrap: He undergoes a bout of shocked trauma when he realizes Hunter is in his apartment with him and he has no chance to escape.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: He breaches a few journalistic ethics in hunting down Grendel, but it's because he damn well knows if he gets to Grendel, he can nail the evil bastard and save a lot of lives.
* SlashedThroat: One swing of Hunter's blade achieves this result and exeunt Lucas Ottoman.
* UnknownRival: Nobody got closer to exposing Hunter than Lucas Ottoman, who sleeplessly researches the masked crimelord and his connections to Hunter Rose on a hunch. Hunter doesn't even know Lucas ''exists'' for most of the miniseries until a reporter speaking with his editor makes its way back to him...
* VillainRespect: He manages to win even Hunter's respect for the depth of his investigation and impresses him with how much he's gathered. Sadly, it makes him a problem to be dealt with.
* WideEyedIdealist: Luke truly believes in goodness and due process of law. He's horrified by Argent and Grendel both and barely considers Argent better than Hunter, which Liz angrily denounces as nothing more than sappy-hearted sentiment she can't afford in her job.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Lewis Polk]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2882015_letter_44.jpeg]]

* BeneathSuspicion: Polk doesn't seriously consider Ray Weisburg, the son of Ed Weisburg as a suspect in the diamond smuggling scheme. He seems more interested in being a filmmaker than taking over his father's buisness.
* DefectiveDetective: Polk seems to be a little bit lacking in assertiveness (he's too nice). He also doesn't know how to haggle when paying for street info. One guy was easily able to weasel $200 out of him. He knew the info was going to cost something, but the price didn't make him happy. His wife also apparently left him.
* DetectiveDrama: Played straight.
* DirtyCop: Polk's chief and a few sergeants.
* EasilyOverheardConversation: In a bathroom stall. This is how Polk finds out that some of his cop buddies are taking kickbacks.
* {{TheEveryman}}: He's a very ordinary cop.
* MundaneMadeAwesome: The plot is a rather unremarkable story of a diamond importing/fiscal bidding scheme. But it involves a wealthy family of diamond importers and their attempt to cut Grendel out of the loop. Polk is a rather resourceful but otherwise ordinary and unremarkable man. He gets involved only because of an overheard bathroom conversation.
* ShownTheirWork: Polk interviews several people of interest. He (as well as the reader) learns a lot about the New York diamond import scene as well as the general bidding for diamond prices at the beginning of each fiscal year. These price bids are promises to sell their diamonds at that price per carat or less.
* TheEeyore: See that picture on this page? That is his usual expression. But it might be more to emphasize how ordinary and unremarkable he is.
* WeakButSkilled: Polk is not an assertive man. But he is an excellent detective and knows how to interview people. He also has a good mind for assessing people and knowing when he is dealing with a gifted liar. He has a gift for getting reluctant people to open up to him (such as Weisburg's young assistant).
* TheWoobie: Polk is a good cop in a bad city. He serves on a corrupt police force. His wife left him for another man. He's underpaid, like many honest New York cops of his time. His superiors and most of his colleagues treat him like an outsider because he doesn't join the club (i.e. accepting bribes and kickbacks). Many assignments he is sent on are for the purpose of keeping him out of the way, and he knows this.
[[/folder]]

!!21st Century

[[folder:Christine Spar]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/333056_8624_christine_spar.PNG]]

* ActionGirl: One of the few female incarnations of Grendel, with all the skill that implies.
* ActionMum: Christine is driven to embrace the legacy of Grendel to rescue her son. Or avenge him.
* AntiVillain: For a Grendel, Christine keeps casualties surprisingly low, only attacking people who've chosen to oppose her, and her motives (protecting her family and lover) are surprisingly pure....at ''first.'' Eventually, she gradually becomes more and more brutal until she makes Argent her nemesis in lieu of Tujiro.
* CleavageWindow: Many of her costumes when not Grendel do this.
* DrunkOnTheDarkSide: As she acts as Grendel, is increasingly taken over by the role and driven to replicate Hunter's actions.
* EightiesHair: Really, really eighties, despite her main arc being set in the 2020s.
* IntrepidReporter: Christine's day job before her son's kidnapping.
* LegacyCharacter: Explicitly such to Hunter, to the point of using his mask and weapon.
** As her mother is Stacy Palumbo, she's also Hunter's granddaughter. When people comment on this, she reminds them she has no blood relation to Rose.
* MamaBear: Not a successful one, but props for the effort. She embraces the Grendel mantle to rescue or avenge her son.
* MutualKill: With Argent.
* NominalHero: Driven to become a vigilante by the disappearance and probable death of her son.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: On Tujiro and his associates.
* SanitySlippage: After Tujiro is defeat and flees, Christine begins succumbing more and more to the spectre of aggression, hunting down and murdering a corrupt cop who beat up her lover Brian and targeting Argent who she has no personal grudge against whatsoever.
* TragicHero: Her attempts to get revenge on Tujiro cause her death, and she doesn't even succeed in killing him.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Brian Li Sung]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/353212_148422_brian_li_sung.png]]

* ApocalypticLog: His diary. He's eventually unnervingly aware that Grendel also keeps a diary, that he doesn't remember writing.
* AscendedExtra: Begins as a minor work colleague of Christine Spar, then becomes her love interest, then after her death a central character and the third Grendel.
* AxCrazy: The first Grendel to display this tendency, showing little remorse or restraint, often brutalizing people for annoying him.
* BecomingTheMask: The first Grendel to directly believe in DemonicPossession by the Grendel entity.
* ClassicalAntiHero
* DrivenToSuicide: Deliberately allows Wiggins to kill him to atone for his previous deeds and in an attempt to stop the cycle from continuing.
* [[EarnYourHappyEnding Earn Your Bittersweet Ending]]: Insane beyond hope for redemption, Brian Li Sung prevents his devil from killing anyone by dying first. Li Sung clearly counts this as a win, but it's heavily implied that the Grendel Entity is okay with it, too.
* EnemyWithin: The only Grendel to become aware of the Grendel entity as a separate being and try to fight it.
* LegacyCharacter: To Christine Spar, and the Grendel entity in general, described by the Entity to Hunter as 'the runt of the litter.'
* RummageSaleReject: Puts together his costume himself. It shows.
* SuicideByCop: How he dies. Played surprisingly straight, as it's implied Li Sung's death unnerves Wiggins more than he lets on.
* TechnicalPacifist: Subverted. Of the three original Grendels, Li Sung's is the only one with AxCrazy tendencies. That said, he never kills anyone, though only because Li Sung commits SuicideByCop.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: His entire point-of-view section.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tujiro XIV]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/354961_141011_tujiro_xiv.png]]

* CatsAreMean: His animal form is a Bond-villain-style white Persian cat.
* ChildEater: As well as being a murderous vampire and criminal, is also a serial murderer of young boys.
* CreepySouvenir: His collection of bottled eyeballs.
* ExitVillainStageLeft: After Christine kills all his minions and comes close to killing him.
* EyeScream: His serial-killer-trademark is ripping out one of his victim's eyes and keeping it preserved as a trophy.
* KarmaHoudini: After all the horrific crimes he has committed and the further deaths that he indirectly caused, he gets away unharmed.
* LecherousLicking: When he kisses Christine's hand, which tips her off about his creepiness.
* MyGrandsonMyself: May possibly have been Tujiro I-XIII as well.
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: He's got a lot of classic vampire traits, but can transform into a cat and isn't subject to all the same weaknesses.
* SerialKiller: a vampire who takes the eyes of little boys that he drains to keep as trophies.
* WickedCultured: His public identity is as a well-known kabuki actor.
* WouldHurtAChild: Tujiro is a child-murdering serial killer.
* WouldYouLikeToHearHowTheyDied: He mocks Christine with the death of her son quite gleefully.
* YellowPeril: A restrained example, balanced out by the sympathetic Brian Li Sung.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Albert Wiggins]]
[[quoteright:286:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2880736_letter_26.jpeg]]

* AffablyEvil: Wiggins is almost invariably polite, debonair, and unflappable when questioning his suspects.
* TheAlcoholic: Implied to become an alcoholic in later life.
* BullyingADragon: His harassment of Christine and Brian contributes to both of their violent careers as Grendel and their deaths.
* ClassyCravat: In his later years.
* CulturedBadass
* ElectronicEyes: One of his eyes has been replaced by an electronic lie detector with a metal surround.
* EvilIsNotAToy: When he starts writing stories about Hunter Rose, congratulates himself that he won't get drawn into the Grendel madness. His works end up cementing Grendel as a world-dominating meme, and he finally goes homicidally insane.
* GenreSavvy: Refuses to discuss Christine Spar or Brian Li Sung, for fear of digging up old ghosts. He assumes it won't happen if he confines it to impersonal stories about Hunter Rose, whom he never met. He's mistaken.
* HeWhoFightsMonsters: First implied by his association with Argent, but confirmed with his treatment of Brian Li Sung.
* KnightTemplar: Is absolutely and sincerely focused on his role as a cop. He also openly harasses suspects in attempt to get them to break.
* LivingLieDetector: Captain Wiggins' cybernetic eye lets him read biopatterns.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Whether his mental collapse is due to excessive drinking and a bad marriage, or because of a Grendel influence.
* SharpDressedMan
* ShownTheirWork: His eye has a lie detector, which he confesses isn't admissible in court. Real world polygraph tests aren't, either.
* TheCSIEffect: Averted with Wiggins cybernetic eye/lie dectector. It's useful but it's inadmissable in court.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: His final decline into insanity.
* TrophyWife: Which doesn't turn out well.
[[/folder]]

!!26th Century

[[folder:Orion Assante]]
[[quoteright:207:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/596382_picture_2.png]]

* AwesomeByAnalysis: The reason he rises to prominence? The Pope bought so many bananas that it'd be impossible to distribute them all to the hungry before the bulk begin rotting. [[SpottingTheThread So what is the real purpose?]]
* BadassBureaucrat: Initially
* BrotherSisterIncest: With [[{{Twincest}} both his sisters]]. Until [[DisposableWoman they get murdered by the Church]].
* TheChessmaster: Orion plays everyone to rise to become the most powerful man in the world.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Refuses to use nuclear weapons because of the devastation they caused in the past. This doesn't stop him from destroying the whole of Japan with the Sun-Gun, although he justifies it on the grounds that it doesn't cause lasting pollution and contamination the way nukes do.
** He also notes it's comparatively merciful, and that Japan would fight to the death even against overwhelming force, mirroring perception in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Assante is probably the most significant Grendel who's arguably not evil, just desperate.
* GodEmperor: Not entirely willingly, but if people will insist on worshiping him...
* HonestCorporateExecutive: To start with.
* MisterSeahorse: Carries baby Jupiter himself due to Laurel's inability to carry a child to term.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: From middle to old age over the cause of his narrative.
* SexualKarma: He is definitely the sanest and most rational, and possibly the most well-intentioned, Grendel, and it's strongly implied that this is down to his ability to maintain good romantic relationships with other people. Well, for [[BrotherSisterIncest elastic]] values of "good."
* TakeOverTheWorld: The major mystery of his character is if he was planning to do this all along, or if one thing just led to another.
* ThreeWaySex: Has a long-term and stable relationship with Sherri and Fada. It's left decorously unclear whether the two women were actually sexually involved with each other, although all three of them certainly shared a bed.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Eppy Thatcher]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/593784_thatcher3.jpg]]

* AnimalMetaphor: Eppy's thoughts are frequently contrasted with images of a pigeon feeding Eppy's prayer balloon to one of its babies, suffocating it to death in the process and cleanly illustrating Eppy's views on what faith leads to.
* AxCrazy: At his most extreme moments.
* {{Expy}}: He's mostly a cross between V from ''ComicBook/VForVendetta'' and [[ComicBook/SpiderMan the Green Goblin]].
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Unlike the other versions of Grendel, was an unknown blue-collar working stiff before he took up the mantle.
* HermitGuru: Orion hopes he has become one, but is disappointed.
* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Kills quite a lot of fairly innocent people, but Innocent is so monstrous that he still comes across as heroic by comparison.
* PopCulturedBadass: Likes quoting sixties pop songs.
* PsychoSerum: The hallucinogenic and strength-boosting "Grendel" drug he uses.
* RageAgainstTheHeavens: The only major Grendel to consciously embrace the supernatural elements of the role and identify as a demon.
* RetiredBadass: After the defeat of Innocent.
* SelfHarm: Implied in the past, and implications of it when he implants anti-grav disks into his hands and feet.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: The sequences of his hallucinations.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pope Innocent XLII]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2915743_scan_175.jpeg]]

* BigBad: The main villain of the Eppy Thatcher Grendel ensure, and the ruler of the Catholic Church.
* TheBusCameBack / HijackedByGanon: He is, in fact, [[spoiler:Tujiro]].
* ChurchOfEvil: Especially compared to their African branch, who have [[HistoricalInjoke split off into their own church]].
* KarmaHoudiniWarranty: [[spoiler:Tujiro returns, and this time actually gets what's coming to him.]]
* RedRightHand: One of his hands is apparently artificial (actually a [[UnroboticReveal fake]] to cover up vampiric deformity).
* SinisterMinister: Being a vampire serial murderer who's plotting to conquer the world surely qualifies.
* WouldHurtAChild: Strongly implied he has a disturbing interest in young boys. [[spoiler:Given he's Tujiro, he's eating them.]]
* VampireMonarch: [[spoiler:As Tujiro, he's the ruler of all vampires.]]
* VillainWithGoodPublicity: Worshipped by an elite group of fanatics and a whole lot of rubes.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Pellon Cross]]
[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/600047_picture_3.png]]

* AlmightyIdiot: Cross eventually indulges in his vampirism to the point that he's a bloated, near-mindless heap who can do little more but drink blood and idly allow others to feed off him in turn.
* BastardUnderstudy: To Pope Innocent
* DarkMessiah: To his vampire minions.
* DirtyCop: By his era, C.O.P. continues to claim some kind of security purpose, but is basically just another armed gang.
* EmptyShell: At the end, he's a bloated, virtually insensate mass unable to even speak.
* FatBastard: By his final years, so fat he can barely move.
* IHateYouVampireDad: Goes after Innocent pretty much as soon as he regains a degree of self-awareness following his vampirisation.
* MonsterProgenitor: Whereas Tujiro was very restrained about who he turned, Cross turns people quite indiscriminately, so that in the later stages of the story practically all the vampires around are members of his bloodline.
* PatientZero: Of the new vampire plague. All prior vampires died with the Pope, and Cross actively pushes to recruit whenever possible.
* SanitySlippage: After becoming a vampire, gradually gets nuttier and nuttier.
* SavageWolf: Although he rarely transforms, his animal form is a wolf. This adds to the innuendo at times (especially in his fight with Eppy) that his life is somehow recapitulating Argent's.
* TwoFaced: Half his skull is replaced by bionic armour.
* VampireMonarch: He inherits the title after Tujiro dies, becoming the ruler of vampires. He's...far less effective at it than Tujiro.
* VillainousGlutton
* VillainousValour: Whatever you think of him, his theft of the plutonium is pretty badass.
* WeHaveReserves: His attitude to his minions as a vampire.
* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: Subverted - Pellon assumes Innocent is going to kill him, but instead Innocent turns him into a vampire.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Mother Aimee]]
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* {{Expy}}: Has some distinct similarities to [[ComicBook/NewGods Granny Goodness]]. It may be coincidental, but she also looks like an evil version of one of [[ComicStrip/TheFarSide Gary Larson's]] trademark fat housewives with beehive hairdos and narrow spectacles.
* IgnoredEnamoredUnderling: Blatantly in love with Innocent.
* NunTooHoly
* TortureTechnician
* TooKinkyToTorture: Commits repeated acts of self-mortification to prove herself to Innocent. He doesn't notice.
* UndignifiedDeath: Shot in the back, then drowns in a giant vat of bananas (ItMakesSenseInContext.}
[[/folder]]

!!After Orion

[[folder:Grendel Prime]]
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* BadassBiker: Usually uses a hoverbike.
* BlackKnight: His core themes are directly drawn from this trope.
* FireForgedFriends: With Susan Veraghen, arguably the only other Grendel to ever live up to Grendel Prime's standards.
* FullConversionCyborg: Let Orion turn him into the ultimate warrior. At the time he's first introduced, he is little more than a head and upper torso with mechanical limbs. By the time of ''Batman/Grendel II'', his only remaining human parts are his brain and eyes. The intervening events are described with gruesome BodyHorror in the prose novel ''Grendel: Past Prime''.
* HellBentForLeather
* KnightInSourArmor: By Past Prime, though reuniting with Susan helps.
* LaserBlade: His favourite weapon.
* LossOfIdentity: Although if you're paying attention, there's one very obvious candidate as to who he might have been.
* NobleDemon
* ThePaladin: Expressly identified as such, though he's not remotely a good guy.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy: Eventually subverted, as he becomes thoroughly disgusted with the degeneration of the Grendel ideal.
* RedemptionFailure: On Revan Jhek in ''Devil's Odyssey'', he attempts under Siggy's influence to become a MessianicArchetype, but the brutal murder of his local sidekick causes him to abandon his moral pretentions in rage and commit a massacre.
* VillainProtagonist
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Susan Veraghen]]
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* ActionGirl
* TheApunkalypse: Mohican, dreadlocks, tattoos, ripped clothes and/or lots of leather... yep, she's definitely adopted this as her fashion sense.
* AscendedExtra: Starts off as a random guard, then becomes the first-person narrator of ''Past Prime''.
* TheAtoner: In ''Grendel: Past Prime.'' It was her clan that was on guard duty the night [[spoiler:Jupiter Assante was assassinated]]; as a result, everyone except her commits ritual suicide, and she herself goes on a worldwide pilgrimage to locate the missing Grendel Prime.
* BrawnHilda: A rare Action Girl who's built like a bruiser rather than a catwalk model.
* ButchLesbian
* DeathSeeker: For a time after Crystal dumps her and Jupiter is murdered.
* {{Determinator}}: For all the stuff she does in ''Past Prime'', after being captured by the rebels.
* HonorBeforeReason: Not to be confused with LawfulStupid. Susan is intimately and painfully aware that this allows others to manipulate her, but still holds herself to a higher standard.
* KickedUpstairs: Her promotion to head of security for the Dakota residence turns out to be just a way of getting rid of Crystal's embarrassing ex-lover
* LimaSyndrome: Falls in love with Crystal while acting as her main guard (in what was a GildedCage to such a degree that Susan may not have fully realised she was meant to be keeping Crystal prisoner rather than protecting her).
* LoveHurts: [[spoiler:Crystal drags her into a three-way relationship with Martel against her will, then dumps her for the kind of political arranged marriage that Susan originally rescued her from. Astrid gets murdered just after they sleep together. Then Mace turns out to be an anti-Grendel fanatic and gets killed.]]
* MoralityChain: By implication to Grendel Prime, given the serious moral decay he rapidly undergoes after her death.
* ProudWarriorRaceGuy
* RedemptionEarnsLife: It's arguable as to whether she was ever "evil" (though all the Grendel clans have a code of honor that would be considered fundamentally incompatible with modern morality), but of all the main characters in the Grendel series she is the only one who is confirmed to have died a natural death- and apparently at an old age.
* TokenGoodTeammate: An essentially good and honourable person in a world where such virtues exist in an at-best twisted form.
* UndyingLoyalty: To Grendel Prime [[spoiler:until she actually dies, at which point he morally declines fast]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Laurel Kennedy Assante]]
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* BadBoss: Storms into the kitchen and throws boiling water over a sous-chef because she was served cauliflower.
* ComicBookFantasyCasting: Based on Joan Crawford.
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen
* ParentalNeglect: To Jupiter and Crystal
* RegentForLife: Allegedly planning to do this to Jupiter until Grendel Prime kidnapped him.
* SandNecktie: [[spoiler: Shaved, her mouth filled with salt, eyelids removed, and buried to her neck in the middle of the desert.]]
* SanitySlippage
* TheStarscream: To Orion.
* TrophyWife: To Orion.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Abner Heath]]
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* TheChessmaster: He believes, although he's not very good at it.
* EvilChancellor: To Laurel.
* GambitRoulette: Employs these often. Even though he's really bad at them.
* RegentForLife: Takes advantage of Laurel's madness to try to become effectively Khan. Too bad it's around this time that Jupiter makes his power grab.
* SmugSnake: Despite all evidence to the contrary, he still thinks he can take on Jupiter Assante in combat.
* TheStarscream: To Laurel.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jupiter Assante]]
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* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Murdered by his own wife between two books.
* TheGoodPrince
* LivingMacguffin: In War Child. So long as he's alive, neither Laurel nor Heath may rule securely.
* PlotRelevantAgeUp: Jupiter Assante in ''Grendel: War Child.''
* TheSpartanWay: His upbringing, by his father's plan.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Appears as an adult for just one double-length comic issue.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Brilla and Margaret Session]]
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* AscendedExtra: Only make a brief appearance in the series proper. In the SpinOff ''Grendel Tales'', they play a much larger and more active role.
* BountyHunter
* BreakoutCharacter: After several appearances in ''Grendel Tales'', they appear in the [[DistantFinale final issue]] of the comic proper, despite playing almost no part in it.
* CreepyTwins
* PsychoForHire
* TortureTechnician
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Hitchcock Blue]]
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* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Has blue skin. It's implied that he's one of a group of colour-coded clone siblings. One of whom may be [[DeliberatelyMonochrome red]].
* BountyHunter
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: He has visual and personality similarities to Creator/HunterSThompson, or at least his literary persona.
* NoodleIncident: Whatever happened between him and the Session Sisters.
* NudeNatureDance: Once, in a desert.
* SirSwearsALot
* TheSnarkKnight
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Jupiter III Assante]]
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* SirSwearsALot
* UndignifiedDeath: Scratches himself to death in a fit of anxiety.
* UnfitForGreatness: And his extreme neurosis is because he knows it.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Siggy]]
* TheFettered: Forced as an AI to serve Grendel Prime's mission to find a new Earth, and in turn fetters him.
* FlyingFace: Her drone form looks like a hovering robot head with two skeletal limbs.
* MrExposition: Spends much of her time delivering information to Grendel Prime on the planets that they explore.
* ServileSnarker: Can get in a nice veiled insult at times.
[[/folder]]