Michael Gilman: What, if any, relationship does this second Batman/Grendel series have to the first?
Matt Wagner: Quite a lot, yet it stands on its own for new readers. It stars a different Grendel -- Grendel-Prime, the relentless cyborg from the War Child storyline. I've tried to make the story and the art more endemic to what is proper for that character rather than what is proper for the Hunter Rose character. The first one is more of a crime story so it's very intricate and dense, whereas this one is far more of an action tale and far more open and large; the first one has a variety of narrators, this one has one, omniscient narrator; the first one's a gigantic puzzle you have to crawl your way through, this one is a gigantic roller-coaster ride that picks you up and shoots you through.
Gilman: Are there any story elements you care to reveal?
Wagner: The crossover has a handful of nice surprises that regular Grendel readers will find quite enticing.
Gilman: Things a Batman reader might not pick up on?
Wagner: But structured in a way so the Batman reader will think it's a cool Batman story. But the Grendel reader in the know will understand the significance of a couple of things -- specifically the ending. Other than that, I've laid the groundwork for this story in a back-up series I've done for the last year and a half in Grendel Tales.
Gilman: That's the Devil Quest storyline?
Wagner: Right, where Grendel-Prime's very horrific world was detailed. That story is set several hundred years after War Child and the Grendel-Prime we see now is very different than the one we left, but he's still a very relentless killing machine.
Gilman: He was almost likable in War Child.
Wagner: [laughs] I guess you could call it that. But this is several hundred years later and the ideals that this character believed in have all since died and he's reached a point of absolute apathy and inhumanity. In Devil Quest, we find he tries to conduct a cyber-mystical experiment to contact the soul of Hunter Rose. During the course of this, something goes massively wrong, and he disappears into a swirling vortex. At the end of Devil Quest he comes back but the implication is that he went somewhere in the intervening time, and that somewhere turns out to be Gotham City. The catalytic link revolves around a show at the Gotham City Museum. Batman/Grendel II takes place in Gotham City several years after Hunter Rose died and, much like what's happening to Jeffrey Dahmer's remains right now, was quickly dissected by modern science to see if it could detect what abnormalities could be attributed to his character. His bones have been brought to the Museum for a controversial show on famous killers, which is being echoed even as we speak with the show at the New York Historical Society.
Gilman: Yeah! I saw that on CNN.
Wagner: That's the one. In the world of Devil Quest we make reference to these "questors" searching for the "true skull." Hunter Rose's bones act as the mystical focal point that draws this vortex to Gotham City and deposits Grendel-Prime there.
Gilman: Had you always intended to have Devil Quest be the prequel for Batman/Grendel II or did this link develop as the story unfolded?
Wagner: It was always intended. I wanted to vilify Grendel-Prime so he'd be a big, exciting threat when he comes to Gotham City, just as much of a threat as Hunter Rose was when he showed up there.
Gilman: Some aspects of Devil Quest were fairly graphic and adult in nature -- a boundary you're always challenging in comics. Is that something that will be present in Batman/Grendel II?
Wagner: No, no... that's quite toned down for this. Although the story is very exciting and there's definitely threat and violence involved, it's a superhero story. With Devil Quest I really wanted to do modern horror stories and be as utterly disgusting and shocking as I could to really drive home what a horrific world it has become in that future to bring Grendel-Prime to these depths of despair.
Gilman: How did you handle the Batman differently than you have before, if at all?
Wagner: Since I have a different Grendel I'm trying to take a different approach to my drawing of Batman. In this he's less the Dark Knight Detective and more the Caped Crusader.
Gilman: He's more heroic?
Wagner: Yeah. Batman is an amalgam of a lot of different aspects, and all the Batman projects I've done have had a different Batman each time. In Batman/Grendel he's quite the detective, the Faces storyline definitely reveals the scary aspect of Batman, and this time I'm doing the superhero.
Gilman: How do the two series differ, both stylistically and thematically?
Wagner: In the first Batman/Grendel, I wanted the two main characters to kind of be large icons representing the city. The story was told from a more human point of view via their internal thoughts and the thoughts and diaries of these two women with whom the characters became involved. Consequently, all the storytelling was very blocky; there were lots of square panels and things broke down into an almost brick-like pattern whenever characters went into intimate conversation. My general approach was to make the city the star. But we break out of this very rigid, brick-like grid whenever the two main characters show up because they're larger than that. In Batman/Grendel II I tried to make all the storytelling a little more exciting -- panels flowing off pages and moving all around. I'm taking the approach that the costumes are the stars. The story is more about what effect an identification with violence has on identity in general.
Gilman: We get to see what happens when the characters put on the suit and the suit takes over?
Wagner: Even further than that. We never see them out of the suit... well, we do get to peek under Grendel-Prime's suit and we only see Batman as Bruce Wayne once and for a very brief period of time... and his guard is down. The costume has become the identity at this point.
Gilman: Are there any plans to do a third Batman/Grendel?
Wagner: Not really. This one has such a nice, closed-curtain ending that I would really hesitate before doing a third one.
Gilman: You're doing a lot of Grendel reprints through Dark Horse lately. Are there any more on tap?
Wagner: We're thinking of reprinting Devil's Legacy, the Pander Brothers' story, sometime in the next year to two years. Also, we plan to offer Grendel Cycle, the book explaining the history of Grendel, every six months or so.
Gilman: Good idea -- that was a great book. Is Dark Horse going to continue to publish new Grendel Tales?
Wagner: Yes, the one that's running now is Terry LaBan's and Peter Doughtery's The Devil May Care. The next is one that Diana [Schutz, editor of Grendel] wrote called Devil Child that is the story of Stacy Hunter's years in the mental asylum and her relationship to her daughter Christine Spar, the star of Devil's Legacy -- a nice little launch into the possibility of reprinting the Pander Brothers run. That's drawn by Tim Sale. The next one, currently being worked on, is written by Jeff Lang called Devil's Apprentice and drawn by Steve Leiber, the artist on Hawkman.
Gilman: Speaking of future projects -- the question you've probably been asked the most in the last ten years: What's up with Mage II?
Wagner: I think I'm going to do Mage II after I'm finished with this.
Gilman: It was a semi-autobiographical tale. Are you going to continue with this?
Wagner: Absolutely. It's a totally fantasy-based, allegoric autobiography. All the stuff in Mage kind of relates to what was happening to me at the time. Obviously there were no monsters chasing me around, but inside of me there were.
Gilman: Anything else in the works from the Grendel universe?
Wagner: Lots. I'm doing a signed print with Graphitti Designs based on the alphabet I did in the beginning of Grendel Cycle, and I'm still producing the Grendel T-shirts through Ancient Brain Parts. Then there's the badge -- the big, winged icon from the cover of Grendel Cycle that I did with Randy Bowen.
Gilman: Speaking of Bowen, any plan to produce a less expensive version of the Grendel statue you did with Bowen Studios?
Wagner: No, I don't think so. However, Randy and I are talking about doing another one... a Grendel-Prime piece to capitalize on Batman/Grendel II.
Gilman: One last question: Why Ancient Brain Parts? Is that the name of your studio?
Wagner: No, just the name of the newsletter, but I think it perfectly describes my work.