Real
Name: Unknown
Grendel Prime
Real
Name: Unknown
Identity/Class: Cyborg
Occupation: Protector of Jupiter Assante
Affiliations:
Enemies: Pellon Cross
Known Relatives:
Aliases:
Base of Operations:
First Appearance: Grendel - War Child #1 (Dark Horse)
Powers/Abilities: Grendel-Prime is superhumanly strong and durable.
History: After Orion Assante's seclusion and death, his wife, Laurel Kennedy Assante, seized power as regent, cloistering the young heir, Jupiter Assante, until he was ready to rule. A large Grendel dressed entirely in black broke into the complex where Jupiter was being held and kidnapped him. Laurel Kennedy Assante organized a fierce pursuit, but her increasing frustration gave Abner Heath, her Prime Minister, the opportunity to seize control. The Grendel and his young charge fled as far as Africa, meeting Azif A. Barouk, a rebel leader who discovered that this black Grendel was, in fact, a powerful cyborg designed under Orion's orders and programmed to protect the heir. The Grendel and his compatriots battled vampires in Siberia. Ten years of hiding past, during which Jupiter grew into a young man and was joined by his stepsister, Crystal Kennedy, daughter of Laurel Kennedy Assante who had fled her mother with her young lesbian lover, a green-haired Grendel named Susan Veraghen. Abner Heath, unable to unite the fractured globe, attempted to discover how to reactivate Orion's Sun-Disc. Jupiter and his compatriots assaulted Heath and those ruling in his absence, and Grendel-Prime, the cyborg, plugged himself into the Sun-Disc, blasting the Imperial communications satellite and allowing for the global broadcast of a message by the heir. On 7 July 2603, Jupiter Niklos Assante assumed the throne and became Jupiter I, the second Grendel-Khan. His mission done, Grendel-Prime vanished and was rarely seen afterwards.
Jupiter I was assassinated in 2618, just 15 years after assuming the throne. By 2707, the empire was in jeopardy under Jupiter III, who sought Grendel-Prime as a solution. After an expensive search, Grendel-Prime was finally located; he was engaged in a bizarre scientific project, requiring his feeding of live humans to a machine, in an attempt to contact the soul of Hunter Rose. As Jupiter III's agents intervened, Grendel-Prime vanished, apparently destroyed. Jupiter III heard this news on his death day, the day his empire utterly collapsed: 14 March 1707. Sometime thereafter, Grendel-Prime rematerialized, having been in the past, killing the first person to see him.
Comments: The Grendel Tales era begins with the ascension of Jupiter I in 2603, seen in the conclusion to War Child, and ends with the death of Jupiter III on 14 March 2707 as his empire collapsed, as seen in Devil Quest. The stories of this era are written by multiple writers. They focus on different characters and demonstrate the way Grendel functions as a cultural influence in more marginal parts of the world.
Homecoming focused on Susan Verhagen, the green-haired lesbian lover of Crystal Kennedy in War Child, as she returns home after resigning from Jupiter I's staff in 2609. (Crystal Kennedy apparently married in 2608, but would divorce in 2615 only to remarry in 2616, withdraw from public life, and write classic non-fiction texts on Orion and Jupiter I.) Susan Verhagen would meet Grendel-Prime again in Past Prime.
CLARIFICATIONS:
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