Many artists look back on the work they did at age nineteen and cringe, but Matt Wagner keeps returning to Grendel, expanding and refining his youthful enthusiasms into an exploration of the nature of evil. Today, Grendel is a sprawling multigenerational saga that can be challenging to get into (and it was for one of your hosts), so we start at the beginning with the first link in the chain: a child prodigy who grows up to be the toast of Manhattan society as bestselling author Hunter Rose and master of the East Coast underworld as assassin-turned-crimelord Grendel. We’ll examine how the character evolved with Wagner’s maturing writing and art, ably assisted by some of the greatest comic book artists the Iron Age had to offer, and try to get to the bottom of “criminal chic” and the allure of the villain in popular fiction.

We veer just a bit outside the strict confines of our 15-year Iron Age to read Dark Horse Comics’ Grendel Omnibus Vol. 1: Hunter Rose, which contains The Devil by the Deed, the Black, White and Red and Red, White and Black short story collections, Behold the Devil, and other assorted material.

Grendel's money is ill-gotten, but we merely ask for donations: patreon.com/ironageofcomics

In our continuing series on the early years of Kyle Rayner, our hero squares off against Fatality, a spacefaring warrior woman who wants to crush the Green Lantern Corps (even though Hal Jordan has mostly done the job already). Kyle also gets a new roommate with a connection to the GL legacy, introduces his girlfriend to his mom, gets trapped in a painting, and deals with a troubled friend who was indirectly responsible for Kyle getting the ring in the first place. Featuring team-ups with Green Arrow Connor Hawke, Superboy Kon-El, Deadman, and Kyle’s new JLA teammate J’Onn J’Onzz the Martian Manhunter.

Discussed in this episode: Green Lantern #83-94 and Annual #6 (1997), plus crossover issues of Green Arrow and Superboy.

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Some people think Mike Hodges' 1980 Flash Gordon movie is cheesy trash and hate it; others think it's over-the-top hilarious and enjoy it. But some weirdos truly LOVE this exercise in tonal whiplash, and your humble hosts are two such men. We'll talk about the film as an adaptation of both the original Alex Raymond source material and the Buster Crabbe serials, and how it proudly defies Star Wars' revisionist sci-fi aesthetic. But we'll also try to dig underneath the spectacle to expose the genuinely rousing humanistic heroism at this movie's core. Plus: more beloved character actors than you'll know what to do with!

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