Grendel was the masked identity of Hunter Rose, a successful author. As Grendel, he worked as an assassin before taking control of New York City's organized crime. He first appeared in 1982 in the anthology Comico Primer, and was given his own series in 1983. This was quickly cancelled due to the publisher's financial troubles. Wagner, who still owned the character, used the opportunity to re-tell the story of Hunter Rose in a far less conventional style in Grendel: Devil by the Deed, serialized as a backup story in Wagner's series Mage; this was subsequently collected as a 48-page one-shot.