The Fates Aligned, Grim Returns for a New Arc with Issue #6

Still trapped in Las Vegas, Jessica, Eddie and Marcel encounter a fabulous twist on mythical Greek figures, as well as someone with the authority to get them out of their phantasmal dilemma. A new arc begins in Grim #6, written by Stephanie Phillips, drawn by Flaviano, colored by Rico Renzi and lettered by Tom Napolitano for BOOM Studios.

Whoa, it’s been a while since we visited death’s realm, huh? The same could be said for Jess (newly discovered daughter of Death), Marcel (1860s French guy who died in his lover’s arms) and Eddie (rocker who hates New York). They’ve been banned from the afterlife, but at least they get to enjoy some rad concerts in Las Vegas.

But that skips past the opener, which sets up more questions: A bloody World War I battlefield. A stunning purple-and-green scene. Young men shooting mindlessly to their deaths. On their foreheads, glaring crimson symbols that look like my spin cycle button. And they appear to be under the control of Death?

Then a cut scene like the drop of a noose and now we’re seeing a very hairy dude purchase a ticket to a drag show. As three queens sing Belinda Carlisle’s “Heaven is a Place on Earth,” the man takes out a smoke and uses some form of Jedi mind trick — or maybe just plain fear — to convince a woman he is allowed to smoke there. This man, Harold, aka the Messenger, comes with news that the Fates, represented here as three fabulous queens, already know about.

If you know the Fates, one spins the thread of someone’s fate, one apportions it and the last severs it, determining an individual’s death. Now this is interesting: Moments ago they mentioned Jess, her dad, Death, and Death’s sister, Adira. But aren’t they each already dead? And why is there suddenly one thread that can’t be cut?

In lettering reminiscent of the noises at the No Man’s Land scene, a rock band that seriously looks like the band Ghost performs at the music festival. Jess is off on her own and confronted by an ominous goth girl spouting John Keats. She lights a towering gargoyle statue on fire before throwing herself into it. Somehow she doesn’t die and Jess pulls her out from the flames before the medical staff and concertgoers converge on the scene, all mysteriously marked with the same symbol the WWI soldier and the goth girl bore.

Renzi and Flaviano play off each other well. Flaviano’s delicate lines indicating hair or wrinkles are accentuated by Renzi’s shading and pops of bright pinks or teals. The gargoyle is a heavy presence over every music festival scene. Renzi’s colors have particularly bloomed from the three- or four-color palette that started the first arc to ranges of orange and fuschia, lime and lavender that I couldn’t have seen working together and yet nail the mood of every panel.

It seems from the starting pages that Death was the one manipulating the soldiers with the symbols on their heads, but as recently as last arc he was living a chill life in Vegas. Why would he be toying with mobs of people now? And what the heck is up with the goth girl? Was she the thread that can’t be cut? Maybe diving into some lore about death will help us figure it out.

Cat’s Death Corner

It’s easy to talk about the Fates. I love the choice to portray them as drag queens. How easy would it be to give folks clues about their future in shows and have it be up to interpretation? But from Dante to Shakespeare, they’ve been done to death.

Groups of three women are often associated with death or a person’s destiny. Less well known are the Norns, a group of three Norse women who even the gods are subject to. They also determine the fate of a person in their hall under Yggdrasil, the world tree.

Also in Europe is The Morrigan, popularized most recently by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine. This Irish queen is associated with war and fate, a perfect tie-in to this issue. Although one woman, she’s also seen as three women or three crows sometimes and known for her shapeshifting abilities. The connection from the drag queens to the Moirai, or Fates, seems obvious, but I’m drawn to Morrigan for her ties to war and shapeshifting as well. I think we should be on the lookout for some crows.