Grail as a villian

[Mel Dyer]

We already had a take with Barbara as the monster and not the Cheetah, and it fizzled out very quickly. She has a reason to hate Diana and the Gods now, and a stated mission goal of taking out her wrath on the Olympians and Amazons. As it stands now, she's nothing like Grail. She is actually a well defined and layered character, whereas Grail is anything but.

That's fine, but, what do they WANT, SP?

I don't know what either Cheetah or Grail wants or why they're doing what they're doing. They're just running around, scratching up things and beheading people, seemingly with no easily identifiable agenda, on hand...for no stated reason! What is their evil plan?

What was Grail's reason for anything in the last [Ye gods!] ..TWELVE issues of WW? What did she hope to accomplish by restoring Papiseid to power, on Apokolips? Does she have a condo to get back to? Want to score some cash for a butt-lift? Seriously, Siege - what exactly does she want, and why's she running around, lopping off people's heads? What is she smiling, so much, for? What is she doing? We don't know. I've got a major problem with that.

I don't think I said Cheetah and Grail were alike. I said they have the same problem.

[marhawkman]

I was just thinking about this and it'd be interesting if Grail has a sort of internal conflict she's constantly trying to hide. More specifically, some part of her isn't a bad person and even though she does a lot of bad things, there's this itch in the back of her mind that tells her it's wrong. Obviously she does her best to ignore it, but it's always there trying to make her do good things. Why? well, the Amazons didn't raise her to be evil... she just came out that way.

[WonderScott]

I'm not sure where we go from here with Grail. There's potential that we just lost her to Ares now in exchange for Darkseid. ::shrugs shoulders::

Her storyline of rebirthing Darkseid at the end of Darkseid War so she could raise him, never held any water for me. Perhaps I'm dense, but it made no sense. (Unintentional rhyming.) I get the idea of second chances, but she just ended up as his humble servant as opposed to controlling him, diminishing any chance of an interesting triangle power struggle dynamic between Darkseid and Grail and Wonder Woman/Justice League. What was supposed to be a Wonder Woman and Justice League and New Gods-level threat, got turned into a handmaiden for a male character. (Let alone she was going to be prominent female villain and we have so few of those who challenge the Justice League.)

Kind of like how Jason has turned out, I wish we could get a redo, or a Re-Rebirth, on Grail.

She's a woman torn between her Apokoliptan nature and her anti-Amazonian heritage instilled in her over hundreds of years by her mother. If she was going to rebirth Darkseid, I would rather have had her try and use him to assume the leadership of Apokolips. There's a whole story of Darkseid being gone from Apokolips and being weakened that we aren't seeing based on what happened in the pages of Wonder Woman and soon in Justice League Odyssey.

Maybe there's room for this storyline yet, since Darkseid abandoned her and she's now trapped with Ares. Maybe she'll make a play for the rulership of Themyscira and usurp Hippolyta from the throne. Perhaps making her own Female Furies out of some of the Amazons to take the throne of Apokolips. I'd love to see a confrontation between Orion, Kalibak, Gravyn, and Grail.

If she ends up as Ares's "assistant" in a play for destroying the Amazons or the Olympians, now that Zeus is gone, I'll be a little let down.

I want her to be a bigger thing than that.

[The Dying Detective]

I'm not sure where we go from here with Grail. There's potential that we just lost her to Ares now in exchange for Darkseid. ::shrugs shoulders::

Her storyline of rebirthing Darkseid at the end of Darkseid War so she could raise him, never held any water for me. Perhaps I'm dense, but it made no sense. (Unintentional rhyming.) I get the idea of second chances, but she just ended up as his humble servant as opposed to controlling him, diminishing any chance of an interesting triangle power struggle dynamic between Darkseid and Grail and Wonder Woman/Justice League. What was supposed to be a Wonder Woman and Justice League and New Gods-level threat, got turned into a handmaiden for a male character. (Let alone she was going to be prominent female villain and we have so few of those who challenge the Justice League.)

Kind of like how Jason has turned out, I wish we could get a redo, or a Re-Rebirth, on Grail.

She's a woman torn between her Apokoliptan nature and her anti-Amazonian heritage instilled in her over hundreds of years by her mother. If she was going to rebirth Darkseid, I would rather have had her try and use him to assume the leadership of Apokolips. There's a whole story of Darkseid being gone from Apokolips and being weakened that we aren't seeing based on what happened in the pages of Wonder Woman and soon in Justice League Odyssey.

Maybe there's room for this storyline yet, since Darkseid abandoned her and she's now trapped with Ares. Maybe she'll make a play for the rulership of Themyscira and usurp Hippolyta from the throne. Perhaps making her own Female Furies out of some of the Amazons to take the throne of Apokolips. I'd love to see a confrontation between Orion, Kalibak, Gravyn, and Grail.

If she ends up as Ares's "assistant" in a play for destroying the Amazons or the Olympians, now that Zeus is gone, I'll be a little let down.

I want her to be a bigger thing than that.

Not a bad idea I would pen it.

[marhawkman]

I remember what Grail did to Travor, a less extreme version of that sort of thing on more "servants" would be a neat power to give her.

[WonderScott]

I remember what Grail did to Travor, a less extreme version of that sort of thing on more "servants" would be a neat power to give her.

Yeah, that was another weird part of that story - the prophecy that the first man to walk on Themyscira was the one that needed to be used to channel the energy.

Johns must have been busy at the time, because the payoff for the story is a little OOC.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

Honestly Grail doesn't have alot going for her. Writers tried stressing that she was the perfect nemesis for Wonder Woman because 'Wonder Woman is of the old gods and Grail is of the new gods. That means she is stronger because shes newer! A real threat for Wonder Woman who will be her new arch nemesis because she "Has no real villains" Grail is the future!"

But when you break it down all she has is eye lasers, and strength on the same level as Wonder Woman. Which isn't bad per say, but doesn't mean much when a fair chunk of Wonder Womans rogues can boast that much power. She has trained with Myrna Black for thousands of years which is credible, though frankly she isn't near as interesting as Myrna.

Myrna Black came off as this brilliant concept of an Amazon willing to bring about the deaths of millions if it meant exterminating an evil as great as Darkseid from the universe. Choosing to sacrifice the Earth for the sake of creation. She had been an active hero who avoided killing if she could but would if she had to. She had taken on several big villains in the past and rode around on a flipping Griffin. She raised her daughter convinced she could turn her to good and show her a better path.

Grail though? Shes less a character and more a plot device. Trying to explain why she does what she does and whats going through her head is a ridiculous task.
First she wants to help her mother kill Darkseid
Then she brings Darkseid back to life but robs him of his powers declaring death was to good for him.
Then her mom dies so she decides to raise Darkseid to be good like her.
Then she decides evil is totes cool and decides to kill gods to feed to Darkseid
Then shes seducing jason and sexing him up so he will join them.
And then shes straight up Darkseids latest henchman whose not showing anything that makes her any more useful than Kalibak or Steppenwolf. With even less nuance and motivation than Darkseids other minions.

I get that some people want to try and tie Jack Kirbys new gods to Wonder Womans mythos and that this isn't the first time someone has attempted this, but theres more to making a good character than simply saying 'they are both a wonder woman character and a new god character!' and expecting that to suffice. Honestly if Grail had died instead of Myrna Black and we got a story of her blaming Diana for her daughters death, that would have been a FAR more interesting tale than anything Grail could possibly provide at this point. Her motivation is rubbish and theres no real thread or logic connecting any of her actions.

[Mel Dyer]

There really isn't so much wrong with Grail, as how she's written. If the Anti-life is her motivation, it should be an important part of her on-going clashes with Diana. Furthermore, Grail's use of or relationship to Anti-life should be different, than Darkseid's.

Otherwise, she's just a Barbie doll with a sword.

[marhawkman]

There really isn't so much wrong with Grail, as how she's written. If the Anti-life is her motivation, it should be an important part of her on-going clashes with Diana. Furthermore, Grail's use of or relationship to Anti-life should be different, than Darkseid's.

Otherwise, she's just a Barbie doll with a sword.

See part of what i found interesting is that she actually used the anti-life to force someone to serve her. Imagine if she had a magic touch that would add a glowing Omega to someone's forehead and until the spell was broken they would be her slave?

[Mel Dyer]

See part of what i found interesting is that she actually used the anti-life to force someone to serve her. Imagine if she had a magic touch that would add a glowing Omega to someone's forehead and until the spell was broken they would be her slave?

WOW! I'm sorry I missed that. That might have been a great power for Grail.

[Armor of God]

She's a flop that no New God writer will ever touch because for them Kirby is God and Grail is a recent abomination.
She didn't appear in the New Gods one shots they published last year. Not in the HJGLC arc with New Gods, not in Mister Miracle and doesn't appear that JL Odyssey will have any use of her. If neither franchise wants her then what's the point? Her entire existence hinges on the fact that DC higher ups think that Diana doesn't have an arch nemesis so they're putting their bets on her.

[Fuzzy Mittens]

She might mean something if it wasn't for the fact that writers who don't worship Jack Kirby freely have Batman, Harley Quinn, and Superman single handedly defeat everyone worth mentioning on Apokolips single handed and writers who do love the Jack Kirby stuff traditionaly don't use the new material that other writers come up with.

Heck, trying to tie Wonder Woman to the new gods at all is fraught with problems when writers like to play up the new gods as being these all powerful figures with Granny Goodness single handedly defeating and capturing all the Olympians in Amazons yet Steve Trevors able to defeat and capture the Female Furies with hardly any effort.

As it is, we have a character who was supposed to have been born thousands of years ago the same day as Diana and raised by Myrina Black (whose a more interesting character in every possible way.) To be good and not evil despite her heritage and to destroy Darkseid at any cost. With Myrina dying and Grail adopting Darkseid and declaring she would try and do what her mother did and raise baby Darkseid to be good.

One Robinson later and we have Grail as a simpering toady for Darkseid who does whatever he wishes in order to restore him to power, with nothing about Grail showing any actual capability or honestly anything that makes her seem particularly dangerous.

Perhaps someone could salvage Grail and remove the foul taste left by Robinson but even before then she was far less interesting than other evil counterparts like Devestation, Genocide, Queen Clea of Venturia, or the Baroness. I'll grant that she is more interesting than First Born, but thats a low hurdle to jump.

On the other hand, its not like other superheroes have a shortage of dark mirrors. How many Batman villains are there who have dead parents and are supposed to be super smart martial artists? How many of Supermans enemies are flying bricks who are supposed to be his dark reflection?

[Sacred Knight]

She's easily salvageable. Its just a question of if a good writer wants to and has an idea. More than possible, but just as possible she's left wasting away for a while if no writers are interested. Her foreseeable future is 50/50 for that reasons.

[kjn]

The better question might be if Grail is worth salvaging, and right now I think the answer is no. Diana has no lack of mythological high-end enemies, and Grail also ties into lots of assumptions about Amazon society that many fans find troublesome. She also comes out of specific demands for a larger story arc not tied to Diana, which is not necessarily a good fit for good antagonists.

I'd much rather that effort in the near and medium term was spent into bringing back Doctor Poison (as a proper mad scientist, not the tacticool mercenary that Rucka created), Doctor Psycho, Giganta, and some of the other more mundane antagonists of Diana.

[Vordan]

She's showing up in Wilson's run. Maybe she can do a better job with her than Robinson does (I don't see how she could do worse). That said I'd rather see Psycho show up for the first time post-Rebirth, or see Cyber appear again. Grail is just a lackey for Darkseid right now. If she's to actually earn a place in the Rogues Gallery, she needs to be more than that.