Who is this rabbit ronin star of Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo? That answer goes back hundreds of years to a man who was a contemporary of William Shakespeare’s, though he lived on the other side of the world. Miyamoto Musashi (also known as Shinmen Takezō, Miyamoto Bennosuke and Niten Dōraku) was the author of Go Rin No Sho (The Book of Five Rings) a tactical and philosophical strategy guide that is still studied today as a guide to business (amongst other things). He was also the founder of his own style of swordsmanship (called “Niten-ryū”) and a wandering ronin (masterless samurai) whose adventures spawned legends that became film and television sagas, remaining popular to this day. Even in Musashi’s own day there were pictorial texts that told his tales in a format not unlike today’s comicbooks.

This artwork may well have been the inspiration for Japanese American Stan Sakai to create his own comicbook based on the life of Musashi. This proposed manga was to focus on the real history of the historical (and quite human) Musashi, until Sakai playfully redrew his version of the ronin as a bunny rabbit with a top knot comprised of his black hair-covered ears. Sakai found the image too compelling to abandon and (after a drawing revision that left the rabbit’s fur all white) Miyamoto became Usagi, a roamin’ ronin with Musashi’s history, but a free background with which to create Sakai’s own world. Still, Japanese films continued to influence Sakai’s gridded page.

Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark started its decades-long self-published run in 1977 and Grendel’s initially inauspicious bow came the year before the Renaissance artist namesake reptile warriors hit the shops. Initially a parody of Marvel’s mutant comics (which were becoming all the rage) as well as Frank Miller’s work on Ronin and Daredevil and even Cerebus himself, the Turtles spawned spoofs of their own like Karate Kreatures and Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. Along with Cerebus, Grendel and the other black and white precursors and followers of the TMNT phenomenon, another black and white martial arts cute animal began to hack and slash his way into the comicbook collective in the form of Miyamoto Usagi, the focal character of writer-artist Stan Sakai’s comicbook Usagi Yojimbo.

However, Usagi was neither an imitation of the Turtles, nor a spinoff of their title. In the 1980s, however, this was an easy mistake to make. More than once Usagi guest-starred in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comicbook (and the four brothers from that title returned the favor when they visited Usagi’s own). Usagi appeared in two episodes of the 1987 Turtles animated series and no less than seven episodes of their 2003 cartoon show. The first ever commercially released Usagi Yojimbo toys were part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure line (a tie in with the 1987 cartoon).

Once upon a time there was a boy named Eddie who was so gifted physically and mentally that his every goal was attained with careless ease. This led to a life of pride and despair, as nothing had any real meaning attached to it. Thus he formulated a new life of challenges for himself. Eddie became Hunter Rose, wealthy novelist and playboy by day, crime lord and costumed assassin by night. It was this latter role as “Grendel” that lived long after his death at the hands of a Native American man-wolf named Argent.

So we are told in the stories by writer/ artist Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel. The character debuted in 1982’s Comico Primer #2 and continued first in his own series, then (when publisher Comico began to experience financial difficulties, resulting in the cancellation of Grendel) as a backup story in the pages of Wagner’s more heroic creation Mage.

Interest in Grendel rose (no pun intended) due to his appearances in Mage and resulted in a new ongoing series. By this time Hunter Rose had become a dark legend, spread by the (fictional) biographical novel Devil by Deed written by Christine Spar (daughter of Rose’s adoptive daughter Stacy Palumbo). When Spar’s son is kidnapped by (no, I’m not making this up) a Vampire Kabuki dancer, Spar becomes the first to take up the mask of Grendel after Rose, initially in a quest to rescue her son, then in a quest to pretty much shish kebab every Tom, Dick, Harry or Sally she comes across. And thus the legend became a legacy.

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On his best day, Peter Milligan can go round for round with Bob Dylan. And on his very best day, Milligan might even come out ahead.

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
—Albert Einstein

If Albert Einstein were alive in today’s world and an avid reader of comicbooks—he may have very well been if it weren’t for the Manhattan Project devouring nearly all of his downtime—there is no doubt in my mind that he would have made an addendum to that statement, being sure to include Marvel’s propensity for releasing a new company-wide crossover event that kicks off in the spring of every new year since 2005.

Back When the waning Bronze Age was close to ushering in the arrival of this generation’s Modern Age of Comics, Marvel had released its first crossover in the form of 1982’s Contest of Champions, only to be followed—albeit sporadically—by the likes of Secret Wars (a promotional vehicle for the titular line of action figures) and The Infinity Gauntlet among others. Due to the infrequency of their respective releases, the concept of an eclectic who’s who of the Marvel Universe uniting against a common foe was novel and a real treat for readers, with the Marvel of today vying to capitalize on this nostalgic sense of fan fervor being a forgone conclusion. Though there are some detracting purists that aren’t coy to say otherwise, House of M and Civil War were momentous as the underlying circumstances behind the crossovers gave them plausible reasons for occurring and weren’t done for the sake of doing so. Additionally, they injected the then languid status quo with a sorely needed redefinition that reverberates even today.