Random Reviews: The Legend of GrimJack (vol. 1)
What they lack in compelling characterization, these issues more than make up for in clever concepts
—by Nathan on September 27, 2026—
We return to the world of First Comics for today's post, examining another character introduced in the 80s by a talented writer/artist duo.
I'm familiar with First's history on a surface level; if anything, I've been more interested in some of the initial comics they produced as a company. We've endured the birth pangs of futuristic worlds found in Howard Chaykin's American Flagg, Mike Grell's Starslayer, Mike Saenz's Shatter, and Mike Baron's Nexus, as well as the hard-edged heroics of Grell's Jon Sable, Freelance and Baron's Badger. Today, we're focusing on a story developed by creators without "Mike" in their first name.
This is the era of the anti-hero, morally complex characters who don't necessarily subscribe to the morals of those goody-two-shoes super-types. That means, rather curtly, they kill people. Reuben Flagg thinks nothing of blowing away a terrorist, nor Nexus an intergalactic lawbreaker, nor Jon Sable a lousy criminal. John Gaunt, known as "GrimJack," falls in line with those other characters, walking in with guns ablazing.
You should feel a sense of confidence heading into this volume if you pay attention to the two names on the cover: Today's issues are gifted to us by the team of John Ostrander and Tim Truman. Both men helped shaped aspects of DC's post-Crisis on Infinite Earths universe, with Ostrander reframing the Suicide Squad and Truman delivering a new Hawkman. We've also seen Truman's take on the post-apocalyptic anti-hero previously, with his series Scout for Eclipse Comics. Darker heroes, darker stories, darker worlds. GrimJack's first appearances, taking place as backup strips in Starslayer (then also written by Ostrander), may proceed the work each man would do for DC, but they should offer a similar spirit to the narratives Ostrander and Truman would shape individually.
The Legend of GrimJack (vol. 1)
Writer: John Ostrander
Pencilers: Tim Truman
Inkers: Tim Truman
Colorist: Janice Cohen
Letterers: John Workman
Issues: Material from Starslayer #10-17 and Starslayer #18
Volume Publication Date: January 2005
Issue Publication Dates: November 1983-July 1984
Publisher: First Comics (issues), IDW (collection)
Earlier this month, I reviewed Fallen Angels, an 80s limited series from Marvel written by Jo Duffy. I critiqued some of Duffy's quirkier storytelling decisions, such as including two sentient lobsters and Jack Kirby's Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy in her narrative, noting that while I generally appreciated quirky stories, there was something off-putting in how she presented those concepts. They didn't feel as enmeshed as they could have been within the series.
I offer these opening issues of GrimJack as a counterpoint.
"Quirky" feels right at home within these Starslayer backup pieces, Ostrander and Truman collaborating well to strike the right tone between serious, grim drama with sci-fi shenanigans and tips of the hat to other genres. These issues are a verdant flowerbed of concepts, smushed together, yet they don't feel awkward or out of place. You finish a five-part arc dealing with vampires, bloodsucking, and decapitation and are greeted with a standalone tale starring, I kid you not, cuddly-looking anthropomorphized animals. It's Tomb of Dracula followed up by Care Bears.
Of course, even Tomb of Dracula had its bloodletting limits, and I bet you never saw the Care Bears wield shotguns against a horde of rascally killer rabbits. Yet that's where these issues find their charm, in intertwining the grim facade of 80s action-violence with the ridiculous. This works for two very important reasons:
First, Ostrander and Truman are playing this with as straight a face as they can. Very quickly, they introduce the reader to Cynosure, a pan-dimensional city serving as the nexus for basically all realities (my words, not theirs–we're not ripping off Man-Thing). Vampires and werewolves exist here, while normal folks tend to their lives over there, and way the heck that way, you might find those cuddly critters. There's a lack of self-awareness for the variety given here, and because Ostrander never comments on the juxtaposition, the ideas don't clash. Just go with it is the silent instruction given the reader. Ostrander lets seeming awkward ideas live in parallel to one another, and these issues are all the better for not drawing the eye to the obvious.
The concept allows for a wide breadth of creative decisions, not limiting our creators' imaginations. And while it may seem too broad in scope (how difficult might it be to imagine this is a crossroads for every dimension out there?), Ostrander sets certain ground rules to keep you from feeling tonal whiplash. Our opening issue sees GrimJack track down a god who's fled his dimension–yet, in a seedy bar across from his own world, he has no powers. Elsewhere, it's established physics works differently depending on the dimension, as do certain magicks or weapons. Yeah, it may seem convenient at times, but it allows Ostrander and Truman the constant feeling of surprise without overwhelming the reader with possibilities. You're left to stagger your own imagination with the scope and soak in the concrete concepts our creators cultivate.
Truman finds he can navigate all sides to this series fairly well, from developing scuzzy bars and back alleys, to a futuristic suburbia, to an ancient castle, to the playful home of those anthropomorphic animals. He adapts well to the demands of the series, injecting wonderful background details even as he focuses on sculpting characters perfect for Ostrander's stories. Need a horrifying vampire? Truman creates, essentially, a terrifyingly huge rat with bladed teeth and stretched wings. How about a horde of those killer rabbits, complete with enough eyepatches and scars to outfit a pirate captain's crew? Action sequences let Truman's imagination flourish, specifically a multi-part fight between GrimJack and a crew of hired killers; Truman fantastically handles the layout, allowing the action to flow from panel to panel as GrimJack uses his weapons and environment to get the drop on his enemies.
Second, as straightfaced as Ostrander and Truman are, they make sure their central protagonist matches their unwaveringness. We're not given much of GrimJack's personality, but we learn one thing: he can navigate the ever-shifting world of Cynosure like the back of his hand, if the back of his hand was a patchwork monstrosity of stitched-together fingers. He's not terribly complex, at least at this stage, but he faces everything thrown at him with a seemingly unflappable nature. People becoming vampires before his eyes doesn't faze him, nor does the necessity of decapitating and burning those vampires, no matter who the person was before they grew fangs. Ostrander gives us a few moments of reflection as the man formerly known as John Gaunt sits at his favorite bar, Munden's. Maybe the toll gets to him a bit more than he wants to let on, maybe the death's head grin he seems to so easily slip on is more of a mask than he'd admit. But that's more speculation on my part–Ostrander hints at a bit of backstory, that GrimJack used to be more of a law-abiding citizen than he is now, but I assume there's intentional vagueness that gets uncovered in future issues.
Most of these stories, as noted, take place in backup strips, so they're fairly quick reads though the multi-part arcs Ostrander and Truman employ. They're all fairly standalone in nature, nothing much to connect individual stories other than GrimJack's imperturbable attitude towards it all. The one complete issue we receive features a crossover between GrimJack and Mike Grell's Torin Mac Quillon, the "star" of Starslayer. The brief team-up does provide an outside perspective on and a decent counterbalance to GrimJack's violent vigilantism, Torin coming across as a more noble heroic type of individual than his swashbuckling buddy.
It may be because we're reading several backup strips before GrimJack received his own series, but the stories in this volume do tend to prioritize concepts over characterization. The concepts are highly imaginative and very welcome–I wouldn't have gushed about them in the preceding paragraphs if they weren't–but compared to protagonists such as Grell's Jon Sable and Torin, even Truman's own Scout and Katar Hol, John Gaunt feels a little like his last name in the personality department. I have picked up a few other GrimJack volumes, so should I ever get around to them, here's hoping the man with the death's head grin shines the way his surroundings do effortlessly.