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Darkseid’s Daughter is Back: Who Is Grail?

Darkseid’s Daughter is Back: Who Is Grail?

 

 

This week’s release of Wonder Woman #31 brought with it the arrival of a new creative team in writer James Robinson and artist Carlo Pagulayan. Titled “Children of the Gods,” the pair’s story will pick up threads established over a year ago, when DC’s New 52 was at its dusk and DC Rebirth was just beginning. Not only will the storyline finally give us answers regarding the mystery of Diana Prince’s long-lost twin brother Jason, it will also feature the return of a fairly recent, albeit quite massive, addition to the DC Universe. Grail, the infamous daughter of Darkseid, has returned.

 

Although she hasn’t been seen since we caught a glimpse of her in last year’s DC Rebirth Special #1, the importance of Grail’s introduction and impact on the DCU can’t be overstated. She’s kept quiet for a while, but now she’s back, and it doesn’t bode well at all for Wonder Woman, considering the trail of death and destruction Grail left in her wake the last time she surfaced. The last time Grail interacted with DC’s heroes was in “Darkseid War,” a Justice League event that was published over two years ago, so it’s understandable if you’ve forgotten some details about who Grail is, or if you’re simply unfamiliar with the character at all.

 

Before DC entered the current Rebirth era, the New 52 essentially came to a close with Justice League: Darkseid War. Written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by the likes of Jason Fabok and Francis Manapul, the event not only featured Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor battling it out, it also saw many members of the Justice League take on brief roles as actual gods. For example, Superman became the opposite of himself as the god of Strength, Batman became the god of Knowledge, and the Flash became the god of Death. But, at its center, the story was about Diana Prince and her never-ending struggle of balancing her own existence as a creature of myth, a god, and a person.

 

Grail was the instigator of the entire event, having made her first appearance in the Free Comic Book Day issue Divergence, via a short story by Johns and Fabok that told her origin. As it turns out, just like Diana, Grail was born on Themyscira. Not only that, the two were born on the very same night, at the very same time. On one corner of Paradise Island, Hippolyta gave birth to Diana (and her twin brother Jason), and on the other, Myrina gave birth to Grail, a gray-skinned creature with red eyes — unmistakably Darkseid’s offspring.

 

Years later, mother and daughter resurfaced, scorned by Darkseid and ready to declare war upon him. Raised to despise and defeat her father, Grail is both New God and Amazon, a warrior as fierce and deadly as any dark god. She took out the entire Justice League without breaking a sweat and brought the worst villain in the universe to help in her cause: the being named Mobius, aka the Anti-Monitor. Since the Anti-God was fused with the Anti-Life Equation, she used him to destroy her father, and later took the powerful Equation for herself, effectively becoming the goddess of Anti-Life.

 

Source : CBR

 

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