Jess is separated from her two closest friends from the Afterlife. To find Eddie and Marcel, Jess will have to dig deep into her own psyche. Does she have the strength to do it? Find out in Grim #14 from BOOM! Studios.
GRIM #14
Writer: Stephanie Phillips
Artist: Flaviano
Colorist: Rico Renzi
Letterer: Tom Napolitano
Editor: Eric Harburn
Publisher: BOOM! Studios
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: October 18, 2023
Previously in Grim: Jess accepts the scythe of the Grim Reaper. It transports Eddie and her to a European village full of small, demonic creatures. Jess kills one, and a woman appears and confronts her. Meanwhile, Maurice has been separated from them, and is locked in his own private Hell. There, he remembers his past, his love Henri, and how he sacrificed love to chase after success as a writer. He sees Henri again in this shadowy place, and Henri confronts him with honesty. He wanted to write about the truth yet could not see the truth of his own life.
EVERY DOOR IS A PUZZLE
Grim #14 opens with a scene that suggests Eden at the moment when Adam and Eve eat the apple. As their images fade, an apple core remains until it sinks into the earth. From the seed, a new sprout grows and is picked by a young girl, who is then consumed by thorns and vines. Then, in 2000 B.C.E., we see her again as a demonic spirit striding through a war-torn city.
Back in the present, Jess and Eddie face the woman, who is veiled and wearing a sort of crown of stars. She accuses them again of killing her child. Eddie puts two and two together and realizes she is talking about the small demon. He apologizes to her and explains they are just trying to find a friend who is trapped in Hell. Jess figures out that they have reached another gateway, and this is the guardian. She steps up and admits she killed the child. Plainly she deserves to go to Hell. The woman strides away with her remaining children following.
Eddie fades out and is transported to what is soon revealed to be his own personal Hell. He is on stage with a guitar and a mic, but the guitar has no strings. The audience demands that he play, and when he can’t, he hears their excitement turn to jeers. He isn’t any good. He doesn’t matter. His music doesn’t matter. It is the ultimate attack of stage fright with a hefty side of imposter syndrome.
Jess is transported to what she assumes is Hell. For her, it is a hall of mirrors. The reflections speak to her. She sees this place as a construct made to make her feel miserable. One of her reflections snidely comments that no one does a better job of that than herself. Then the reflections shift to look like her father who challenges her to stop feeling sorry for herself and warns her that Marcel and Eddie might not be able to put up with her forever. She turns on him and calls him out for not staying to protect her. The reflections rebuke her for being too easy to torture. She strikes out with the scythe, smashing mirrors into shards.
Jess finds herself in a dark hallway and walks down it until she picks a door and ends up in a bar. The bartender welcomes her. She says it must be the wrong door. He says it could be the right door if she is willing to try something different. A man enters the bar. He keeps reliving his moment of hell over and over, all day long. Jess leaves them and returns to the hallway. There must be some way she can find Eddie.
TORMENTED BY FEARS
The art of Grim #14 fits the themes of the story like a glove. These visions of Hell feel a lot like a nightmare where things slowly build on each other making what seems normal ever more impossible. Eddie’s Hell is brilliant. He finds himself on stage and in the spotlight. He is torn – this is one of the most familiar places he could ever be, but something about it feels alien. He picks up the guitar, prepares to strum, and finds it has no strings. He starts to speak, and his mouth disappears. For a singer, this is a nightmare. And then the audience turns. We recognize the audience as a bunch of souls, faces from the front and skeletons from the back. I like how this connects the scene to the Afterlife while letting it be so different from the other places we have seen.
Jess’s Hell is also on point. What I found particularly interesting for her was that the color palette has shifted. Instead of the red and black which we associate with Reapers, her surroundings are blue and purple, as though the flaming scythe she now holds affects her very surroundings. Jess herself is still dressed in red and black, and so are all her reflections. All those reflections are different, yet they all look lost. No matter how far Jess runs, she will never be able to flee from herself.
BOTTOM LINE: THE WORST KIND OF CHALLENGE
Grim #14 is a rich blend of story and allegory. It feels mythic and grand while still grounding the story in each character’s personal experiences and fears.
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Grim #14
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By day, she’s a mild-mannered bureaucrat and Ms. Know-It-All. By night, she’s a dance teacher and RPG player (although admittedly not on the same nights). On the weekends, she may be found judging Magic, playing Guild Wars 2 (badly), or following other creative pursuits. Holy Lack of Copious Free Time, Batman! While she’s always wished she had teleportation as her superpower, she suspects that super-speed would be much more practical because then she’d have time to finish up those steampunk costumes she’s also working on.