The next series featuring characters from the poem appeared in 2005 as the Canadian comic publisher Speakeasy produced seven issues of Beowulf. The first six issues of the series contain a story arc written by Brian Augustyn. The art on issues one through three is by Dub (who provides cover art on one of two covers of issue four), with Attila Adorjany providing interior art on issues four through six as well as a variant cover of issue four. The seventh issue is written by Joshua Ortega and contains art by both Attila Adorjany and Jim Mahfood, and is part one of a story arc that was never completed as the company went out of business.
The Augustyn storyline, “Gods and Monsters,” establishes the Beowulf character as a Highlander-esque, nearly immortal being who goes by the name of Wulf. The story sets up a world where Wulf works with the police on special cases involving super human beings, both human and non-human, and where a shadowy cabal called the “Knights of the Blood” is connected with the Department of Homeland security tracking down and occasionally killing or imprisoning humans who exhibit supernatural abilities. During the majority of this story arc, Beowulf works to protect a young girl who has the ability to manipulate reality and to create life-like creatures from the power of her imagination, and other than the name of the main character, the only real link with the poem is seen in issue three when Beowulf fights a dragon in a subway tunnel. The goal, it seems, was similar to Uslan’s, in that the main idea was to set the character in a closely-related genre, in this case super hero comics, and a strict interpretation of the character simply would not have been relatable.
The seventh issue, which ends the run, starts out with several pages of Beowulf reminiscing about his battle with Grendel (in which he is shown pinning the monster to a wall with his sword before tearing his arm off) as he comes to a realization that he is hallucinating. Apparently, he has been fighting a man who has mental powers and who has gotten away by manipulating Beowulf’s mind. Beowulf is later sent on a mission to find this person, who apparently has begun setting up a cult, but the readers never find out what the result might have been as Speakeasy went bankrupt. This Beowulf also has a cameo appearance in the fourth issue of Speakeasy’s series The Grimoire. In this series, written by Sebastien Caisse and with art by Djief, Beowulf is visited by a young girl, Amana Faucon, the daughter of Medea, and helps her to get to the realm of Faery by casting a spell for her. Very likely, had the company survived, this may have been a very interesting version of Beowulf.
The Augustyn storyline, “Gods and Monsters,” establishes the Beowulf character as a Highlander-esque, nearly immortal being who goes by the name of Wulf. The story sets up a world where Wulf works with the police on special cases involving super human beings, both human and non-human, and where a shadowy cabal called the “Knights of the Blood” is connected with the Department of Homeland security tracking down and occasionally killing or imprisoning humans who exhibit supernatural abilities. During the majority of this story arc, Beowulf works to protect a young girl who has the ability to manipulate reality and to create life-like creatures from the power of her imagination, and other than the name of the main character, the only real link with the poem is seen in issue three when Beowulf fights a dragon in a subway tunnel. The goal, it seems, was similar to Uslan’s, in that the main idea was to set the character in a closely-related genre, in this case super hero comics, and a strict interpretation of the character simply would not have been relatable.
The seventh issue, which ends the run, starts out with several pages of Beowulf reminiscing about his battle with Grendel (in which he is shown pinning the monster to a wall with his sword before tearing his arm off) as he comes to a realization that he is hallucinating. Apparently, he has been fighting a man who has mental powers and who has gotten away by manipulating Beowulf’s mind. Beowulf is later sent on a mission to find this person, who apparently has begun setting up a cult, but the readers never find out what the result might have been as Speakeasy went bankrupt. This Beowulf also has a cameo appearance in the fourth issue of Speakeasy’s series The Grimoire. In this series, written by Sebastien Caisse and with art by Djief, Beowulf is visited by a young girl, Amana Faucon, the daughter of Medea, and helps her to get to the realm of Faery by casting a spell for her. Very likely, had the company survived, this may have been a very interesting version of Beowulf.