Who is Grim Reaper? Typically, the first thing that comes to mind is most likely a skeletal figure in a black cloak, wielding an ominous scythe. On the other end, the last thing that one would associate that name to is the MCU. Yet, here we are, with actor Demetrius Grosse being cast as the character (yes, he really is a character in Marvel lore) in the latest MCU series to feature a relatively unknown superhero, Wonder Man. Grosse’s Grim Reaper — Wonder Man’s brother, no less — will run up against the titular hero, played by Aquaman‘s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Besides being a villainous dude with a scythe for a hand, just who exactly is this guy?
Grim Reaper’s Comics Origin Story
Grim Reaper’s story begins in the pages of Avengers #52, published May 1968. Eric Williams, Grim Reaper’s true identity, is the abused and unloved black sheep of the wealthy Williams family, which also includes Eric’s brother Simon, the favored son. One fateful day, Eric was playing with chemicals in the garage, which sparked a fire that burned the Williams home to the ground. Simon, ravaged by guilt for not having stopped the incident, resolved to be responsible for Eric. As they grew, their lives took very different paths: Eric eventually joined the Maggia (Marvel’s “Mafia”) in Las Vegas, while Simon took over Williams Innovations, the family business. However, when Williams Innovations began to fail, partly due to competition from one Stark Industries, Simon turned to Eric and the Maggia for help, but was caught and imprisoned for embezzling money from the company to invest with Eric. Baron Zemo freed Simon from jail and gave him ionic powers as Wonder Man in exchange for infiltrating and defeating the Avengers, only for Simon to die saving the Avengers from Zemo’s grasp. When Eric heard of his brother’s death, the enraged man contacted the Tinkerer, who provided Eric with his scythe weapon, a 48-inch-long weapon that can cause concussive plasma blasts, place people into a coma (before their death after three hours), spray a cloud of gas that knocks people out, and become a high-speed buzzsaw that rotates at 6000 RPM. Armed with his new weapon, Eric took the name Grim Reaper.
Grim Reaper Teams Up With the Lethal Legion
Grim Reaper’s first attack against the Avengers resulted in their defeat, but the arrival of the Black Panther thwarted his plans. Undeterred, Grim Reaper attacked the Avengers again, this time alongside his Lethal Legion, a team comprised of himself, Living Laser, Power Man, Man-Ape, and the Swordsman. However, the Vision was in possession of Simon’s brainwave patterns, rendering Grim Reaper unable to take him out and, ultimately, resulting in the Legion’s defeat. After unsuccessfully trying to talk the Vision into transferring his mind into the preserved body of his brother, Grim Reaper paired up with the Space Phantom, and upped the ante with the Vision by suggesting he could transfer his mind into the living body of Captain America. The Vision agreed, as a ruse to free the Avengers that the pair had captured. Once the imprisoned Avengers were freed, the team was confronted by Grim Reaper, the Space Phantom, and a number of Hydra soldiers. Again, the Grim Reaper’s actions were altered by the Vision, still in possession of Simon’s mind, and he sided with the Avengers to stop the Space Phantom from killing him.
Grim Reaper Follows a Trusty Cycle: Live, Die, Repeat
Some time later, Grim Reaper hired Black Talon to raise and reanimate his brother, Wonder Man. To his dismay, Wonder Man joined the Avengers, and in a battle between the brothers, Simon broke the scythe and knocked Eric out. Convinced that neither the Vision nor Wonder Man were fully Simon, Grim Reaper sent Ultron-12, Goliath, and Man-Ape to capture Hank Pym and Wonder Man and place them in an energicage. Aided by Black Talon and Nekra, Grim Reaper held off an attack by Vision and Scarlet Witch, escaping with a zombie duplicate of Simon in exchange for Scarlet Witch’s life. His plan? Scan the minds of Vision and Wonder Man, purge any uncommon thoughts, and transfer “pure Simon Williams consciousness” into the zombie. But Grim Reaper would fall to his death trying to escape from the Avengers when they came to free the pair.
After learning how to raise the dead from Black Talon, Nekra reanimated Grim Reaper as a zombie, keeping the fact he was a zombie from him. Upon learning the truth, Eric confronted Nekra, only to revert to being a corpse. He came back as part of the Legion of the Unliving, but in a battle against Wonder Man his neck was inadvertently broken, leading to death number three (well, two and a half, at least). Nekra would raise Grim Reaper yet again, only this time he had to absorb a human life every 24 hours. The grateful Reaper thanked Nekra by stabbing and draining her first. Grim Reaper then sided with Ultron for a time, but that partnership ended with the two battling one another. Their fight resulted in the two being caught in a feedback loop, eventually colliding and, yes, Grim Reaper’s death yet again.
Grim Reaper’s Most Recent Resurrections
Each resurrection garnered the Grim Reaper more powers, and in this case he developed the ability to summon demons, which he used to summon Lloigoroth, asking for supernatural power in exchange for killing countless people. With his new powers, Eric created magical energy creatures to attack the Avengers, then summoned his own Legion of the Unliving to attack the Avengers as well. But after a change of heart, his Legion turned on him. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Lloigoroth showed up and devoured him. And so the cycle continued, sometimes with Grim Reaper on the side of good, most often not. His most recent resurrection was at the hands of the Apocalypse Twins, whom he served alongside the Banshee, the Sentry, and the Daken as their Horsemen of Death, and was last seen in the All-New, All-Different Marvel series of 2015-16, being beaten to death with a cookie sheet — yes, a cookie sheet — by the Vision’s synthezoid wife Virginia.
Welcome to the MCU, Grim Reaper
The upcoming Wonder Man series will most likely kick off with an adaptation of the Williams brothers’ beginnings, but where it goes from there is anyone’s guess. With the character’s ties to Vision, it’s possible we see the return of WandaVision‘s White Vision (Paul Bettany). Likewise, perhaps Nekra is introduced to the MCU during the course of the series. Regardless, the addition of the villain, with a scythe for a hand and a skull and crossbones emblazoned across his chest, can only benefit the MCU, an antagonist who has repeatedly proven a worthy adversary against Wonder Man and the Avengers as a whole. That, and that weapon of his is going to look so damn cool in live-action.
