Grendel is a long-running series of comic books originally created by American author Matt Wagner. First published by Comico, Wagner has now moved his character to Dark Horse. Originally a noir comic concerning a criminal mastermind, it has evolved into, in Wagner's words, a study of the nature of aggression.

The first Grendel was Hunter Rose (Wagner has hinted of previous Grendels in history, but Rose is the earliest which he has written about), a youthful genius who wrote novels by day and ran a criminal empire by night. He first appeared in 1982 in the anthology Comico Primer, and was given his own series in 1983. This was quickly cancelled due to financial troubles the company went through. Wagner, who still owned the character, used the opportunity to re-tell the story of Hunter Rose in a far less conventional style in Grendel: Devil by the Deed, serialised as a backup story in Wagner's series Mage; this was subsequently collected as a 48-page one-shot. Many people consider Rose the most important Grendel; Wagner returns to Hunter Rose from time to time, such as in the two Batman-Grendel crossovers, and occasional miniseries or short stories.