Major Story Arcs
Barry Palumbo is an ambitious real estate developer who is also a part of Grendel’s criminal organization in some way. He is described as “the sort of man who made you wipe your eyes after you looked at him.”
He decides, against all reason, to try to double-cross both Grendel (Hunter Rose) and Argent, two of the most dangerous individuals of his time, both of whom had befriended his niece. He hates Argent purely for the obscenity of his cursed existence, and Grendel for his devilish nature. He asks them both to visit him, one at a time, one night at a party. He tells them both that the other will be at a warehouse, so they can ambush him. However, he has bombs rigged to go off, to kill them both. He also seems to have paid some assassins to shoot Argent before going to the warehouse, just in case. Both Argent and Grendel are suspicious of him but pretend to believe him. He later dies of poisoning, left by Grendel. Grendel also plants some evidence in the bag of his lover so she looks guilty.
Palumbo’s body is found by his niece, Stacy. After Barry’s death, Hunter ends up adopting her.
When Stacy eventually finds out that her new adoptive “uncle” Hunter Rose was actually the murderer of her real uncle Barry, she creates a complex plan to avenge him.
Since Stacy was the mother of Christine Spar, Barry was Spar’s great-uncle.
Alternate Versions
In Grendel vs the Shadow, a mob leader’s daughter, Sofia Valenti, seduces Hunter, but her true boyfriend is the gangster Johnny Palumbo. Presumably after Hunter leaves this alternative universe, Sofia and Johnny get married. If so then their children would probably either be Barry Palumbo, or Stacy Palumbo’s parents, and then Stacy herself either directly or by adoption, and thereafter Christine Spar. It is also possible that Hunter would be the genetic father of this possible family line since he slept with Sofia on several occasions.