Mr. Grimm (Twisted Metal)

Mr. Grimm is a skeletal being that feeds on souls and a villain from the Twisted Metal games.

Twisted Metal
Mr. Grimm was a collector of souls that had a deal with Calypso, but he eventually sought to claim Calypso's soul. In his ending, Calypso welcomed him to his lair and said he could have any prize he chose, but Grimm stated that he wanted Calypso's soul. Calypso protested that it wasn't time and that they had a deal, but Grimm said there was no deal this time and chained him to the back of his motorcycle before riding off with him.

Twisted Metal 2
Mr. Grimm was a strange skeleton creature that fed on souls with ravenous hunger. Driven to make more souls available for him to devour, he joined the Twisted Metal competition so as to bring the death and destruction in the world to a new level and cause the Apocalypse. In his ending, Grimm explained to Calypso that he’d become somewhat addicted to feeding on souls and he couldn’t cause enough death on his own. Grimm said he wanted humans to start dying faster and told Calypso to do whatever it took to do that. Calypso used his powers to turn the world into a bloody battleground with humans killing each other like mad. The souls came flooding in and Grimm was ecstatic at first, but eventually humankind wiped itself out, leaving him without any souls to feed on.

Twisted Metal 3
Mr. Grimm returned to compete in Twisted Metal, now having had his fill of mortal souls. Thus he wanted to feed on the blackest and most powerful soul available, that of Calypso, so that he could become all-powerful. In his ending, Grimm demanded that Calypso give him his prize being Calypso's soul, only to be struck down. The bitter irony is that Calypso struck him down with the sole of his shoe.

Twisted Metal 4
Mr. Grimm, now the pirate, Captain Grimm, joined the Twisted Metal Tournament, apparently seeking vengeance on Sweet Tooth (and for some reason, letting his parrot talk for him). In his ending, Grimm demanded a sword fight with Sweet Tooth and the soul of the first one struck dead. However in the fight, Sweet Tooth cheated him by killing his parrot.

Twisted Metal Small Brawl
A disturbed boy obsessed with Halloween, Mr. Grimm entered Billy Calypso’s tournament seeking the portal to Halloweenland, a mystical land where it was Halloween every day of the year. In his ending, Calypso showed Grimm the portal, but warned him he might not want to go in. However he ignored the warning and ran inside, only to be confronted by a pack of horrible monsters.

Twisted Metal Black
Mr. Grimm and his best friend, Benny, were drafted into the army at age 21 and sent to Vietnam. Nothing had prepared them for the horrors of the Vietnam War, which surrounded them constantly, but they swore to watch each other's backs. In one skirmish, Benny was shot and Grimm was knocked out before they were taken captive and imprisoned in a pit in a Vietcong base. An advisor to the Vietnamese tortured them through starvation and eventually pushed Grimm into eating Benny after he died from his gunshot wound. He snapped as a result, fashioning Benny's skull into a helmet, and when he was finally rescued, he killed four soldiers after they tried to remove it. Thus Grimm was sent to Blackfield Asylum, where he stayed for 30 years, but one day, Calypso came to him, offering him his revenge if he could win his competition. The former soldier accepted and managed to win, before going to see Calypso to claim his prize. As he'd promised, Calypso presented Grimm with the advisor tied to a chair, as well as an axe, and Grimm gave into an urge he'd been feeling for quite awhile, a desire for human flesh.

Twisted Metal Head-On
Mr. Grimm became the Grim Reaper after he died and performed the job for centuries. But at one point, he devoured a soul instead of bringing it to the afterlife and was instantly hooked. Grimm soon found himself feeding on more and more souls until finally he was devouring more than he was moving on. Pushed to the brink of madness and unable to take doing his job anymore, Grimm entered the Twisted Metal tournament, hoping to get Calypso to give the position of Grim Reaper to someone else. In his ending, Calypso appeared to congratulate Grimm on his victory, but the reaper ignored him, devouring a soul to sate himself. Calypso asked if he felt better, but Grimm said he didn’t and that he couldn’t deal with his addiction anymore, it having grown beyond his control. He begged Calypso to help him and Calypso said he could help Grimm any number of ways, but he needed to specify what he wanted. He asked Calypso to make someone else the Grim Reaper so that he could become mortal. Calypso did just that, turning a nearby little girl into the Grim Reaper, while transforming Grimm into a human. He became ecstatic, thanking Calypso, and ran about, declaring that he was free, only to be hit by a truck and killed.

Twisted Metal (2012)
In the 2012 game, Daniel Grimm was a normal human and the son of a motorcycle stuntman. He was extremely close to his father, but one day, he was killed in one of his jumps. Mr. Grimm’s life began a slow downward spiral after that night, until he became a major criminal and murderer, leading his own gang, the Skulls. However Grimm learned of the Twisted Metal Tournament and how Calypso offered the winner any request they wanted. Determined to go back in time to prevent his father from making the jump that ended his life, Mr. Grimm entered Twisted Metal.

In Sweet Tooth’s story, Mr. Grimm and his gang engaged Sweet Tooth in a pair of heavily modified monster trucks, dubbed the Brothers Grimm. They had been promised that if they killed Sweet Tooth, they would win a spot in next year’s Twisted Metal tournament. The clown managed to destroy one of the trucks, prompting Grimm to activate a powerful suit of armor on his truck. However Sweet Tooth drove under the truck, allowing his gunner to climb on the bottom and plant some C4. The clown detonated it, destroying the armor and finally took down the other truck.

In his story, Mr. Grimm’s first match was in Diesel City, where Calypso welcomed him, noting that it had seen better days and it reminded him of Grimm. He then explained how things worked and told him his journey to change the past began here. Grimm managed to win the match and continued to advance through the tournament until he headed to Dead Man’s Crossing for his final event. There, Grimm was confronted by Dollface piloting a giant robot called the Iron Maiden and her gang, the Dolls. Using a missile launcher left by Calypso, Grimm succeeded in damaging the Iron Maiden enough to lower its forcefield, before shooting it down, leaving it clinging to a bridge. He managed to knock the Iron Maiden into the pit below, but Dollface detached the robot's head, which flew up to try and kill him one last time. Grimm managed to take Dollface down for the final time and went to Calypso to collect his prize, crashing into his office through the window on his motorcycle. Grimm demanded to be sent back to save his father and Calypso sent him back in time, putting him in the backseat of his father’s truck with Grimm’s younger self and his father. Thinking Grimm was trying to attack them, his father started grappling with him, causing the car to crash and killing him anyways. Grimm awoke to find his younger self with his father’s gun trained on him and before being shot, he thought to himself that he would’ve done the same thing.

Vehicle
Mr. Grimm’s primary vehicle is a motorcycle that shares his name (though it is called Reaper in the 2012 game), which is fast and maneuverable and has a mounted gun, though it can’t take much damage. It can also fire hellish skulls, though in the first game, it could unleash the souls of the dead and in Black, it could fire an exploding scythe. In Twisted Metal (2012), the rider can throw chainsaws, which they can drag on the ground to set ablaze, and use a rocket launcher.

Trivia

 * Mr. Grimm is based heavily on Ghost Rider from the Marvel comics.


 * The only time he doesn’t ride a motorcycle is in Twisted Metal 4.


 * In Twisted Metal (2012), during Grimm’s fight with the Iron Maiden, Dollface threatens to kill him and wear his skull as a helmet, before jokingly asking where she heard that before. This is a reference to Grimm's habit of wearing Benny's skull in Twisted Metal Black.