Darkseid has no shortage of crazed family members, with the likes of the world-conquering Steppenwolf and the sadistic Granny Goodness on his Christmas card list. Even the Lord of Apokalips, however, was unaware of the New God Grayven, who turned out to be his own son.
Created by Ron Marz and Darryl Banks in 1996's Green Lantern #74, Grayven was revealed to be the third genetic son of Darkseid, after Kalibak and Orion. Like all New Gods, he had the gifts of immortality, increased strength, speed, and durability, was effective in hand-to-hand combat, and even had limited use of the Omega Effect due to his relation to Darkseid. Despite this, the Lord of Apokalips claimed he knew nothing of the boy, leading to Grayven resenting his father, and he began his own campaign of destruction around the cosmos.
His mission puts him into conflict with the Darkstars, a galactic police force not dissimilar to the Green Lanterns. His battle against them ends on the planet Rann, where he plans to use the Zeta beam to teleport him and his forces to Apokalips to defeat his father and take his place. The remaining Darkstars, with the help of John Stewart and Kyle Rayner, manage to use the beam to teleport him away, but in doing so accidentally send him deep into the Earth's core. When he finally digs himself out, Kyle again attempts to stop him, although before he can claim victory, Grayven teleports himself away and sends the Green Lantern a thousand years into the future.
He later resurfaces during the Imperiex crisis, included in an alien alliance made up of himself, Maxima, Starfire, Adam Strange, and his father, Darkseid. During the conflict, he becomes infected by Brainiac-13, and challenges both Darkseid and Superman to battle on the surface of Apokalips. After his defeat by Superman, his father punishes him by sending him to Earth in exile. After being infected by a variation of Joker toxin he goes temporarily insane, and attempts to perform at a comedy club before trying to destroy it, once again being stopped by Kyle Rayner. It is later revealed that he also sent villains such as Nero and Effigy after Rayner, while also being involved in some kind of larger conspiracy, possibly to do with the Sinestro Corps.
To finally put a stop to him, the Green Lantern blasts him into unconsciousness, leaving him lobotomized and near-catatonic. During the Death of the New Gods by Jim Starlin, Matt Banning, and Ryan Sook, a mysterious killer is dispatching residents of both New Genesis and Apokalips, heroes Thunder and Martian Manhunter find Grayven and restore his mind. They ask for his assistance to build a teleporter to send the unknown murderer to Darkseid's throne room, revealing themselves to everyone. Realizing the two would fight, and the death of either would help him either way, he agrees to help, using his knowledge of Zeta Beams to assist them.
The two heroes trick Grayven, however, with Martian Manhunter using his shapeshifting abilities to turn into the Black Racer, the New Gods incarnation of Death. He tells Grayven that he is not the true son of Darkseid. Desperate to disprove him, Grayven uses the teleporter on himself, only to be murdered by the real killer, later to be revealed as Infinity-Man, moments after he arrives. Since then he has yet to reappear fully, only showing up briefly in a flashback from the Young Justice TV series.
While not as savage as Kalibak, as war-loving as Orion, or even as colorful as Mister Miracle, Grayven was at one point a force to be reckoned with, destroying planets and taking on entire galactic police forces. It's just a shame that by the end, the illegitimate son of Darkseid was mostly just bothering one solitary Green Lantern.
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