RE: Beowulf vs. Annie's story.
Look, it may be Beowulf's story mode but I honestly think that what little we see of Annie is more interesting to me than Beowulf's character arc. His story of redemption and coming to terms with the truth of his past exploits is all well and good but it's not a narrative I find that compelling. However, Annie being this cryptic immortal warrior who weilds cosmic power and has a knack for being in the right place at the right time...that's interesting.
And Beowulf beating Marie doesn't really mean anything to me because everyone beats Marie in their story mode. It's not like this game only has certain characters fight Marie because of the limited roster. Beowulf vs Eliza was something I was jonesing for for that very reason, it would give him a fresh template since nobody's story mode has them beating Eliza yet and she's clearly boss tier. Marie is not a reliable metric for how strong someone is in this game.
Is it a good story, sure. I don't think it's the best of the IGG story modes (Big Band = Squigly > Eliza > Beowulf) but like I said earlier, it does what it needs to do with the character it had. Beowulf isn't the hero of the Skullgirls story, everything we know at this point indicates that role goes to characters like Filia, Peacock, and Painwheel. So we get a story that tries to give us a "what-if" about a side character that in the full story of the game, might just be an assist option with a few lines of dialogue and character specific interactions, who knows.