The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Vol. 2: Wake the Devil

by Mike Mignola

I'm continuing to work my way through Hellboy in the order of original publication, which means I've read about half of the third volume before I got to this book, which collects the second Hellboy mini-series.  I'm quite glad I read it that way, as there are a few things that wouldn't have been as clear had I read the different volumes in order.

This second story seems a bit messy to me.  Hellboy and a BPRD team travel to Romania to deal with the expected return of Vladmir Giurescu, a vampire previously believed to have been destroyed by the Nazi scientists and occultists who made up Project Ragna Rok.  The teams split up, and Hellboy, working alone, discovers Giurescu, and Rasputin.

It is clear throughout this series that Mignola is working on building something much larger than a simple 'Hellboy hunts and destroys a monster' structure, and so we get the various agendas of Giurescu, Rasputin, Nazi beauty Ilsa Hauptmann, Greek goddess Hecate, Russian fairy tale Baba Yaga, and a few other baddies. Hellboy puts it best at the end when he says, "I was right in the middle of this thing, and I think I just saw the tip of the iceberg."

What I found most strange is the way in which Mignola introduces and develops characters, such as some of the BPRD guys, and then dispatches them rather callously.  Also, this volume has the first appearance of the Homonculus named Roger, who later appears in BPRD, but his story is cut off quite abruptly and then not returned to.  I recognize that this is the first long story Mignola wrote on his own, so I'm willing to overlook a few inconsistencies.  As usual, his art here is awesome.