The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Vol. 6: Strange Places

by Mike Mignola

This has to be the strangest of the Hellboy trades I've read so far.  It consists of two stories set in the time after Hellboy leaves the BPRD to set out on his own.

In the first story, his trip to Africa leads to him being trapped under the ocean in the possession of the Bog Roosh, yet another ancient creature that has plans for our hero.

The second story has Hellboy finally emerge from the ocean onto a strange island, where he ends up in conflict with yet another demon creature thing who also has designs on his right hand.  This story finally tells us the history of the Ogdru Jahad, the big bad of the Mignola-verse, and explains how many things fit together in terms of prophecy and big stone hands.  To be honest, stories like this kind of fly past me.  I have a hard time staying focused on the mumbo-jumbo, and prefer to see the more character-based stories. 

What I enjoyed most in this volume were the strange settings that Mignola created.  This book doesn't look much like the other Hellboy stories, and I appreciated that.  I also think it very strange that the first story here started out as a Sub-Mariner adventure before being re-purposed for Hellboy.