Thursday, March 22, 2012

BPRD Hell on Earth - The Long Death #2

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by James Harren

The Long Death, the latest mini-series featuring the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, has been terrific.  Writers Mignola and Arcudi have taken a pause from the global weirdness that the various members of this book have been dealing with over the past two years or so (since they added 'Hell on Earth' to the title) to feature one of the more interesting cast members, Johann Kraus.

Last issue had Johann lead a team into the woods of British Columbia to look for some missing hikers and park rangers.  Johann promptly ditched them, and they were attacked by a creature that is familiar to long-term readers of the book.  This issue picks up with Johann sitting at the bedside of new character Agent Giarocco, explaining why he was absent when she was attacked.  As it turns out, Johann is up there hunting for Captain Daimio, who used to work with him before turning into a jaguar-god creature, and slaughtering a number of BPRD personnel, and killing the clone body that Johann was inhabiting.

We've seen before that Johann often works his own agenda.  This leads to another run-in with Daimio that is visually stunning, as Johann uses his ability to animate dead bodies quite creatively.  I don't want to spoil the scene, but I strongly suggest that people flip through this comic on the stands if you haven't already bought it.  New artist James Harren is a very strong addition to the Mignola-verse of comics, and I hope to see him continue to work with these characters for some time to come.

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