The Hellboy Project: Hellboy: The Storm #1

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo

And with this issue, my Hellboy Project comes to a close.  Since April, I've read at the pace of one or two issues a day, every issue of Hellboy, BPRD, Abe Sapien, and Witchfinder, with the exception of one of the Free Comic Book Day issues, and a couple of back-up stories that haven't been collected in a trade yet.  I'll probably put together some kind of posting to discuss my thoughts on the work as a whole sometime soon.

For now, I'd like to talk about this comic.  It feels like much of the story that Mignola started many years ago is coming to a point of resolution, as Hellboy recaps his adventures of the last few years, as he prepares for a major confrontation with his enemies.  Hellboy is not the same character he's been throughout the life of this series.  He has received some news about his parentage and ancestry that has changed everything for him, and now the noble dead are rising out of their graves across England to follow him into battle with  the forces of darkness.  As usual, he's reluctant to to deal with this stuff, but has no choice.

This comic is beautifully drawn by Fegredo, who has quickly become my favourite artist on Hellboy, perhaps even more so than Mignola himself.  It's a hard place to jump into this story, but at the same time, the recapping Hellboy engages in makes the story new-reader friendly.

The Hellboy Project: Abe Sapien: The Abyssal Plain #1&2

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Peter Snejbjerg

Reading this, I don't understand why it took so long for someone to realize what a perfect artist Peter Snejbjerg is for Abe Sapien.  This is a story set in the early 80s, which has Abe traveling on a salvage boat of questionable captaincy, looking for a potentially mystical artifact that was lost when a Soviet submarine sunk in 1948.

It follows the typical type of plot for a BPRD story.  In other words, the object is found, but it has a mystical defender, and so on and so on.  What I like about this particular tale is the way in which it shows Abe's human side, as his instincts tell him to handle this issue differently than his companions.

This is a good story, with fantastic art, and some very nice covers by Dave Johnson.  Recommended.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D.: King of Fear #1-5

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

This is a huge BPRD arc in so many ways.  We get the last major confrontation between the Bureau, the Frogs, the subterranean dudes, and the Black Flame, which looks to have massive repercussions for future story arcs.  We get some really interesting character moments, like the ones between Kate and Bruno that happen in the first issue, as they work to lay Lobster Johnson to rest and hopefully restore Johann.  There's also some very cool stuff happening with Abe Sapien.

As usual, this is an excellent comic, but this arc is extra special because of the way it finishes off so many storylines and sub-plots, some of which had been running for sixteen years.

As often happens in stories like this, the actual final confrontation feels quick and anti-climactic, but I read this book for the characters, and in that sense, this story didn't disappoint at all.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Weird Tales Vol. 2

by too many people to list

It's always cool when new people get to play with someone's toys, especially when a character or property is so tied to one particular style or aesthetic.  The first volume of Weird Tales was pretty exciting, but this second one felt a little less satisfying.

There are some really good stories in here - I liked Kev Walker's Johann Kraus story (really, I like Johann a lot), and Jim Starlin's take on Hellboy, as well as JH Williams's amazing homage to teen slasher flicks.  Scott Morse, Jill Thompson, and Evan Dorkin provided amusing or whimsical tales, and the Will Pfeiffer/P. Craig Russell contribution is of course beautiful, but I found I didn't really get into many of the stories.  It seemed to me more like a bunch of exercises that are technically very skilled, but emotionally vacant.

I good example of that would be the John Cassaday Lobster Johnson story.  It's written in the form of a Sunday paper strip, with yellowed paper and dates that place it in the 1930s, but it works in bondage gags.  I found myself skipping over it; it just seemed a little too precious for me.  I felt similarly towards the Tommy Lee Edwards story - I just didn't really get it.

Oh well, this was never meant to be canon, and was a pretty cool concept, even if it didn't always work out in execution.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. War on Frogs #1-4

Written by John Arcudi
Art by Herb Trimpe, Guy Davis, John Severin, Karl Moline, and Peter Snejbjerg

I'm getting very close to the end of my Hellboy Project, where I've been reading one or two Hellboy or Hellboy-related story a day, in their original order of publication, the vast majority for the very first time.  I've gotten to the point where I've mostly bought individual issues instead of trades, and am beginning to think about the long view when I talk about these series.

War on Frogs was a mini-series that came out between other BPRD arcs, each issue focusing on one of the core BPRD characters who don't usually get much play, and fills in some of the things that happened during the BPRD's string of operations against the Frogs, the creatures that have been plaguing them since their title's inception.  This series was also unique because it is the first that doesn't give Mignola a writing credit, and for the wide stable of artists that it brings into the fold. 

The first issue has a Roger story, drawn by Herb Trimpe.  It's nice to see Roger in action again, and it reminds us of his humanity.  The third issue spotlights Liz Sherman, although it's told from the more interesting perspective of a female BPRD operative who looks up to her, but finds her impossible to relate to.

The best issues of the series are the second and fourth.  The second issue, with art by the legendary John Severin, doesn't really feature any of the main characters in an important role, and instead tells us what happened to a squad of operatives who were checking a boat for Frogs.  This story borrows heavily from Alien, as the single Frog picks off the soldiers.  Arcudi writes with the same suspense and tension of that famous movie, and Severin's more realistic art style helps add to the level of terror and believability.  The final issue, about Johann Kraus, is drawn by Peter Snejbjerg, and it looks fantastic. The story, about some Frog spirits that don't depart when their bodies are killed, is interesting. 

I like the way this series sort of reminds us of what the stakes are as we move into the big King of Fear arc.

The Hellboy Project: Sir Edward Grey Witchfinder Vol. 1: In the Service of Angels

Written by Mike Mignola with Scott Allie
Art by Ben Stenbeck with Patric Reynolds

I really enjoyed this unusual entry into the Hellboy mythos.  Mignola has made some small use of the character of Sir Edward Grey, a paranormal detective who worked for the crown in Victorian England, having him appear in previous Hellboy stories, but this is the first time he's been given the stage all to himself, and it's a remarkable debut.

Grey, who hates being called 'Witchfinder', is sent to investigate some mysterious deaths of men whose bodies are being found without any blood.  While a vampire is an obvious choice, Grey soon discovers that these men were all involved in an expedition to an ancient Hyperborean city, and that they brought back with them the skeleton of a creature (the kind we've seen before in the Hollow Earth volume of BPRD).

To combat the spirit of this creature, Grey ends up working with some very interesting characters.  There is The Captain, who seems to be a leader in London's underworld, and Mary, a medium whose brother works as her spiritual pimp.  We also get a brief appearance by Martin Gilfryd, who goes on to great prominence in the BPRD series.  Of course, working in the shadows are the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra, another organization of note in the Mignola-verse.

This book is tightly plotted and intense, although most of the credit for its success lies with Ben Stenbeck's terrific artwork.  His vision of Victorian England is gritty and detailed, and I enjoyed his designs for some of the more fantastical elements of the story.  If you've not read any of Mignola's books, this volume stands alone quite well, and can be used to gain an appreciation of the work he has been doing.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.11: The Black Goddess

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

There's little better in comics than when a long-running storyline starts to reach its conclusion, and tons of disparate plot threads connect and overlap, just as the pace and energy of the book goes through the roof.

That's basically what happens here, as the BPRD, with a contingent of American soldiers travel to the Chinese/former-Soviet border to track down Liz Sherman and her kidnapper, only to face off against a massive force of frogs and the creatures that they fought way back in Volume 1.

There are giant yeti, golden dragons, monks that seem to appear and disappear at random, and huge subterranean bug-like creatures.  There is also Martin Gilfryd, who now calls himself Memnan Saa.  Gilfryd is an interesting character - he's been set up as a villain (especially in the Lobster Johnson mini), but as you read through this book, you have to question if he hasn't perhaps been misjudged.

In amid all the chaos of this book, the writers have found plenty of time to focus on the characters.  Johann is not acting like himself these days, and Kate demonstrates her strengths in a terrific scene where she interviews a former partner of Lobster Johnson to learn about Gilfryd.  As I read more of these books, I find that I love them more and more.  I can't wait to see how this whole thing wraps up in the King of Fear.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Vol. 9: The Wild Hunt

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo

I think this may be my favourite of all the Hellboy series I've been reading.  This eight-parter brings together so many disparate plot elements and characters from the earliest days of this character's history to the most recent, and reveals how so many things that have seemed random since the story started were actually planned and intentional.

Hellboy learns a great deal about himself in this series, as he is once again informed of his destiny, and decides once again to chart his own path instead.  What makes this interesting is that it's no so much his paternal heritage and destiny that is at the centre of the story, it is his mother's bloodline that has made him more unique than anyone would have guessed.

This volume makes use of a great deal of Arthurian legend, and has an appearance by Morgan LeFay.  I have always enjoyed the way in which Mignola weaves legend and folklore into his stories, but the amount of King Arthur stuff was unexpected.

Fegredo does an amazing job of bringing Mignola's vision to life.  He gives us a faithful rendering of the characters, but there is an element of controlled chaos in his art that I enjoy a lot.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.9: 1946

Written by Mike Mignola and Joshua Dysart
Art by Paul Azaceta

One thing that always felt like a possible error in judgment about the Hellboy series was the speed with which Mignola dispatched Professor Bruttenholm, the founder of the BPRD and Hellboy's father figure, in the very first story arc.  With 1946, Mignola works to rectify that, giving Bruttenholm a story where he is the hero.

In post-war Berlin, strange things are turning up.  Bruttenholm and his friend Dr. Eaton are there to catalogue some of the Nazi forays into the spiritual and supernatural, but they are months behind the Soviets in their efforts.  Bruttenholm does become aware of Vampir Sturm, a Nazi plot to create artificial vampires, to be released behind enemy lines or as a 'scorched earth' back-up plan in the event of their defeat.  This quickly leads us into a 'Howling Commandos vs. the Vampires' story, where Bruttenholm and the paltry company of American soldiers that he works with have to join forces with their Soviet counterparts, led by the creepy Varvara, a little girl possessed by a demon.

This story combines all the best elements of the most successful Hellboy stories, and connects to other stories that were already told, providing a depth of background.  Azaceta's art looks great, although I find his style to be a little jarring compared to Davis or Mignola.  I really enjoyed this story, even before the cyborg gorillas showed up.

The Hellboy Project: Abe Sapien Vol. 1: The Drowning

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Jason Shawn Alexander

As I've been reading my way through the full body of the Hellboy mythos, I've been struck time and again by how much I like a lot of the supporting characters, often more than I like Hellboy himself.  I think that's why I prefer BPRD to Hellboy at this point, and why I was excited to get through the pile to the point of being able to read this book. 

This story, set in the 80s, tells the tale of Abe's first solo mission, during a period where Hellboy had left the Bureau.  Of course, there is water involved in the mission, as Abe has been sent to Saint-Sébastien, off the coast of France, where some form of ancient evil was stabbed with a magical dagger artifact thing, with the idea that he can retrieve it.

This, of course, sets off a chain of events that frees the ancient evil, or at least his creepy dwarf helper things, and Abe has to figure out what to do about it.  This is not the Abe of the BPRD volumes I've been reading lately, who is beginning to understand his strange origins and who has confidence as a field agent.  Instead, this is a very shaky, uncertain character, who is wracked by self-doubt and misgivings.  It's an interesting reminder of how far the character has come.

The art, but Alexander, is wonderfully moody and atmospheric.  Dave Stewart has coloured the entire book - most of it happens on land - in thick undersea blues and greens.  Alexander's Abe is lithe and expressive, looking both a little more alien than usual, and more human at the same time.

This is a very successful addition to the canon, even if the cover makes it look like Abe is wearing a fish for a hat.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Weird Tales Vol. 1

by too many people to list here

I've been reading a lot of Hellboy (and Hellboy-related) comics lately.  I'm trying to get caught up with the current issues now coming out, and so I've accelerated my 'Hellboy Project' a little.  Reading this was a nice way to recharge a little.

The Weird Tales books collect the mini-series of the same name.  It features stories starring Hellboy and his BPRD friends, but Mike Mignola's name is nowhere near this project (except on the logo - I just noticed that).  Instead, the stories are done by a number of different people from the comics and animation industries, and while the results are a little mixed, the book is never boring.

The highlights are stories by John Cassaday, Alex Maleev, Jason Pearson, Eric Powell (young Hellboy!), Steve Lieber, and Steve Parkhouse (w/ Joe Casey).

Perhaps the most impressive story is the one that involves Hellboy dealing with a haunted hot spring in Japan.  It is written by Randy Stradley, and features the first published work of artist Seung Kim, whose black and white pencils are gorgeous.

I'm not one for cutesy comics, so the contributions by Bob Fingerman, Roger Langridge, and Ovi Nedelcu did nothing for me, although I kind of liked Eric Wight and Andi Watsons' stories.

In all, it's always fun to see different takes on a favourite character, and the editors of this book did not disappoint.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Vol. 7: The Troll Witch and Others

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Mike Mignola, P. Craig Russell, and Richard Corben

As I've been trying to read the different Hellboy stories in the order in which they were originally published, this volume has taken me a long time to get through.  Most of the stories here were published as one-shots or as part of anthologies, although there are a couple that were mini-series and one story that was published especially for this volume.

Most of the stories in this book are structured around Mignola re-writing or adapting a myth or legend from some part of the world.  Instead of just worrying about British and Celtic folklore, he casts a wider net, encompassing Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa.  This results in a wide variety of stories, although most of them have a similar simple structure of: Hellboy encounters monster; Hellboy destroys monster.  The differences are in the settings.

This volume is also unique because, for the first time, Mignola has allowed other artists to work on Hellboy.  Not one for half measures, the two artists employed here are P. Craig Russell and Richard Corben.  Russell illustrates an interesting vampire story set in Prague, where he spends a large number of panels illustrating the statuary that adorns that city.

The Corben story might be the most unusual Hellboy story I've read yet, as Hellboy imagines himself as the lead player in the African legend of Makoma, and his quest.  This is a gorgeous story, as anyone would expect.

The Hellboy Project: Lobster Johnson Vol. 1: The Iron Prometheus

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Jason Armstrong

Lobster Johnson, the pulp hero character that has been haunting the Hellboy and BPRD series almost since their beginnings, was finally given his own book a few years ago. 

The Lobster has been a mysterious character throughout his time in the Mignola-verse, and this five-issue series does very little to shed any light on his background or motivations.  This story, set in 1937, has as it's 'big bad' the guy who has been haunting Liz Sherman's dreams in the BPRD trades I've been reading lately (which is why I'm glad I'm reading all of these in order).  This character, referred to here as the Devil, is looking to acquire the Vril Energy Suit - an Iron Man like device which harnesses Vril power, which is some sort of godly Hyperborean thing.

Lobster Johnson gets involved in helping out, and there are ghosts, Nazis, and big snakes (in other words, the usual Mignola stuff).  Little is done with the Lobster's character, although Jim Sacks, the man wearing the VES suit, does get developed quite well.  It is obvious that the Lobster is being kept as somewhat of a cipher on purpose, and hopefully this is something that will be explained as the larger story progresses.

Jason Armstrong was a wise choice of artist for this title.  His art looks a little like a marriage of Mignola and Davis's sensibilities, although with a much looser, relaxed approach.  This was a good book, and I really enjoyed the joke text-pieces included outlining the pop culture career of Lobster Johnson in comics, pulps, and movies.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.8: Killing Ground

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

What I like best about BPRD is the strong focus on the characters and their interactions with each other.  This volume gives us more character development and change than any previous three volumes put together, as the makeup of the team shifts again, and some secrets get revealed.

Johann is now inhabiting one of the soulless bodies that Abe found in Indonesia, and he has become a bit of an unstoppable hedonist in the bargain, which has caused him to completely ignore his responsibilities to the team.  Liz is crippled by her ongoing dreams in which she speaks with a mysterious stranger who seems to know a lot about what the future holds.  She really only feels safe now when she is with Panya, the immortal Egyptian mummy woman.

And then there is Daimio, the central figure of this arc.  Since he first arrived, there have been a number of questions about his background, and the mysterious Asian man who provides him with massages and other strange-looking treatments.  All of this is explained, as Daimio runs afoul of the Wendigo character introduced in the previous arc.

This is a pretty exciting and fluid story, with typically brilliant Guy Davis art.

The Hellboy Project: Hellboy Vol. 8: Darkness Calls

Written by Mike Mignola
Art by Duncan Fegredo

I'm not all that sure how much I enjoyed this volume of Mignola's Hellboy series.  It's a different type of book this time around - it's the longest Hellboy story I've read yet, and it has art by the amazing Duncan Fegredo, who draws in in a style that I think I would describe as shabby-Mignola (I mean that in a good way).

Fegredo uses Mignola's usual aesthetic and panel layout, but then roughs up the characters and figures by making the art more scratchy.  It's very effective, and the whole book looks great.

I think it's the story that doesn't do that much for me.  Basically, the various witches that have shown up at different times in the series - people like Hecate and Baba Yaga - are up to their usual tricks, as the Russian folk character attempts to exact revenge on Hellboy for having stolen her eye.  To do this, she employs another deathless Russian folklore character.  There are also appearances by Bromwich, the creepy character from earlier stories, and the pig-creature from Hellboy's underwater adventures.

Personally, I found the story a little hard to follow, but still full of interesting moments and exciting scenes.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.7: Garden of Souls

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

This volume is one of the strangest and coolest of the BPRD stories I've read to date.  Abe receives a cigar case that belonged to Langdon Everett Caul, his former self.  He figures out that it was mailed from Indonesia, and travels there with Captain Daimio.  He ends up alone on a strange island populated by bizarre hybrid creatures and populated by three of Caul's old friends, kept alive in Victorian-era metal suits that make them look vaguely like submersible robots.  This book also introduces Panya, an ancient Egyptian mummy.

While this story is nicely nuts, it's also pretty compelling and very character-based.  Abe is slowly becoming the man he was before he discovered his origins, and Daimio is integrating much better onto the team (even while Johann is learning things about him that could become a problem later on).

The design work on this series is brilliant.  There are a number of strange creatures that Davis had to design for this book, but his Victorian cyborgs are brilliant, as is the crumbling mansion they live in.  I like how this book is frequently a brighter counter-point to Mignola's Hellboy work, and this volume stands out as one of the most gorgeously-drawn to date.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.6: The Universal Machine

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis and Mike Mignola

This volume of BPRD is unlike the previous ones, in that Mignola and Arcudi are more focused than ever before on the characters in the story, and the plot is quite secondary.

Kate Corrigan, a generally underused character to this point, travels to a remote region in France to see about purchasing an incredibly rare old book, which may have the answer to reviving Roger, the homonculus killed in the previous volume.  This being a Mignola story, the rather odd bookseller is of course a long-lived Marquis who lives in a painting and who has lured her there as a way of acquiring another homonculus for his collection.

While Kate deals with this on her own, the usual members of the team get together in a coffee room and share stories about their pasts.  We finally learn how Captain Daimio was killed (although not how or why he came back), and see other glimpses into Liz and Johann's lives.  In Abe's case, he tells a Hellboy story featuring a Wendigo, largely because he's not ready to share what he has recently learned about himself.

I really liked the way this story slowed down and helped build up these characters.  Daimio's inclusion into the book was abrupt, and this is the first that the reader had any chance to gain some insight into his personality beyond the brusque military man we usually see.

Davis's art is as great as ever.  I love the way he draws his women - they are so much more realistic than 95% of the women in comics, and somehow so much sexier because of it.  Mignola provides the epilogue to this story, which is very touching and flawlessly executed.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol.5: The Black Flame

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

With this volume, Mignola and Arcudi make it clear that they are willing to really shake things up in the BPRD.  They kill off a pretty central character in their war on the Frogs, and then give another central character an expanded role and new importance, as Liz starts having strange dreams and visions involving an old Asian man who seems to have a lot of hints, clues, and cryptic suggestions for how to deal with the Frogs.

Meanwhile, the Frogs get a potential new boss in the form of the Black Flame. The Zinco Corporation CEO, in a very cool looking bad guy suit, helps bring about the coming of Katha-Hem, another gigantic Lovecraftian monster.

While the action goes pretty wide-screen here, the best parts of this book involve the different reactions to the aforementioned characters death from the other members of the team.  It is Johann's stubborn optimism that the character is not actually dead that I found most endearing.

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.

The Hellboy Project: B.P.R.D. Vol. 4: The Dead

Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art by Guy Davis

This is the first of the BPRD trades co-written with John Arcudi, and he brings a very different pacing to the story.  In the wake of the revelation of the Frogs outbreak, the Bureau gets a new field commander and opens up a new office in some ex-military base up high on a mountain.

Captain Daimio is a bit of a jerk, but he's ex-military so it's all good.  He also was dead for a while, but not much is explained about that.  The new base has some secrets, including a sealed-up ex-Nazi scientist who has a plan to bring heavenly bug angel things into our world.

Much of this arc exists to set up Daimio and his relations with the other members of the team.  Roger is written as pretty dumb in this book, which doesn't exactly fit with her earlier characterizations, and felt kind of off.  Other than that, the story works quite well, even if it's a little more decompressed than this title was before.

There is a long sub-plot involving Abe Sapien tracking down the house he'd lived in before his transformation; a house still inhabited by the spirit of his dead wife.  Their scenes together, while short, form a nice juxtaposition to the rest of the story, and are kind of touching in their way.