Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I was kinda of surprised there's an issue 5 of Hellboy in Hell. Ostensibly, the prior four issues wrapped up all the Big Stuff-revealing the identity of the 'Virgil' character to Hellboy's Dante in tooling around a largely empty Hell, resolving some old stuff with Hellboy's extended family, not to mention the ending bit that essentially allows Hellboy to realize he's essentially truly a free man now, even if he is still, uh, dead in Hell.
So, Issue Five. This really felt like one of Mignola's other folk-tale derived one shot stories. It wasn't bad, but. You know. This is revisited ground. The nod to Screw On Head felt unnecessary, I was kind of fine with that being its own thing, but now it's There, on the big map of stuff Mignola has in the gradually evolving greater story that contains all the Hellboy materia.
I don't mean to be a goose about this. The art is fine. Many scenes-particularly with the characters fading into and out of mists in the graveyard-really present an impressive example of atmosphere in sequential art. But the story itself? We've been here before. This is just Hellboy (Still) In Hell. Now I have to hope that there is a part 6 and 7 to somehow justify the extra chapter with something that redeemed it. Part Four has a very strong finish that redeems a lot of the slowness I see in the earlier issues. This is...just here.
The slight reveal that Hell is a timeless place where people from different time periods can appear at any moment as though they have just passed helps a little, but, c'mon. Let's kick this up a notch and take this story places, or start another arc of something that does the same.
My impression was that Hellboy in Hell was going to be a series for a bit and that this is just the breather before the next arc, though I admit I haven't looked at any of the solicits to confirm that - but yeah, my feelings are pretty much the same as yours. As stories go, it's as fun as any Mignola yarn, but not one of his best.
<- Still reads "A Christmas Underground" every Christmas Eve
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
edited December 2013
I feel like #5 is a story that could have been told at any time, really. It was good, just not sure why it happened now.
I'd rather have heard more about the fallout of Hellboy's arrival, what's become of the rest of hell, etc. We heard some developments, which are pretty strange. Still not sure why everyone's so scared of him - guess it could be the Hand.
Hoping that future issues will show flashbacks to Hellboy entering Satan's chamber and talking with him - there must be some reason he killed him.
Golden Yak on
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I feel like #5 is a story that could have been told at any time, really. It was good, just not sure why it happened now.
I'd rather have heard more about the fallout of Hellboy's arrival, what's become of the rest of hell, etc. We heard some developments, which are pretty strange. Still not sure why everyone's so scared of him - guess it could be the Hand.
Hoping that future issues will show flashbacks to Hellboy entering Satan's chamber and talking with him - there must be some reason he killed him.
Re: The Conversation
I suspect it's one of two things.
It's Satan. Hellboy hasn't exactly had any qualms with killing evil beings before. Most of the time he generally doesn't pass on it, even if he doesn't have a specific reason to kill them. Remember the witches in Darkness Calls?
Or, it's some kind of someone mind-controlled Hellboy into it. I don't recall this kind of thing happening in Hellboy stories in the past...but, I suspect there could be some other force in the shadows that guided Hellboy's hand the moment he entered that chamber. OR, Satan isn't really dead, he's just fooling Hellboy into thinking this whole event happened so Hellboy will leave him alone.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I feel like #5 is a story that could have been told at any time, really. It was good, just not sure why it happened now.
I'd rather have heard more about the fallout of Hellboy's arrival, what's become of the rest of hell, etc. We heard some developments, which are pretty strange. Still not sure why everyone's so scared of him - guess it could be the Hand.
Hoping that future issues will show flashbacks to Hellboy entering Satan's chamber and talking with him - there must be some reason he killed him.
Re: The Conversation
I suspect it's one of two things.
It's Satan. Hellboy hasn't exactly had any qualms with killing evil beings before. Most of the time he generally doesn't pass on it, even if he doesn't have a specific reason to kill them. Remember the witches in Darkness Calls?
Or, it's some kind of someone mind-controlled Hellboy into it. I don't recall this kind of thing happening in Hellboy stories in the past...but, I suspect there could be some other force in the shadows that guided Hellboy's hand the moment he entered that chamber. OR, Satan isn't really dead, he's just fooling Hellboy into thinking this whole event happened so Hellboy will leave him alone.
I get the first one, though even so I expect at least some kind of exchange - this isn't just some angry pig-elf or ghost wolf, he's the reason for 'hell' in the first place. There's gotta be some kind of back and forth.
I could see the second one too, though - Hellboy often seems to stumble into situations where he's just sort've swept along by events. Whenever there's a thematic narrative at work within the situation itself, he's usually compelled to go along with it - I'm reminded of the story when he was in Africa, and was seemingly forced to take on the role of the main character in the myth. And even if there's no narrative it sometimes seems like things just happen around him anyway and push him to where he needs to be.
The bit where Gray tells Hellboy that he doesn't want to remember the killing and that it can simply be a part of his past that remains forgotten makes me worry it'll remain a mystery - it's not necessarily a vital part of the story, really. Satan seems to be fairly minor in the Hellboy cosmology compared to things like the ancient waters and the Ogdru Jahad. Still, I'd love to see him have a bigger role than what he's had so far.
Okay, I admit it: Eve Sapien is adorable and I want her in the regular books.
Dark Horse Presents #31
I've been enjoying the Hellboy Mexican adventures, but I a) have no idea where this is going, and b) am not entirely enamored of the art. Maybe the second part will change that.
Sledgehammer 44: Lightning War #2
Gotta admit, the star of this book so far looks to be the Black Flame 1.0.
Man, I'm not sure what's going to be left of New York once Liz and the Black Flame are done with it.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
Fucking A.
So awesome to see that Liz was as unfazed by the Flame's attack as he was by hers. Two titans on par with one another, using equal measures of the vril flame - one pure, one twisted.
I get most of the stuff relating to the Ogdru Jahad and the Watchers - those are my favorite elements. Those are more sci-fantasy and Lovecraft than literal religious stuff. It's all very mythical and dealing in higher dimensions and cosmic energies more so than some kind of divine or magical power. I also dig how lesser Watchers became the first race of 'golden men' who fell apart after all the secrets they built their kingdom on were given away by Hecate and they destroyed themselves, leaving the primitive second race of men to inherit the world and eventually evolve into modern humanity. The frog creatures being the third race of man who will inherit the world before the return of the Ogdru Jahad is a nice horror touch as well, and very Lovecraft.
I'd like to know how the afterlife feeds into all this though - how big a deal is the Ogdru Jahad destroying the earth if there's heaven and hell? Will they all be burned out as well? Or is there no heaven and hell is just some kind of prison-dimension for the Watchers that become demons? Did the demons come there later, maybe as some offspring of the Watchers that remain on Earth? Are all demonic entities and powers just an expression of the cosmic power the Watchers wield?
I'm hoping for some hard answers to hammer out the cosmology now that Hellboy's in the actual hell.
Disagree, but I see where you're coming from. The end of the world in Hellboy is playing out in a very classical religious Armageddon way, just with some of the modern horror conventions of the Ogdru Jahad combined with other religions, folklore and myths.
In terms of Hellboy cosmology there's Heaven, Hell, and the prison for the Ogdru Jahad. In the Island it's explained that all of the various folklore creatures and spirits have their origins after the Watchers war with their creations. Others have mentioned the first race of man and the Hyperborea stuff. Only one Watcher remained pure of heart, and it's his hand that became Hellboy's after he was killed. Satan and the war against heaven did happen, but it's mostly background material at this point. The seven are really a "primal" evil while the devil and hell are more of a traditional, "we tried to take over creation and failed" situation. So the various schemes overlap, but Hell and the Ogdru Jahad aren't technically on the same side.
As for "what" the third race of man is, it's not set in stone what that actually will be. The human race is ending, but that doesn't mean the next world necessarily has to be one filled with monsters and evil. In fact, I doubt very much that's the case, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it's Abe that ends up being the next "Adam".
I'd be down for a biblical level flood for Abe and an altered human race, living on as fish people. Which I guess isn't far from frog monsters, but those guys can go to Hell, and in these series, that can be gratifyingly literal.
In terms of Hellboy cosmology there's Heaven, Hell, and the prison for the Ogdru Jahad.
Just to clarify - we haven't seen Heaven, but we've been told by other people it exists, and it's presumably what mediums like Johann help ghosts to go to when they "cross over." We also know that the Frogs have their own (terrifying, Lovecraftian) version of "Heaven" (Johann helped some Frog-ghosts to cross-over) and this may or may not be coextant with the prison of the Ogdru Jahad - which appears to be a physical place in deep space with aliens watching it - but the Black Flame was a soul "rescued" from the prison of the Ogdru Jahad's prison, so it's a pretty good guess. Then there's the Biblical Hell, where Hellboy is at the moment, and there's various other worlds/dimensions where fairies, Baba Yaga, and other gods and spirits and stuff hang out.
Only one Watcher remained pure of heart, and it's his hand that became Hellboy's after he was killed.
One watcher invoked vril and created the Ogdru Jahad and imprisoned it, and the other Watchers were so shit-scared of him they turned and destroyed him, leaving only his hand - then the Watchers were cast down. So "pure of heart"...eh.
Satan and the war against heaven did happen, but it's mostly background material at this point. The seven are really a "primal" evil while the devil and hell are more of a traditional, "we tried to take over creation and failed" situation. So the various schemes overlap, but Hell and the Ogdru Jahad aren't technically on the same side.
We got a bit more of this in Hellboy in Hell; the army in Hell (which is forged by one of the former Watchers) needs Hellboy's hand to animate it, and break down the walls between Hell, Earth, and Heaven, and Hellboy's hand is the only thing that can release the Ogdru Jahad. So they're two vaguely related forces tied together by a single object.
Aside: One of the more interesting things for me is the way different people keep trying to realize the prophecy, so you have a lot of variations on the same topic in the series.
As for "what" the third race of man is, it's not set in stone what that actually will be. The human race is ending, but that doesn't mean the next world necessarily has to be one filled with monsters and evil. In fact, I doubt very much that's the case, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it's Abe that ends up being the next "Adam".
I'd love to see Abe hook up with the new Bog Roosh.
Disagree, but I see where you're coming from. The end of the world in Hellboy is playing out in a very classical religious Armageddon way, just with some of the modern horror conventions of the Ogdru Jahad combined with other religions, folklore and myths.
This bit from King of Fear probably illustrates what I mean best.
On the one side you've got the literal biblical interpretations, while on the other you've got how it's actually going down.
It's coming at it with the idea that things like the bible and religion aren't fully accurate accounts, but man's own limited and filtered interpretation of events, with human sensitives receiving incomplete visions, rather than prophets being given the story right from God's mouth. At least when it comes to the Ogdru Jahad stuff, all the elf-kingdom stuff is pretty fairy-tale magic-ish, but all those entities seem to take a back seat to the lovecraftian ones.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
edited April 2014
So if the only thing that can release the Ogdru Jahad is the Right Hand of Doom, and Hellboy (including the hand) turned to dust when he died, how the hell are they supposed to get out? Aren't all their plans screwed?
Fakefaux on
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Uh...dunno.
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
But the thing is, Hellboy's physical form was destroyed, including the Hand. Isn't what's wandering around the underworld just his spirit? Even if he got out, the Hand is gone.
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Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
But the thing is, Hellboy's physical form was destroyed, including the Hand. Isn't what's wandering around the underworld just his spirit? Even if he got out, the Hand is gone.
Depends on the nature of the Hand - if its more than just a hunk of stone, if its some kind of transcendent mystical talisman tied to Hellboy, then it will exist as long as he does, taking on whatever nature he currently has (flesh, spirit, etc.). I seem to recall the idea that the Hand would only become useless if Hellboy were destroyed, and I guess death hasn't really done that - he's still around in some capacity after all, he's just changed to a different form of existence.
His brothers and Astaroth seemed to want it even after his death, so apparently it still has some value.
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
But the thing is, Hellboy's physical form was destroyed, including the Hand. Isn't what's wandering around the underworld just his spirit? Even if he got out, the Hand is gone.
Depends on the nature of the Hand - if its more than just a hunk of stone, if its some kind of transcendent mystical talisman tied to Hellboy, then it will exist as long as he does, taking on whatever nature he currently has (flesh, spirit, etc.). I seem to recall the idea that the Hand would only become useless if Hellboy were destroyed, and I guess death hasn't really done that - he's still around in some capacity after all, he's just changed to a different form of existence.
His brothers and Astaroth seemed to want it even after his death, so apparently it still has some value.
Hecate prophesied to Edward Grey that Hellboy would come back to the world in time for him and her to play their parts in its end.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
But the thing is, Hellboy's physical form was destroyed, including the Hand. Isn't what's wandering around the underworld just his spirit? Even if he got out, the Hand is gone.
The hand has to be severed while he's alive, otherwise it goes where his spirit does, I think.
I know it needing to be severed while he's alive is a plot point somewhere.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Well, that discussed at some point, too. Hellboy was ready to just cut his own arm off, until somebody pointed out since it can't be destroyed, the only way to be sure no one else has found it/taken it is to just keep it attached.
The Bog Roosh wanted to, like, feed it to a very sleepy whale or something, who would just sit at the bottom of the ocean forever, and it was still revealed, even then, some cultists or something would still get a hold of it and flip the switch.
Main point, near as I figure, is in Hellboy in Hell #5 where
Grey basically says anyone who knew about the right hand of doom and was ever in a position to try to take it, well, they're all dead, or consumed, or just off the table now. At least for the time being.
Seeing what's happening anyway in BPRD does make concerns about the presence of the Hand feel more than a little moot, I'd say. Nature finds a way.
Disagree, but I see where you're coming from. The end of the world in Hellboy is playing out in a very classical religious Armageddon way, just with some of the modern horror conventions of the Ogdru Jahad combined with other religions, folklore and myths.
This bit from King of Fear probably illustrates what I mean best.
On the one side you've got the literal biblical interpretations, while on the other you've got how it's actually going down.
It's coming at it with the idea that things like the bible and religion aren't fully accurate accounts, but man's own limited and filtered interpretation of events, with human sensitives receiving incomplete visions, rather than prophets being given the story right from God's mouth. At least when it comes to the Ogdru Jahad stuff, all the elf-kingdom stuff is pretty fairy-tale magic-ish, but all those entities seem to take a back seat to the lovecraftian ones.
I see, and mostly agree. Plus, that's an awesome scene from the Black Flame.
Basically whatever is coolest for Mike's team to be drawing at the time!
manwiththemachinegun on
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
This is a perfect bit of fan art:
Perfect.
+2
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
I love the survivalist gangster guys who just sort've go along with all the weird crap that's happening, and then blow it up with borrowed weapons, and aren't crappy or horrible people but actually good guys. I hope they get drafted in as BPRD agents.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Well, the BPRD is almost exclusively composed of survivors, near as I can tell. If you can outlive this stuff green and flatfooted, you're basically a given for their training program.
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FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
I love the survivalist gangster guys who just sort've go along with all the weird crap that's happening, and then blow it up with borrowed weapons, and aren't crappy or horrible people but actually good guys. I hope they get drafted in as BPRD agents.
I especially love how in the latest issue they're kinda freaked out by Liz's display of power, while all the BPRD guys are basically just nodding their heads and going "...nice."
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
It hurts me to say this, but I think I might be done with the BPRD series.
This new stuff is okay, but it just lacks a lot of the spirit and plotting I want to see out of this title. It's just not rewarding enough for me, and some of the storyline here smacks of returning to the same well one more time.
I'm gonna admit, this issue feels rushed. No one can ever complain that the Mignolaverse has breakneck pacing, but despite the visuals this issue really does feel like it wrapped up way too quick, and even with all the awesome buildup, the Big Bad just...doesn't deliver.
Also, why does Liz go Super-Saiyan? I mean, I'm glad she's no longer mopey Liz from ten years ago (Jesus wept, has it been that long?) But she's dropped about thirty pounds and ten years and is more powerful than ever for no explained reason except "to hell with it, big fight scene" - and even that is mostly off the page. It's just a tremendous departure from the start of the series where we have Central Park turned into the frickin' Suicide Wood, and now the Black Flame 2.0 (3.0?) goes out off-page like a chump.
I mean, I guess I kind of like the idea that whatever the apocalypse was supposed to be, whatever plan people had for it, the current state of affairs plainly isn't what they were expecting. That seems to be a large part of the theme in the Abe Sapien and Hellboy in Hell comics too. But where Abe Sapien stuff tends to be low-level, personal stories, and Hellboy's wandering in faerie tales again, BPRD still seems to be trying to play for the bigger stage.
...also, am I the only one that is confused about why the two Nazis from the Ragna Rok project are still alive at this point?
Re: Hellboy in Hell - I honestly didn't see the Vampire of Prague making a comeback. It's not bad, but it's mainly just a set-piece against exposition on the geography of Hell. Which also isn't bad, just a bit out of character for a Hellboy comic, because they tend to front-load the exposition. On the other hand, they're drawing Hellboy as more of a corpse with the hole in his chest and prominent ribs, which I think works.
In other news, Dark Horse Presents #36 is out, and is the last issue in the current format. Nice short Witchfinder story with a great literary tie-in at the end.
I know HB is stuck in Hell for... well, however long Mike decides, but the latest comic has some interesting story potential with how the afterlife works.
Now that lost souls are free to accept salvation, and the fact that some spirits choose to remain in Hell, Hellboy can, in essence, leave anytime he wants to. There is probably more to it then that, but it pretty much confirms my prior theory that HB isn't necessarily stranded with no hope of escape. He just gets to have fun Hell adventures for as long as he wants.
Haven't updated this in a couple weeks. Some spoilers below.
Abe Sapien...is kind of taking its own sweet time to do anything. Just a very slow comic, wandering-in-the-wilderness kinda bit. If each episode were more self-contained and Hellboyish it might work, but at the moment it just feels like its dragging. We're sort of waiting to see when he'll get back together with the rest of the band. Hellboy shows up, but only a dream-version.
B. P. R. D. takes a break from superheroics in the aftermath of New York to give us a surprisingly tight two-issue story focusing on Professor O'Donnell, Kate, and an episode with Hellboy and Prof. Bruttenholm back in the early days of the B.P.R.D. I wasn't expecting it, but it was kinda nice. I do miss John Arcudi on art, though. No offense to the new chap.
Witchfinder is more interesting, as the mystery surrounding UnLand deepens. I was kind of hoping they're play it as a straight occult detective yarn but apparently that's a bit much. No matter, it's a good change of pace and I like the poking about in the stranger corners of the Mignolaverse.
What else? Not much. I'm sort of waiting to see what the next "big thing" is. Hellboy is still wandering Hell, Abe is wandering the Southewest United States, the B.P.R.D. and Russians are fighting monsters and cults (who continue to spread), the vampires are going all weird, that one mystic in Seattle is setting off to find the Black School now that most of the major powers (except Hellboy's sister) in Hell are dead...ample material for plotlines to pursue, but now that the Black Flame (3rd incarnation) is dead, the frogs are (mostly) dead, the mole-guys and yetis are dead, I don't know how much organized opposition there is left. My personal guess is going to be a rain of meteors from space that bring more of the Ogdru-Hem "from the air" down to just wipe out most of what's left of human civilization, but really at this point the Mignolaverse shakers could draw this out for years.
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I may need to owe Mike Mignola an apology.
Although when it came out, I was turned off enough by yet another Hellboy Impalement Scene that I gave up on it completely after the first issue, I cannot overstate how critical the Wild Hunt is to anything that happens later in The Storm, The Fury, or Hellboy In Hell. It is the veritable roadmap of the new future of Hellboy. There's stuff that was writ in 2008 that foretold what happened last year in Hellboy in Hell.
I can also conjecture somewhat on Mignola's decisions leading to the Duncan Fegredo trilogy of Hellboy. Moreso than almost any comic artist, you can see the literal arc of Mignola's style in Hellboy. Early Hellboy is shockingly sharp, clean, and almost angular. By the time Mignola got to The Island in the Strange Places collection, I think he realized he took his assumed style just about as far as it could go, the peak of what he could find in that method of what he had been doing in Hellboy up until then. The Fegredo stuff gave him room to tell the story still while figuring out how to remake how he drew Hellboy...into something more rounded, organic, gestural...an earthier, textural, pure distillation of possibility. Someone's probably already showcased the evolution in a tumblr somewhere, but, nevertheless...it does me real, real good to see how Mignola continues to grow as an artist and not fall into...the weird formal paralysis that some artists who have Made It have ended up.
Catching up with BPRD trades, and I'm confused by where Abe's spin off begins.
The first Abe book seems to start with him already escaped but Cold Day in Hell (which is published after Abe's book) from a quick flick through doesn't seem to feature him at all. Where does his escape come? Or is it going to be flashbacked further into Abe's book?
Edit: Apparently I fail at flicking through. Sorted now.
Abe Sapien #15 - Flashback to an untold War of Frogs episode with Roger. Reminds me how much I miss pre-War of Frogs Roger.
Baltimore: The Witch of Harju #1 - New mini. I kinda feel that this is a bit like Hell on Earth in that we've turned a corner but there's no actual end in sight.
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #122 - Start of a new arc, this time in Japan and centered on Johann. Still don't love the art, but cautiously optimistic on the storyline. It looks like it might be tying into the whole parallel-earth thing from B.P.R.D. 1948, and I have no idea how that's going to work.
Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster #5 - End of the current arc. Honestly, I thought this was a bit gilding the lily and they could have wrapped it up tighter, but I do like the big surprise at the end. I have no idea how it actually ties in with the Lobster, but it sure as hell beats the novel.
Witchfinder: Mystery of Unland #3 - I like the art, I like the story - what we get of it - but the pacing feels off. It's not really written as a mystery, there's too many reveals for that, and Grey misses too many "clues." But the dialog is solid and the little bit of mythology we're getting is interesting enough I want to know more. No idea how this fits into the bigger picture.
Also, something it took me a while to catch but there's the cover from Chapel of Bones that looks like it was based on the same scene where Hellboy is being dragged down into Hell...or maybe it's just me.
B.P.R.D. #123 - The end (?) of what turns out to be a rather generic Godzilla homage.
Witchfinder: Mysteries of Unland #4 - Much better pacing this issue. I think maybe this will read better in the trade than as a series.
Abe Sapien #16 - Abe is still being...weird. Still doesn't want to go back to the B.P.R.D., still won't admit why. I admit I'm really getting sort of frustrated with this series. I wouldn't mind it if it was "Caine walking the Earth" kind of thing, just meeting new people and beating up monsters, but I do sort of want something to happen. Maybe that's my big complaint with the "Hell on Earth" series - there's no overview of things, it's much more disjointed. Probably accurate as far as "life during wartime" and all that, but I'd kinda like to get the impression that people are, well, doing something.
Baltimore, Witch of Harju #2 - 's alright, I'm digging it. I'm much more looking forward to the mini about the Inquisitor/werewolf.
...and that's it, not much these past couple weeks. Take what you can get, I reckon.
Posts
So, Issue Five. This really felt like one of Mignola's other folk-tale derived one shot stories. It wasn't bad, but. You know. This is revisited ground. The nod to Screw On Head felt unnecessary, I was kind of fine with that being its own thing, but now it's There, on the big map of stuff Mignola has in the gradually evolving greater story that contains all the Hellboy materia.
I don't mean to be a goose about this. The art is fine. Many scenes-particularly with the characters fading into and out of mists in the graveyard-really present an impressive example of atmosphere in sequential art. But the story itself? We've been here before. This is just Hellboy (Still) In Hell. Now I have to hope that there is a part 6 and 7 to somehow justify the extra chapter with something that redeemed it. Part Four has a very strong finish that redeems a lot of the slowness I see in the earlier issues. This is...just here.
<- Still reads "A Christmas Underground" every Christmas Eve
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Hoping that future issues will show flashbacks to Hellboy entering Satan's chamber and talking with him - there must be some reason he killed him.
Re: The Conversation
I suspect it's one of two things.
I could see the second one too, though - Hellboy often seems to stumble into situations where he's just sort've swept along by events. Whenever there's a thematic narrative at work within the situation itself, he's usually compelled to go along with it - I'm reminded of the story when he was in Africa, and was seemingly forced to take on the role of the main character in the myth. And even if there's no narrative it sometimes seems like things just happen around him anyway and push him to where he needs to be.
The bit where Gray tells Hellboy that he doesn't want to remember the killing and that it can simply be a part of his past that remains forgotten makes me worry it'll remain a mystery - it's not necessarily a vital part of the story, really. Satan seems to be fairly minor in the Hellboy cosmology compared to things like the ancient waters and the Ogdru Jahad. Still, I'd love to see him have a bigger role than what he's had so far.
B.P.R.D. 114
Itty Bitty Hellboy #5
Dark Horse Presents #31
Sledgehammer 44: Lightning War #2
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Also, Howards gets a big ol' machine gun.
This Hell on Earth stuff is way different from the old BPRD, and I kinda miss the old stuff, but this is seriously growing on me.
Yeah, I love the Black Flame as a big bad for the BPRD. His latest incarnation is terrifying.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Man, I'm not sure what's going to be left of New York once Liz and the Black Flame are done with it.
This is gonna be good.
If it's one thing the Mignolaverse does well, it's how to make the end of the world epic.
Disagree, but I see where you're coming from. The end of the world in Hellboy is playing out in a very classical religious Armageddon way, just with some of the modern horror conventions of the Ogdru Jahad combined with other religions, folklore and myths.
In terms of Hellboy cosmology there's Heaven, Hell, and the prison for the Ogdru Jahad. In the Island it's explained that all of the various folklore creatures and spirits have their origins after the Watchers war with their creations. Others have mentioned the first race of man and the Hyperborea stuff. Only one Watcher remained pure of heart, and it's his hand that became Hellboy's after he was killed. Satan and the war against heaven did happen, but it's mostly background material at this point. The seven are really a "primal" evil while the devil and hell are more of a traditional, "we tried to take over creation and failed" situation. So the various schemes overlap, but Hell and the Ogdru Jahad aren't technically on the same side.
As for "what" the third race of man is, it's not set in stone what that actually will be. The human race is ending, but that doesn't mean the next world necessarily has to be one filled with monsters and evil. In fact, I doubt very much that's the case, and wouldn't be surprised at all if it's Abe that ends up being the next "Adam".
One watcher invoked vril and created the Ogdru Jahad and imprisoned it, and the other Watchers were so shit-scared of him they turned and destroyed him, leaving only his hand - then the Watchers were cast down. So "pure of heart"...eh.
We got a bit more of this in Hellboy in Hell; the army in Hell (which is forged by one of the former Watchers) needs Hellboy's hand to animate it, and break down the walls between Hell, Earth, and Heaven, and Hellboy's hand is the only thing that can release the Ogdru Jahad. So they're two vaguely related forces tied together by a single object.
Aside: One of the more interesting things for me is the way different people keep trying to realize the prophecy, so you have a lot of variations on the same topic in the series.
I'd love to see Abe hook up with the new Bog Roosh.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
This bit from King of Fear probably illustrates what I mean best.
On the one side you've got the literal biblical interpretations, while on the other you've got how it's actually going down.
It's coming at it with the idea that things like the bible and religion aren't fully accurate accounts, but man's own limited and filtered interpretation of events, with human sensitives receiving incomplete visions, rather than prophets being given the story right from God's mouth. At least when it comes to the Ogdru Jahad stuff, all the elf-kingdom stuff is pretty fairy-tale magic-ish, but all those entities seem to take a back seat to the lovecraftian ones.
I guess as long as Hellboy stays in Hell, the whole thing is called off.
One would expect he doesn't remain in Hell forever, but Mignola did say a lot of Hellboy in Hell was about freeing Hellboy from his destiny for more free-form adventures that wouldn't feel like distractions or filler from the original plotlines.
But the thing is, Hellboy's physical form was destroyed, including the Hand. Isn't what's wandering around the underworld just his spirit? Even if he got out, the Hand is gone.
Depends on the nature of the Hand - if its more than just a hunk of stone, if its some kind of transcendent mystical talisman tied to Hellboy, then it will exist as long as he does, taking on whatever nature he currently has (flesh, spirit, etc.). I seem to recall the idea that the Hand would only become useless if Hellboy were destroyed, and I guess death hasn't really done that - he's still around in some capacity after all, he's just changed to a different form of existence.
His brothers and Astaroth seemed to want it even after his death, so apparently it still has some value.
Hecate prophesied to Edward Grey that Hellboy would come back to the world in time for him and her to play their parts in its end.
The hand has to be severed while he's alive, otherwise it goes where his spirit does, I think.
I know it needing to be severed while he's alive is a plot point somewhere.
The Bog Roosh wanted to, like, feed it to a very sleepy whale or something, who would just sit at the bottom of the ocean forever, and it was still revealed, even then, some cultists or something would still get a hold of it and flip the switch.
Main point, near as I figure, is in Hellboy in Hell #5 where
I see, and mostly agree. Plus, that's an awesome scene from the Black Flame.
Basically whatever is coolest for Mike's team to be drawing at the time!
Perfect.
I especially love how in the latest issue they're kinda freaked out by Liz's display of power, while all the BPRD guys are basically just nodding their heads and going "...nice."
This new stuff is okay, but it just lacks a lot of the spirit and plotting I want to see out of this title. It's just not rewarding enough for me, and some of the storyline here smacks of returning to the same well one more time.
But that's just me.
I mean, I guess I kind of like the idea that whatever the apocalypse was supposed to be, whatever plan people had for it, the current state of affairs plainly isn't what they were expecting. That seems to be a large part of the theme in the Abe Sapien and Hellboy in Hell comics too. But where Abe Sapien stuff tends to be low-level, personal stories, and Hellboy's wandering in faerie tales again, BPRD still seems to be trying to play for the bigger stage.
...also, am I the only one that is confused about why the two Nazis from the Ragna Rok project are still alive at this point?
Re: Hellboy in Hell - I honestly didn't see the Vampire of Prague making a comeback. It's not bad, but it's mainly just a set-piece against exposition on the geography of Hell. Which also isn't bad, just a bit out of character for a Hellboy comic, because they tend to front-load the exposition. On the other hand, they're drawing Hellboy as more of a corpse with the hole in his chest and prominent ribs, which I think works.
In other news, Dark Horse Presents #36 is out, and is the last issue in the current format. Nice short Witchfinder story with a great literary tie-in at the end.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
B. P. R. D. takes a break from superheroics in the aftermath of New York to give us a surprisingly tight two-issue story focusing on Professor O'Donnell, Kate, and an episode with Hellboy and Prof. Bruttenholm back in the early days of the B.P.R.D. I wasn't expecting it, but it was kinda nice. I do miss John Arcudi on art, though. No offense to the new chap.
Witchfinder is more interesting, as the mystery surrounding UnLand deepens. I was kind of hoping they're play it as a straight occult detective yarn but apparently that's a bit much. No matter, it's a good change of pace and I like the poking about in the stranger corners of the Mignolaverse.
What else? Not much. I'm sort of waiting to see what the next "big thing" is. Hellboy is still wandering Hell, Abe is wandering the Southewest United States, the B.P.R.D. and Russians are fighting monsters and cults (who continue to spread), the vampires are going all weird, that one mystic in Seattle is setting off to find the Black School now that most of the major powers (except Hellboy's sister) in Hell are dead...ample material for plotlines to pursue, but now that the Black Flame (3rd incarnation) is dead, the frogs are (mostly) dead, the mole-guys and yetis are dead, I don't know how much organized opposition there is left. My personal guess is going to be a rain of meteors from space that bring more of the Ogdru-Hem "from the air" down to just wipe out most of what's left of human civilization, but really at this point the Mignolaverse shakers could draw this out for years.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Although when it came out, I was turned off enough by yet another Hellboy Impalement Scene that I gave up on it completely after the first issue, I cannot overstate how critical the Wild Hunt is to anything that happens later in The Storm, The Fury, or Hellboy In Hell. It is the veritable roadmap of the new future of Hellboy. There's stuff that was writ in 2008 that foretold what happened last year in Hellboy in Hell.
I can also conjecture somewhat on Mignola's decisions leading to the Duncan Fegredo trilogy of Hellboy. Moreso than almost any comic artist, you can see the literal arc of Mignola's style in Hellboy. Early Hellboy is shockingly sharp, clean, and almost angular. By the time Mignola got to The Island in the Strange Places collection, I think he realized he took his assumed style just about as far as it could go, the peak of what he could find in that method of what he had been doing in Hellboy up until then. The Fegredo stuff gave him room to tell the story still while figuring out how to remake how he drew Hellboy...into something more rounded, organic, gestural...an earthier, textural, pure distillation of possibility. Someone's probably already showcased the evolution in a tumblr somewhere, but, nevertheless...it does me real, real good to see how Mignola continues to grow as an artist and not fall into...the weird formal paralysis that some artists who have Made It have ended up.
Edit: Apparently I fail at flicking through. Sorted now.
Baltimore: The Witch of Harju #1 - New mini. I kinda feel that this is a bit like Hell on Earth in that we've turned a corner but there's no actual end in sight.
B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #122 - Start of a new arc, this time in Japan and centered on Johann. Still don't love the art, but cautiously optimistic on the storyline. It looks like it might be tying into the whole parallel-earth thing from B.P.R.D. 1948, and I have no idea how that's going to work.
Lobster Johnson: Get the Lobster #5 - End of the current arc. Honestly, I thought this was a bit gilding the lily and they could have wrapped it up tighter, but I do like the big surprise at the end. I have no idea how it actually ties in with the Lobster, but it sure as hell beats the novel.
Witchfinder: Mystery of Unland #3 - I like the art, I like the story - what we get of it - but the pacing feels off. It's not really written as a mystery, there's too many reveals for that, and Grey misses too many "clues." But the dialog is solid and the little bit of mythology we're getting is interesting enough I want to know more. No idea how this fits into the bigger picture.
Also, something it took me a while to catch but there's the cover from Chapel of Bones that looks like it was based on the same scene where Hellboy is being dragged down into Hell...or maybe it's just me.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
Witchfinder: Mysteries of Unland #4 - Much better pacing this issue. I think maybe this will read better in the trade than as a series.
Abe Sapien #16 - Abe is still being...weird. Still doesn't want to go back to the B.P.R.D., still won't admit why. I admit I'm really getting sort of frustrated with this series. I wouldn't mind it if it was "Caine walking the Earth" kind of thing, just meeting new people and beating up monsters, but I do sort of want something to happen. Maybe that's my big complaint with the "Hell on Earth" series - there's no overview of things, it's much more disjointed. Probably accurate as far as "life during wartime" and all that, but I'd kinda like to get the impression that people are, well, doing something.
Baltimore, Witch of Harju #2 - 's alright, I'm digging it. I'm much more looking forward to the mini about the Inquisitor/werewolf.
...and that's it, not much these past couple weeks. Take what you can get, I reckon.
Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos