[Spoilers]State of the Mignolaverse

Bobby Derie

So, I've been a fan of Hellboy & the B.P.R.D. since back when they were the same book. I've followed all the spin-offs - Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien, Witchfinder, the stuff in the 1940s, etc. Hell, I've even followed the non-canonical stuff like Hellboy, Jr., Itty Bitty Hellboy, and the Amazing Screw-On Head. I've even read the novels! (First rule of Hellboy novels: the anthologies are better, Second rule of Hellboy novels: ignore anything not written by Christopher Golden, Third and final rule of Hellboy novels: Golden's only good Hellboy novel is The Bones of Giants.)

Spoilers ahoy.

So, state of the 'verse:

Hellboy is dead, and went down to Hell. Honestly, this wasn't quite as good as I was hoping for it to be. I liked the stitch-in with Sir Edward Grey, since it means that loose plot element is finally tying together. Movement on this front is fairly glacial, but I think that's because Mignola has Big Plans and wants to keep room for other stuff to happen between Hellboy punching out gods of the Abyss or whatnot. I want more Mignola/Corben stuff with Hellboy in Mexico, maybe something with a werejaguar.

I can't believe I have to spoiler-tag this, because seriously there's an entire mini called Hellboy in Hell. How did you think he got there? A blazing motorcycle down a road of bone dust and night-black asphalt called "Good Intentions Highway, Route 616"?

B.P.R.D. has kind of gone off the rails. It's Armageddon, the team is broken, and a lot of the early promise of the series seems to have gone. A lot of good characters are dead, and not always for good reasons, and the replacement characters aren't really doing it for me. Ben Damio, damn. Still, it might all tie together. I do like the bit where the vampires are taken about by the whole end-of-the-world thing, and the return of the Black Flame was unexpected and very cool. The new guy with the sword might be interesting though. Honestly, I'd like to see more "unique" agents come out of the woodwork and do some traditional B.P.R.D. thing. Maybe that's what the upcoming trip to New York will all be about.

B.P.R.D. 1940s on the other hand continues with relatively tight storylines that don't feel too forced, while feeding into little bits and pieces of things we've seen before. I think it's important to contrast the 1940s BPRD with the contemporary BPRD - they're both fighting wars, and you can feel and see that, but the 1940s is a little cleaner, the monsters a little more human, the mysteries more oldschool. This also applies to Rocket 44, which made me interested to see how they got the Vril Suit back in action.

Abe Sapien is wandering off because...I dunno. I get that maybe he's disoriented with getting shot and transforming further, and I get that Mignola is building him up for the whole New Race of Man stuff, but I don't know if this walk in the wilderness is really doing anything for me so far. It's interesting that of all of Mignola's characters, Hellboy has stayed the most the same and Abe Sapien has gone through the most dramatic changes. I mean, you can kill Hellboy and he's still Hellboy whereever he goes, but it seems like every thirty or forty issues Abe needs to find himself or get reinvented or something.

Lobster Johnson one-shots and short-series are a current favorite, maybe because at the moment it's the only Mignolaverse title with anything really approaching a hero doing heroic things; the ultra-pulpy feel really helps. The sad part is, we pretty much know how this is going to end...but the ride getting there should be pretty damn fun.

Witchfinder appears mostly on hiatus, though I'm sure there are tales yet to be told.

Itty-Bitty Hellboy - eh. I'm not immune to all-ages Hellboy shenanigans, but seeing this makes me realize how much I miss Roger. Talk about losing the heart and soul of the team.

Douglas

@bobby derie Could you please put a spoiler warning in the thread title? I didn't know what happened to Hellboy. I admit I am at least a year behind...

Bobby Derie

Done.

Linespider5

It's worth noting that, for all my preferences about series with lasting impacts and consistency, I kind of fell off the BPRD wagon somewhere right around Killing Floor. Characters were dying left and right and while I appreciate the importance of loss and the risks that were being taken, at the same time, it's real hard to read an ongoing book where the team is scattered, the people that are left don't actually seem to like eachother all that much, and the new characters don't seem very likable either.

There was also this extra BPRD stuff that seemed a lot less than necessary-the War on Frogs miniseries was largely garbage, and the first BPRD prequel stuff, 1946, was damn rough, to the point of being what I'd have to call largely subpar in comparison to the standing body of work. It filled in some plot points to be sure, but the art was downright painful in comparison to what had come before, and the overall story was...well, the whole thing should've been given more time to cook.

The newer pre-modern stuff like BPRD Vampire is showing great promise, however, and I'd put it just about as good as the original BPRD Universal Machine run for my feelings on it.

Really, you can't go wrong with BPRD up through the Garden of Souls event. After that was right about where the gloves came off and something seemed to shake the focus of quality until recently.

Bobby Derie

I hear ya. A first I missed the days when Mignola drew all his own stuff...and then I missed the days when Arcudi was drawing. I think a large part of it is that in the beginning Hellboy and the BPRD were these disconnected, folkloric stories. It's a quality that Hellboy sort of maintained with the Corben collaborations, but BPRD has rarely ever gone back to because of the overall "world-is-a-flaming-toilet" story arc.

Linespider5

I do respect the fact that it's no longer like some kind of invisible war that only the BPRD know is being fought.

Bobby Derie

Aye. And I adore Hellboy in Mexico and related yarns; if Mignola did nothing but Hellboy one-shots for the rest of his career I'd probably collect them all. But the pace of Hellboy does seem glacial next to BPRD, probably because so many more creators are working on the various offshoot series.

Linespider5

I kind of suspect in the last couple of years Mignola realized he didn't really want to let the character go, which lead to all the King of England/Folklore stuff suddenly swerving the assumed through-line of the Hellboy story-the assumed Final Battle with the Ogdru Jahad and all that. Like Mignola realized he didn't want to make something like Neil Gainan's Sandman series, he wanted to do something more Kirby like, maybe. Maybe Hellboy is his New Gods, or his Captain America. It's a tough call to make. I wouldn't be surprised if Hellboy still isn't finished in another 15 years, though.

The success of BPRD and its spinoffs may be complicating things from a business end as well, but that's never easy to prove.

jkylefulton

The books have been designed in such a way that he can do whatever sort of Hellboy story whenever he'd like to do it. The problem becomes that there's only so many hours in the day, and Mignola has never been a monthly artist.

Fakefaux

Personally, I always loved Mignola's use of folklore. My favorite HB comics are often the one shot stories where he's just on assignment or wandering the world, fighting fairies and monsters. Even BPRD had that for a while (I love the story about Kate bartering for the book of alchemy with the damned Marquis), but as the apocalypse rolls on everything is becoming more and more Lovecraftian. Which, you know, is fine, and I still love these books. It just seems like the stuff I really liked about them has fallen to the wayside.

On the other hand, the pure, unvarnished pulp of the Lobster hits all the right buttons. I want to see him descend into the depths of New York's sewers to fight cannibals and giant albino alligators.

Undead Scottsman

I just finished volume six of Hell of Earth and it's FINALLY living up to it's name; previously it's felt like "Earth with some shitty stuff on it." rather than "Oh hey, human civilization is really coming to an end, isn't it."

Linespider5

Even though the Mignolaverse has some very, very good levels of attention to detail when it comes to continuity and so on, I have found at times it's been filling in blanks that didn't need to be filled. But it's also very hard to try and have it both ways, too.

The folklore stuff is pretty excellent. It just feels like it exists on an entirely different grade from the lovecraftian material, so sometimes it's a little hard to reconcile them both into the overall plot.

SatanIsMyMotor

Just a small note that it would be super awesome to put that first post in actual spoiler tags. I know it says spoilers in the title but still that first line in the Hellboy synopsis kinda took the wind out of the sales of my Hellboy reading.

Bobby Derie

Fine. The thread is now thrice-spoiler-alerted.

Jam Warrior

I only do trades and just finished up to the end of Pickens County and Others. Glad I'm not the only one losing a bit of the sparkle with the apocalypse stuff. The whole bit with Devon and the psychic girl I really struggle to care about and Liz wih the rednecks fell a bit flat to me. Johan/Abe/Daimo was all great though and I loved the Russia bit so I'm still well on board.

Need to catch up on the Abe trade I've missed with the Russian zombie guy's origin. And I see that all the titles seem to have had a big rush of releases recently. Looking forward to more 194X stuff.

How does Witchfinder fit into main series continuity/mythology? Tie in much or mainly doing its own thing? Not got around to getting any of those yet either.

My Mignolaverse collection is almost spreading to a second shelf it has grown so weighty. This is a good thing.

Bobby Derie

Witchfinder...I'll spoiler this, since people are asking for spoiler tags.

Witchfinder follows the exploits of Sir Edward Grey, a Victorian occult detective that has mainly crossed paths with an occult/scientific group called the Heliopic Brotherhood of Ra (sort of like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the real world), which has tied directly or indirectly into a lot of the stuff that Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. have encountered - for example, one of their offshoots is the Oannes Society which is the group that Abe Sapien belonged to and which tried to blow up the Philippines and held Panya captive. Sir Edward Grey himself has been appearing in Hellboy ever since The Island, and featured very prominently in Hellboy in Hell. As with Lobster Johnson, Sir Edward Grey gets around a surprising amount!

Linespider5

Yeah, the Daimio/Abe/Johan stuff was the shit.

I noted, with some increasing disapproval, how somehow, Liz's dislike of Daimio turned the group dynamics into Liz/Kate and then Daimio/Abe/Johan, like, for some reason all the existing relationships got arbitrarily routed where the female characters only hung out with eachother and the male/posthuman characters the same. A book is a lot less fun when you can barely get your characters to want to be in the same room together. It seemed incredibly cheap.

Golden Yak

I've read Hellboy in Hell so far.

I find it frustrating, like a lot of Hellboy stuff, because all of the supernatural elements seem random but assumed - everyone but Hellboy seems to know exactly what's going on and it makes perfect sense to them. Only sometimes Hellboy does know exactly what do to, even if its seemingly random or crazy except in an extremely symbolic or subjective sense. I'm not even talking about the times when he draws on resources in the BPRD, like using enchanted knucklebone reliquaries they've dug up or cold iron to wallop an elf, I mean the times when he's completely mired in some illusory world and suddenly knows to grab the right enchanted umbrella to knock out the bad guy and save the day.

I loved the parts where we encounter Hellboy's brothers alongside his uncle Ashtaroth, a longtime figure of menace who's been around in the story for ages. But they're suddenly and randomly removed by a giant demonic serpent (Leviathan) that appears out of nowhere and devours them. Um... okay? The brothers getting taken out isn't really important because I understand they aren't that important, despite their blood relations. But Ashtaroth has been knocking around forever and we never heard of this Leviathan creature and who/what it is before, and its suddenly subtracted a major antagonist seemingly at random.

And there was Hellboy's apparent murder of Satan. Couldn't we have spent a page or two exploring just who Satan is in this setting? What's his relation to the Ogdru Jahad or the Watchers? If that's not important, why include him at all? Why have Hellboy murder him at all, then forget it happened? We have Grey say 'some things people don't want to remember' and that's that.

In both cases Hellboy just shrugs his shoulders and goes along with it. He just seems to get blown about so much by whatever the hell is going on without any concrete answers. It's kind of frustrating.

I've always like the science-fiction elements of the story more than the fantasy ones - the Ogdru Jahad and their Lovecraftian progeny, the new races of man, the ancient Watchers and all the strange things hidden within the Earth... basically what the BPRD's got to deal with now. But I don't get what the Jahad and their offspring have to do with the forces of hell and demons and magic and where they fit into things - the fantasy creatures have been talking about the Jahad and their role in the end of everything forever, but I don't really understand how they even fit into a cosmology that includes the infernal afterlife.

Bobby Derie

I want the aliens to come back at some point.

Also, in Hellboy in Hell:

Props for the wink-nudge-wink about Hellboy's sister.

MetalMagus

Golden Yak wrote: »

I've read Hellboy in Hell so far.

I find it frustrating, like a lot of Hellboy stuff, because all of the supernatural elements seem random but assumed - everyone but Hellboy seems to know exactly what's going on and it makes perfect sense to them. Only sometimes Hellboy does know exactly what do to, even if its seemingly random or crazy except in an extremely symbolic or subjective sense. I'm not even talking about the times when he draws on resources in the BPRD, like using enchanted knucklebone reliquaries they've dug up or cold iron to wallop an elf, I mean the times when he's completely mired in some illusory world and suddenly knows to grab the right enchanted umbrella to knock out the bad guy and save the day.

I loved the parts where we encounter Hellboy's brothers alongside his uncle Ashtaroth, a longtime figure of menace who's been around in the story for ages. But they're suddenly and randomly removed by a giant demonic serpent (Leviathan) that appears out of nowhere and devours them. Um... okay? The brothers getting taken out isn't really important because I understand they aren't that important, despite their blood relations. But Ashtaroth has been knocking around forever and we never heard of this Leviathan creature and who/what it is before, and its suddenly subtracted a major antagonist seemingly at random.

And there was Hellboy's apparent murder of Satan. Couldn't we have spent a page or two exploring just who Satan is in this setting? What's his relation to the Ogdru Jahad or the Watchers? If that's not important, why include him at all? Why have Hellboy murder him at all, then forget it happened? We have Grey say 'some things people don't want to remember' and that's that.

In both cases Hellboy just shrugs his shoulders and goes along with it. He just seems to get blown about so much by whatever the hell is going on without any concrete answers. It's kind of frustrating.

I've always like the science-fiction elements of the story more than the fantasy ones - the Ogdru Jahad and their Lovecraftian progeny, the new races of man, the ancient Watchers and all the strange things hidden within the Earth... basically what the BPRD's got to deal with now. But I don't get what the Jahad and their offspring have to do with the forces of hell and demons and magic and where they fit into things - the fantasy creatures have been talking about the Jahad and their role in the end of everything forever, but I don't really understand how they even fit into a cosmology that includes the infernal afterlife.

I don't have time to jump onto a Hellboy wiki or anything, but off the top of my head one of the graphic novels gave the backstory to most of this. Essentially a host of angels rebelled against god and stole the fire of creation. Their attempt to create life didn't turn out very well - the Odgru Jahad and all their horrific progeny. For their sin, those angels were cast down and became the lords of hell. I think that's of it, but someone else might explain it better.

Bobby Derie

It's a little more complicated, because Mignola borrowed from Theosophy and Clark Ashton Smith in addition to Lovecraft (and now, maybe, some Robert E. Howard in the latest B.P.R.D. stuff).

After the Ogdru Jahad were defeated, the remaining spirits/angels turned against the one who had created it - and all that was left was his right hand. The first race of man - Hyperborea - was created, and ruled an empire based on the power of vril, the same "fire" that the rebel spirit that created the Ogdru Jahad had called down. Their sacred object was that right hand, encased in stone, which became Hellboy's hand.

Their king Thoth captured three "angels" and imprisoned them in his garden; the woman that would be Hecate, but she slew them and painted their secrets in their blood on the wall of the temple, and that was pretty much the start of the end for the Hyperboreans, who split into right-hand and left-hand paths. Some repeated the sin of the "angels" and created a lesser race and machines of war powered by geomantic energy and vril; these rebelled against their creators and then fled into the underworld after the Hyperboreans were pretty much destroyed, with only a few outposts and remnants remaining - such as the monastery at Agartha and the yeti-folk.

The occult knowledge and some of the artifacts of Hyperborea were passed on to the next race of man - humans. Some were trained to use this to fight the Ogdru Jahad, others became black magicians and witches.

Fakefaux

My understanding, and this seems backed up from the recent Hellboy issues

Is that the while some of the "angels" who destroyed the creator of the Ogdru Jahad were thrown into Hell (we meet one of them in Hellboy in Hell, albeit briefly) are sort of in a class of their own. The demons are something else, and the angel who created the Ogdru Jahad isn't Satan either; he was destroyed utterly, save for his right hand.

Frankly, there's a lot about the cosmology of the Mignolaverse we still don't know.

Linespider5

I kind of hope Hellboy in Hell is followed up by Hellboy in Space.

Golden Yak

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.

The Island storyline probably gives the best rundown of all that. Great read and great art. It's the first time Hellboy gets the whole story about the Ogdru Jahad's origins and the nature of his hand. (His response - 'Hey! Screw you~!' to the ghost telling it to him).

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.

Fakefaux

Golden Yak wrote: »

I'm hoping for some hard answers to hammer out the cosmology now that Hellboy's in the actual hell.

Those may not be forthcoming,

given all the major demon lords seem to be dead.

Golden Yak

Fakefaux wrote: »

Golden Yak wrote: »

I'm hoping for some hard answers to hammer out the cosmology now that Hellboy's in the actual hell.

Those may not be forthcoming,

given all the major demon lords seem to be dead.

If nothing else, I hope

we get a flashback scene that shows just what went on between Hellboy and Satan, the bits Hellboy can't remember. I hope there was more to it than just Hellboy walking up and knifing him - I hope there was a bit of a dialogue. Some reason why Hellboy did it and doesn't want to remember doing it.

At any rate, I'm certainly agog for the next issue.

Jam Warrior

I'm sure I remember reading some stuff in early Johann stories about spirits moving on and where they go. Will have to try and look up.

Bobby Derie

Golden Yak wrote: »

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?

I actually just reread Hellboy in Hell (whoo, digital comics!) and it explains some of it.

The Watcher spirits rebelled first and created/imprisoned the Ogdru Jahad and Ogdru Hem; the devils in Hell are from a second, later rebellion of angels. Which actually works out nicely enough with the mythology, because it helps explain why there are different groups of witches that worship different powers - Hecate, the Odgru Jahad, demons.

Undead Scottsman

I was want to say how fucking great the name "Ogdru Jahad" is for a lovecratian entity.

I always loved that name, even back when I first heard it during the original Hellboy movie.

Golden Yak

Undead Scottsman wrote: »

I was want to say how fucking great the name "Ogdru Jahad" is for a lovecratian entity.

I always loved that name, even back when I first heard it during the original Hellboy movie.

Agreed. The eldritch aboms in this series are wonderful. Love how the Jahad is actually an entity composed of multiple entities each with their own name (but are still referred to as a single being), and how they've birthed the 'Ogdru Hem' creatures.

That BPRD storyline where the second Ogdru Hem awakens has one of my favorite scenes, where the monster howls its way across the country going 'NYYYAAAAA!' and a BPRD scientist flips his wig and screams 'Katha-Hem! Katha-HEM!!'



KATHA-HEEEEEM!!

Linespider5

I loved that page. Especially the preceding frame.

"I...I think I made a mistake."

Jam Warrior

Jam Warrior wrote: »

I'm sure I remember reading some stuff in early Johann stories about spirits moving on and where they go. Will have to try and look up.

Nothing specific. But mentions of both Hell and Heaven. When confronting a beast that eats recently dead ghosts:

In Hell at least there is awareness, there is hope. You condemn them to the oblivion of the outer darkness!

Bobby Derie

Itty Bitty Hellboy. I dunno, I want to like it, but it's not grabbing me. More cartoonish than Hellboy, Jr., and the second issue doesn't add much except for Smitty. I don't necessarily need a plot, just...something more.

Linespider5

I'm guessing it doesn't do a good job of justifying itself? Feeling a little also-ran?

I saw it at my shop the other day and didn't even look at it. I've got nothing against the style of comic, I'm just...kinda good with Hellboy as is.

Just felt like something that doesn't have an itch for it to scratch.

Bobby Derie

The first issue was okay. It was basically B.P.R.D. the Sunday Comics edition (for Kids). I guess I was expecting more from the second issue besides Lobster Johnson and Smitty and jokes about that box Roger wears (wore) on his crotch.

Bobby Derie

So, spoilers ahoy.

Latest Abe Sapien.

I fully approve of Aztec lycanthropes. That is all.

Latest BPRD.

Liz is back! I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna say it. I think that they're going to get the gang back together for the New York mission. I want it to happen. So bad.

Latest Baltimore.

I haven't always been down with Lord Baltimore. I dunno, I read the novel and it didn't really grab me. The singles and minis have been a real step up though. I like giant Latin-speaking snakes that hang out in desecrated churches. That said, this issue is the first hint we've ever gotten of classic Mignola-style end-of-the-world stuff, and that's interesting.

Bobby Derie

Finished the latest graphic novel, Hellboy and the Midnight Circus. Decent stand-alone, if a bit thin, and ties in with some of the hints in Hellboy in Hell, and what will follow after, I think.

Bobby Derie

I finally twigged to something that had been off about New!Abe, and it's the set of the jaw - it makes him look more like Hellboy. Weirdness.

Mastio80

Nice

Golden Yak

I did a little fist-pump at the end of the latest BPRD.

Bobby Derie

Things continue to increment. The thing I kinda like about some of the stories lately is that they're the almost-standalone stuff that Mignola does very well indeed, but on the other hand it means that the storyline is even more spread out among different titles and the glacial pace continues. Spoilers ahoy.

So, for example, Abe Sapien #8 is ostensibly a stand-alone story set back in the good ol' BPRD days when Prof. Bruttenholm was alive and running things. Abe goes down to South America to a partially-underwater cave that may or may not be the inspiration for the Mayan underworld. He's there to rescue some trapped explorers, but finds instead a bunch of Prussian vampires, one of whom has mutated into a nekkid amphibious critter. This ties into...let's see...the current BPRD 1948/Vampire books, which in turn spun off of the early Hellboy vampire/Hecate stuff, and that Hellboy vampire mini, and is supposed to tie into the BPRD Pickens County Horror mini and is geared toward playing a part in the ongoing BPRD modern day because of a mysterious guy in an old black stage coach. It doesn't actually tie into the awesome Hellboy in Mexico or any of the other Hellboy Mexican episodes, each of which is awesome in its own way and often includes vampires. Aside from the fact that this issue stars Abe though, the regular storyline of the comic has been leading toward some more Mayan mythology, so I think this is supposed to be an actual set-up for the next big Abe Sapien arc. I'm game.

Hellboy in Hell #5 is another fall back to form - essentially a retelling of an old folk story (or something in that vein), with HB along for the ride and a tip-of-the-hat to some of Mignola's presumed non-canon stuff in The Amazing Screw-On Head & Other Curious Objects hardback (which, again, is brilliant). It begins and ends with HB still in hell and only a little bit of sketching out the story there; it's treading the line between moving forward and the fairytale-style which has informed so much of HB's sidetreks, so we might get literally anything with the next issue.

Sledgehammer 44: Lightning War picks up on the end of the Sledgehammer mini (which was itself a Lobster Johnson spin-off) and the Lobster Johnson A Scent of Lotus mini - yep, this is the return of the original Black Flame, promised to us waaaay back in the early BPRD series. Also with a very special guest star whom I won't spoil. Honestly, not a lot happens in this issue but it's kind of a BPRD 1940s accessory and just setting up the plot.