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[Spoilers]State of the Mignolaverse

13

Posts

  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    Re-read 1947 in preparation for the imminent arrival in my postbox of BPRD Vampire, and I'm reminded how excellent a book it is. I'm down with the whole end of the world stuff going on in the main BPRD books currently, but the more classical gothic stuff is always my favourite. Like that bit in early BPRD where Kate gets trapped by that old collector of curiosities, also a firm favourite of mine.

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  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    I think the Mignolaverse in general does better on a re-read than a lot of ongoing series. I don't know if it's just the tighter control of the timeline or the plotting or what, but it's really more rewarding to go back and read, like, Hellboy: The Wild Hunt or any of the Abe Sapiens one-shots or whatever than it is to go back five or ten years on Superman or Captain America.
    Only issue out this week is Baltimore: the Witch of Harju #3, where we pick up an Eastern European farmwife that's down for battling the supernatural. Which, surprisingly, works really well for me. It also seems like Baltimore is really embracing the whole agent-of-something-else-opposing-the-Red-King bit. Which is interesting in itself. It's nice to see Baltimore's world expand a little bit. There's also some weird parallels to Hellboy in Hell, which I also like.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    Oh man.

    New mini series 'Underground Frankenstein' announced and the interview mentions links to The Universal Machine, that story which I just two post up stated to be one of my favourites.

    Good times.

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  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Hey, it's Flattop from the Hellboy in Mexico stories! I love that guy!

    Hellboy-Drinking-With-a-Frankenstein-Monster.jpg

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular

    The trick is always to make it look like its been planned from the beginning, but if you plan stuff from the beginning, it’s too rigid, it’s going to break, it’s going to collapse. You can’t stick to these rigid plots – certainly you can’t do it over 20 years. I certainly never projected this far.

    The trick is, when you write this stuff, to write it vague, to write it in a direction you’re going, but to allow a lot of room for things to move around.

    There is an ultimate end to the Hellboy world, to Hellboy, to the B.P.R.D. but I don’t want to box myself in. The end has shifted a little bit once or twice over the years, and it’s basically the same ending – but you’ve got to allow for these characters to kind of drift this way, or drift that way, or this character doesn’t quite make it to where you thought they were going to make it. But this other character picks up the ball…

    You’ve got to let it live, you’ve got to give it room to breathe.


    This might be some of the best conceptual advice for making comics I've ever read.

  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    BPRD #124

    Holy crepe that was depressing.

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  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Behind on so many things...anyway. Anyone else excited by the surprise visitor at the last issue of Witchfinder: Mystery of Unland ?

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    The holidays has drained my monies and absorbed all my free time. But now I am caught up with the Mignolaverse. 2015 looks to be an...interesting year. It's page three, but I'll still spoiler things.
    Baltimore: the two-issue miniseries with the Inquisitor as a werewolf was decent, but not outstanding; I thought it was actually great to see how diverse the Inquisition was.

    Hellboy and the BPRD: Hellboy's first official mission! ...I want to like this, I really do, but it's slow going and there's a lot of flashbacks. It's actually kind of painful when you go back to when Mike Mignola drew and wrote the comic himself, because they were much more self-contained and cut out all the extraneous fluff and crap.

    BPRD: I have no idea what's going on. I thought Liz beat the Black Flame, but then we see the Black Flame is still in New Yawk? It just seems to have devolved to these slow-moving B-stories for the last couple of issues.

    Abe Sapien: Abe still in Texas, doing two things: jack and shit. Although now it looks like he's run afoul of an interstate voodoo cult, so that might make things a bit more interesting.

    All in all, I think we're just waiting for the Frankenstein mini and the next series of Hellboy in Hell at this point.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Yeah. Frankenstein Underground sounds possible, and that Hellboy and the Coffin Man : Rematch sounds like it could be a good time.

    Hellboy in Hell sounds like it may be the heart of Mignola's experiments and true creativity these days, which I'm totally okay with.

    BPRD needs to focus. I know they're openly dealing with World Event stuff in the open now, but, it's just not as fun or full of character accomplishments as it used to be.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Not to throw shade on the current art guys either, but I sorely miss Guy Davis.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • FakefauxFakefaux Cóiste Bodhar Driving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered User regular
    Enjoying this Howards-centric current arc in BPRD.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Aye. I'm liking having Hellboy back in the '50s series too...I just want him to be more, y'know, Hellboy-ish.
    Still, talking alligator! And cyborg monkeys! Strange idols (with connections to Witch Finder and the Lobster.) I smell Nazis...(or I had better; those apes aren't native to South America.)

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • FakefauxFakefaux Cóiste Bodhar Driving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered User regular
    Aye. I'm liking having Hellboy back in the '50s series too...I just want him to be more, y'know, Hellboy-ish.
    Still, talking alligator! And cyborg monkeys! Strange idols (with connections to Witch Finder and the Lobster.) I smell Nazis...(or I had better; those apes aren't native to South America.)
    South America? Cyborg apes? There is no way Von Klempt isn't behind this.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    I don't know how this is gonna come off, but...

    I used to like the BPRD stuff a whole lot more. It's not just the art element when Guy Davis stopped being the look.

    It's just that the stories used to be a lot more deliberately paced, and felt tighter. I think The Long Death story was the last thing I genuinely cared about...since then the stories have begun to feel like trying to make BPRD into SHIELD with some Ghostbusters thrown in.

    And that could be fine, but...I don't feel like the stories are really about the characters in the way they used to be. A lot of the plots just feel like padding. Maybe we're in some kind of extended awkward stage towards realizing the new version of BPRD, but I miss the old core title.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Yeah, I hear you. I think it was even before The Long Death, I keep thinking back to Pickens County Horror and it just feels...unfinished.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    New Hellboy in Mexico short in Dark Horse Presents #200. Without spoiling anything, I'll admit that I don't think this one amounts to much.

    BPRD continues the long, grindingly slow march towards...something.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    Not a bad couple tidbits in the latest BPRD
    I always like peeks at a cosmology that has elements kindly disposed to humanity, and there's a thread that might tie to Hellboy in Hell, later on.

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  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Hellboy & the BPRD: Nazis in Brazil! Cyborg apes! Yet another army of the dead (how many does that make?) And an ad for the Frankenstein mini in two weeks!

    Seriously though, I'm kind of tired of the origin recaps in Mignolaverse comics these days.

    Abe Sapien: Okay, I admit I didn't think it was gonna get this crazy quite this fast.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • NoneoftheaboveNoneoftheabove Just a conforming non-conformist. Twilight ZoneRegistered User regular
    I'm the Johnny-come-lately to Mignola's genius, and have started collecting the trade paperbacks of Hellboy. I've got volumes 1,2,4&5.
    Is Mignola still writing and drawing for Hellboy? I'm just not that interested in his writing contributions only.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Mostly just writing these days; doesn't draw as much.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • NoneoftheaboveNoneoftheabove Just a conforming non-conformist. Twilight ZoneRegistered User regular
    Mostly just writing these days; doesn't draw as much.
    That's really a shame, because his style offers so much to the mood of his writing for HB.
    The HB "In Hell" series is drawn by Mignola, right?

    I'm thinking about getting into the BPRD series, however not having Mignola as the artist is a major drawback for me.

  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Hellboy in Hell consistently blows me away. It might not be noticeable at first, but collected it becomes frighteningly clear that he is drawing only what the story needs-not one line is wasted anywhere. It's masterclass stuff.

    I just picked up Hellboy and the Midnight Circus, which is a fine clever book that I suspect is a foreshadowing of the next thing Mignola might do with Hellboy in Hell. It might have a few too many different art styles embedded into it for storytelling purposes, or maybe there's a little too much going on. It's a little hard to tell.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Mostly just writing these days; doesn't draw as much.
    That's really a shame, because his style offers so much to the mood of his writing for HB.
    The HB "In Hell" series is drawn by Mignola, right?

    I'm thinking about getting into the BPRD series, however not having Mignola as the artist is a major drawback for me.
    Aye, Mike Mignola is pulling writing and art duties for Hellboy in Hell.

    I, too, was once a Mignola writer/artist purist for Hellboy and the BPRD...and it is true he has a style few can imitate. But then, I also really, really like Guy Davis, so...

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
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  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Haven't been updating this lately, because I've been falling behind in my comics reading. Yet I do sort of feel...don't know how to describe this...that maybe the series are finally starting to turn the corner from the long slog they've been in. For one thing, I really like Frankenstein Underground. And it looks like maybe Abe Sapien will go somewhere. And BPRD...
    Okay, so a ghost with post-traumatic stress disorder. I think maybe they could have handled that a little better, but is it wrong that I see Johann going away as...progress? I guess when you come down to it Johann coming into the BPRD is what really marked it as a change from the Hellboy series; it was a new character with new perspectives and he's sort of been a catalyst to the whole BPRD arc, a pawn being pushed across the board by this spirit or another, but he's always been very much an old BPRD mindset, more interested in investigation...not a soldier, which is sort of what the BPRD needs. I doubt this is the last we'll see of the character, but I'm hoping maybe this will be the trigger for something...new.

    Also, I really really like Frankenstein Underground. I think it's great that at this point there's still secrets in the Mignolaverse to uncover.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
    Sex & the Cthulhu Mythos
  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    Decided to revive this old thread because events seem to be working rapidly towards a climax in the Mignolaverse. Hellboy in Hell's 10th and final issue has been out for a while. Abe Sapien's last few issues have had some tremendous new revelations about the cosmology of the universe and Abe's place in it, past and future. The BPRD is gearing up to tackle the ultimate evil.
    Hellboy in Hell - seems like Hellboy has cleared out hell of pretty much everyone else. All the demons, major and lesser, seem to be dead. The souls of humans are leaving, freed from hell in the form of birds. Hellboy himself seems to be done. The Shapes from the Sorcerer and the Snake make an appearance, and they're a symbol of a final end. The light in the house at the end of the last issue gives me hope that he's just waiting for the right time to return, but Hellboy may have put an end to his intended destiny as destroyer of the world in the most final way possible. Pretty melancholy, to say the least.

    Abe Sapien - we've gotten nearly all the mysteries of Abe's nature revealed, as well as a complete history of the first men, the Hyperboreans, which tie into the nature of the 'aliens' that have been speculated about since the beginning, and how Abe ties in with them. Oannes, the Hyperboreans, the vril, Hyperberum... big reveals laid bare. Now we know his history, we just need to worry about the near future, and his new nemesis.

    BPRD - the Ogdru Jahad are walking the Earth, and there's a garden where salvation from them is possible. Things are progressing towards apocalypse pretty fast here...

    I haven't been keeping up with the other titles, but I'm sure they're probably great. But for the current era, there's a definite 'finale' feel brewing to the End of Days narrative that has been going for the past few years.

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  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    The final issue of Hellboy in Hell was something else. He embraces his destiny, and takes all its power and...
    Burns hell to the ground, and "dies" a final peaceful death.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    The best part with Abe Sapien, I think...
    Is that Prof. Bruttenholm had known it before, at least some of it. That was a good reveal.

    Baltimore also seems to be building up to something, though that last issue was maybe a little too exposition-heavy, a little too neat...although it does reference my favorite Baltimore storyline, so props for tying things together I reckon.

    Lobster Johnson - one thing I like about Lobster Johnson is, we already know the ending to his story; it's the beginning and middle we can still explore.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
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  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    Wait, so what was the big reveal with Abe?

  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited July 2016
    Wait, so what was the big reveal with Abe?

    Oh nothing much - just the true nature of his transformation into a fish-man.

    Spoiler for true nature, and other related revelations cuz I want to talk about them, last couple issues of Abe Sapien
    It's been hinted at by all kinds of people, from villains to fellow BPRD agents, that Abe's transformation is somehow connected with the Ogdru-Hem and the various evil ways they transform humans into monsters, especially the frog monsters who were said to be the 'third race of man' following the destruction of man's current civilizations. Parallels were drawn between Abe and the frog monsters as two forms of mutant human who were amphibious, transformed by contact with eldritch entities. And we've never really had the facts to say that this theory was wrong - even Abe was worried it was true.

    The last couple issues have explained it all though - the frog monsters are debased, mutated humans created by the Ogdru-Hem, but Abe is a pure, uncorrupted evolved human. While the frogs are twisted aberrations, Abe is what humans will evolve into as they approach a more enlightened state. In fact, Abe's current form, while seemingly more 'monstrous' to shallow human sensibilities, is now virtually identical to the 'aliens' from way back in the earlier Hellboy stories, who are now revealed to be the evolved descendants of the Hyperboreans, the 'golden race of man' who first inhabited the Earth and who left it for the stars and continued advancing all this time.

    Abe is essentially a human who was advanced to the same level as modern day Hyperboreans, an idealized and evolved form of humanity. The mysterious ocean entity that transformed him, Oannes, is revealed to have been an ancient Hyperborean priest who transformed into a more advanced state of being using the power of vril, the counterforce to the evil darkness of the Ogdru-Hem (since the first Hyperboreans were once spirits who became flesh and blood, Oannes transformation may imply a return to the Hyperboreans original spirit forms). It's now implied that Abe's destiny is to lead the surviving remnants of humanity into the new world that will exist after the old one is destroyed, preserving the spirit of the humanity that once was in a more advanced form of man.

    Course, now there's this evil sorcerer guy with no nose who's been tracking Abe and has somehow evolved himself into another Hyperborean, and he wants to realize the evil false destiny everyone thought Abe had, with himself as the right hand fish-person of the Ogdru-Jahad.

    That's my impression, anyway. So that's all super neat.

    Golden Yak on
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  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    Golden Yak wrote: »
    Wait, so what was the big reveal with Abe?

    Oh nothing much - just the true nature of his transformation into a fish-man.

    Spoiler for true nature, and other related revelations cuz I want to talk about them, last couple issues of Abe Sapien
    It's been hinted at by all kinds of people, from villains to fellow BPRD agents, that Abe's transformation is somehow connected with the Ogdru-Hem and the various evil ways they transform humans into monsters, especially the frog monsters who were said to be the 'third race of man' following the destruction of man's current civilizations. Parallels were drawn between Abe and the frog monsters as two forms of mutant human who were amphibious, transformed by contact with eldritch entities. And we've never really had the facts to say that this theory was wrong - even Abe was worried it was true.

    The last couple issues have explained it all though - the frog monsters are debased, mutated humans created by the Ogdru-Hem, but Abe is a pure, uncorrupted evolved human. While the frogs are twisted aberrations, Abe is what humans will evolve into as they approach a more enlightened state. In fact, Abe's current form, while seemingly more 'monstrous' to shallow human sensibilities, is now virtually identical to the 'aliens' from way back in the earlier Hellboy stories, who are now revealed to be the evolved descendants of the Hyperboreans, the 'golden race of man' who first inhabited the Earth and who left it for the stars and continued advancing all this time.

    Abe is essentially a human who was advanced to the same level as modern day Hyperboreans, an idealized and evolved form of humanity. The mysterious ocean entity that transformed him, Oannes, is revealed to have been an ancient Hyperborean priest who transformed into a more advanced state of being using the power of vril, the counterforce to the evil darkness of the Ogdru-Hem (since the first Hyperboreans were once spirits who became flesh and blood, Oannes transformation may imply a return to the Hyperboreans original spirit forms). It's now implied that Abe's destiny is to lead the surviving remnants of humanity into the new world that will exist after the old one is destroyed, preserving the spirit of the humanity that once was in a more advanced form of man.

    Course, now there's this evil sorcerer guy with no nose who's been tracking Abe and has somehow evolved himself into another Hyperborean, and he wants to realize the evil false destiny everyone thought Abe had, with himself as the right hand fish-person of the Ogdru-Jahad.

    That's my impression, anyway. So that's all super neat.

    Oh man. That is awesome.

    You just, don't know how happy I am that that particular plot thread wasn't left discarded after the ending of the Conqueror Worm. That's really good to hear.

  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    In further news...

    The next issue of Abe Sapien, #36, lands in August and will be the final issue.
    I was a little surprised to hear this, as there still seems to be a lot to unpack for one issue. It may be that the last issue simply resolves the arc of Abe searching for his true destiny, and that his further adventures fulfilling that destiny will carry on in another title - perhaps he will reappear back in the pages BPRD, or a future title that will act as the wrap-up for the over-arcing Mignolaverse story.

    BPRD 143 also begins the final 3-part arc of the Hell on Earth cycle, which wraps up in 145. Probably not the final issue of BPRD though, I suspect we'll get another cycle afterwards that brings all these threads together - Abe, the final fate of Earth, the showdown with the Ogdru-Jahad and its spawn, and maybe we'll even see Hellboy again.

    I can sort've see a shadow of events that will happen - Abe will lead humanity to a new beginning in the new Garden of Eden in England, the leader of a new race of men (maybe everybody will even get a fishman upgrade). Iosif and Varvara are making their way through a barren and empty Hell - I'm almost certain they'll rouse Hellboy to finally use the Army of Hell against the Ogdru-Jahad. I can't think of anything else that could possible stop it. There's been a long running theme of Hellboy trying to avoid his destiny while continuously being nudged towards it despite his best efforts. Maybe the true way out is not to avoid it, hide from it, or abandon it, but to embrace it and change it by your own will. Maybe Hellboy ultimately leads the army to Earth to save it rather than destroy it. Then leads the army to Heaven, not to fight, but to be released. Everyone else remains behind in the new Eden for a happily ever after.

    Also think it would be neat if the 'aliens', the Hyperberum, make an appearance. They were monitoring the Ogdru-Jahad's prison, they have to know it's loose. Related question - is the dragon rampaging on Earth the entirety of the Ogdru-Jahad, or are there six more just like it on the way? I'm thinking it's the entire dragon, that all seven poured their power into one vessel - they've done it before. Plus there was that image of six dark crystal prisons and one glowing one, the same one that broke open to release the dragon. Hope that gets addressed.

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  • Linespider5Linespider5 ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGER Registered User regular
    With so much of Mignola's latter day output making allusions to that army of the damned piling up as action figures behind that blind cyclops in Hell, something really should put all that to use. I long suspected Hellboy could use this army to help save Earth rather than invade it...and the implication that if could free an untold number of suffering suicides would, I think, be the kind of thing that would compel Hellboy to act in their interests, if nothing else.
    I would not be surprised in the slightest if a few years down the line Dark Horse announces some kind of Ragnarok event as the final capstone in the Mignolaverse. You know, after Mike's finished his paintings and everyone else has finished their BPRD, Baltimore, Sapien, and Witchfinder material.

  • Bobby DerieBobby Derie Registered User regular
    Sure. I mean, they can run as many Iron Prometheus, Lobster Johnson, Hellboy and the BPRD 19XX series as they want to fill in the gaps until they get to that point.

    The Unpublishable - Original fiction blog, updates Fridays
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  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    With so much of Mignola's latter day output making allusions to that army of the damned piling up as action figures behind that blind cyclops in Hell, something really should put all that to use. I long suspected Hellboy could use this army to help save Earth rather than invade it...and the implication that if could free an untold number of suffering suicides would, I think, be the kind of thing that would compel Hellboy to act in their interests, if nothing else.
    I would not be surprised in the slightest if a few years down the line Dark Horse announces some kind of Ragnarok event as the final capstone in the Mignolaverse. You know, after Mike's finished his paintings and everyone else has finished their BPRD, Baltimore, Sapien, and Witchfinder material.

    Well, there was that one scene from 'King of Fear' where
    Liz sees a vision of the future, where she finds photos of older members of the BPRD team, Abe and Hellboy included, fighting Ogdru-Hem monsters in a post-apocalyptic looking Earth. Maaaybe some truth to that?

    And yeah, plenty of stories to tell in the meantime. Would love some more Lobster Johnson stories. Also wouldn't mind a few set in the distant past, I liked the one with Gall Dennar, the guy who owned that sword that turned the modern BPRD guy into a badass.

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  • sullijosullijo mid-level minion subterranean bunkerRegistered User regular
    BPRD: Hell on Earth #145:
    RIP Kate and Nichayko.

    Things have been on a real roll lately. I give the Watchers 50/50 odds against the Dragon.

    Also: this seems to confirm that Liz's vision in King of Fear was... false? An alternate future?

    When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
    "I don't want the world, I just want your half"
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    Gawdamn.

  • Golden YakGolden Yak Burnished Bovine The sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered User regular
    Wooow.

    Wow.


    Yeah, we are fast barreling towards endgame here.
    Abe Sapien also ended with, I thought, little fanfare. It was mostly a clipshow of the entire series, with a bit more angst from Abe about his destiny than I would have thought he'd have after recent revelations. His confrontation with Strobl was pretty anticlimactic too; I wonder how much Abe even understood of what Strobl was or what was happening with the two of them.

    Still he's headed back to the BPRD, what little there's left of it, and for however long they all have left.

    I'm guessing the watchers will be able to shut down the dragon, if only because I don't see how anything else possibly could. If they can't, maybe Johann and his connection to the universe through the armor might have a shot at being the big hero.

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  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    I'd started to feel less enthused about the Mignola-verse a while back. The apocalyptic atmosphere of BPRD/Abe was beginning to drag as it all started to feel so hopeless. Hellboy in Hell was a little too obscure and plot light for me. Even 1952 seemed a little been there, done that.

    Today I picked up Frankenstein Underground and, Wow. Now that's what I'm on board the Mignola-verse for! A perfect mix of plot to action and for once a non-nihilistic ending! Throw in the call back to one of my absolute favourite BPRD stories with the collection guy and I absolutely loved it.

    All keen to try and catch back up now, and looks like I've got quite a way to go. Last read Abe vol 5 and BPRD vol 9. I see there's a Hellboy in Hell vol 2 now as well.

    Edit: Reading up thread I'm glad to see my views seem to be shared. Also just saw the 'The Visitor' announcement. I always wondered if we'd go back re-visit those alien guys.

    Jam Warrior on
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  • sullijosullijo mid-level minion subterranean bunkerRegistered User regular
    BPRD: Hell on Earth #146:
    So much for the Watchers.

    What the what was that ending? My sense is that Johann has just been given the power to... rewrite history? Pull people or things from alternate dimensions? Create his own world?

    Even more pressing: Is Varvara going to use Nichayko's puddle face as her new dolly?

    After several years of drifting, this story is careening towards something big. I, for one, am on the edge of my seat.

    When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge:
    "I don't want the world, I just want your half"
  • manwiththemachinegunmanwiththemachinegun METAL GEAR?! Registered User regular
    edited October 2016
    I'd started to feel less enthused about the Mignola-verse a while back. The apocalyptic atmosphere of BPRD/Abe was beginning to drag as it all started to feel so hopeless. Hellboy in Hell was a little too obscure and plot light for me. Even 1952 seemed a little been there, done that.

    Today I picked up Frankenstein Underground and, Wow. Now that's what I'm on board the Mignola-verse for! A perfect mix of plot to action and for once a non-nihilistic ending! Throw in the call back to one of my absolute favourite BPRD stories with the collection guy and I absolutely loved it.

    All keen to try and catch back up now, and looks like I've got quite a way to go. Last read Abe vol 5 and BPRD vol 9. I see there's a Hellboy in Hell vol 2 now as well.

    Edit: Reading up thread I'm glad to see my views seem to be shared. Also just saw the 'The Visitor' announcement. I always wondered if we'd go back re-visit those alien guys.

    We've known the world was going to end since Plague of Frogs. BPRD and Hellboy became very much a Armageddon/Ragnarok style story with the heroes fighting to deny their enemies the right to remake the world in *their* image. The human race is most likely done on Earth, but that's not necessarily a bad thing given what we've seen in other books.
    Hell has been destroyed, lost souls can be redeemed, there's a small, quiet underground being preserved for mankind to be the next "mythological" creatures like the elves once were.

    So yeah, the world is ending, I don't agree it's hopeless though. There's still some cards left to play.

    manwiththemachinegun on
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