From Hell, and I’m in Heaven
It’s no secret, I love Hellboy and his consequent comics. The Characters, the universe and the stories that encompass them are incredible, well thought out adventures that usually inspire dread with an occasional dose of humor and intrigue.
Mike Minola is the sole creator of Hellboy and began by drawing and writing him in small short story type one shots based on fairly unknown fables based all around the world. The first act of genius that Mike came up with was to have Hellboy’s origin be set around world war 2, that gave him a little over 70 years of time to place Hellboy where he would like him to be. With this, there are allocated times Hellboy was working for the B.P.R.D (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence), travelling the world and solving monster mysteries. The reason for this being a clever writing technique is that he can focus on present time and show current events (excuse the pun) going to hell, and if he wants to add more content to increase the severity or validity to the situation, he can. Genius.
This issue is a start of a new story arc within the year of 1955, where Hellboy and his bureau pals are on a trip back from Australia after Hellboy (assumingly) punches a Bunyip into submission. As its 1955, travelling from Australia to the States is a complicated task and they crew take a lay over in the south pacific, where a mysterious top secret paranormal complication occurs. At the same time two other mysteries seem to be happening elsewhere with other character from the universe. Out of body experiences, giant sea turtles and a little espionage sprinkled throughout makes this comic well worth a read.
If I had any complaints about this issue, its that I already knew going into this that the writing would be great and I wasn’t going to be disappointed. This sounds like the world’s best/worst problem but makes for an interesting challenge when trying to review. The only other thing to consider was the art and as Mike likes to keep people he’s worked with along for the ride for many of his ventures, its also as good as it usually is.
Ill keep reading, always will and lucky for me they never seem to disappoint.