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Post by thwhtguardian on Nov 21, 2016 9:25:44 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD:1953 #1"The Phantom Hand"Dark Horse, 2015 Written by Mike Mignola Art by Ben Stenbeck Colored by Dave Stewart  Year:1953 Summary: In February of 1953 Hellboy travels to England with Trevor Bruttenholm to see Harry Middleton and investigate a phantom hand haunting a house.
Plot: As much as I like the sprawling epics that Mignola has spun of late, it's the sort of wacky one and dones that really drew me to the character. They were simple, they started with a kernal of a myth or a bit of folklore, then a monster of some kind would show up and Hellboy would get smacked around a bit before beating it almost by chance...then rinse and repeat next issue. And although this story takes place long before those stories in Hellboy's in story chronology(hence why I'm reviewing it before them) it was actually written some 20 years after those first simpler stories which is a long way from those simpler roots making this a terrific breath of fresh air. Also a breath of fresh air is the fact that unlike most of the preceding stories I've reviewed this tale from Hellboy's early years is written wholly by Mignola and it really shows, don't get me wrong he picks fantastic people to collaborate with and expand upon his weird ideas but no one can really duplicate the original. Mike's short, punchy dialog is on full display with simple exclamations like "Terrible THING!" as Hellboy spears the severed hand with a fireplace poker just make me crack up and that odd reaction just can't be elicited by anyone else. As I said, because this a call back to those first Hellboy stories the plot is simpler: there's a house haunted by a severed hand, the Professor and his old friend Harry bring Hellboy along for the ride, Hellboy confronts the hand...and it inexplicably turns into a giant demon which in turn smacks Hellboy around until he smacks him on te head with a grave marker which it turns out belonged to one of the children the hand killed and the demon dies. It fits the pattern to a tee but Mignola goes a step further in that he doesn't just homage his earlier style but he shows that he can modernize it too as he ties the one off adventure to the grander scheme with a fire side chat between the Professor and Harry about the doubts of raising Hellboy; it's past and present in one and it's a beautiful mix.
Art: Although Stenbeck has long worked with Mignola on his wonderful side project Baltimore and even did the first Witchfinder series this story marks the first time he's ever done a Hellboy story and he does a fantastic job. He really gets Hellboys facial expressions but his softer, slightly more rounded look lends it self perfectly to creating a younger looking Hellboy.
Conclusion: This cute one off that homages Mignola's early style is a fantastically fun romp, it has action humor and just enough atmosphere to be slightly creepy...but the best part? It's only the first of several similar feeling stories!
Grade: A- |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jan 10, 2017 11:54:57 GMT -5
Hellboy: 1953 #2 "Rawhead and Bloody Bones" Written by Mike Mignola Art by Ben Stenbeck Colored by Dave Stewart Dark Horse, 2015  Year: 1953 Summary: The Professor and Hellboy investigate an Inn with an unsavory past and meet an unlikely duo haunting it.
Plot: Clocking in at just six pages long, this one is certainly short but don't be fooled as Mignola's talent is on full display here. It's a simple story to be sure, Hellboy and the Professor show up at an Inn, they get a short history about a pair of grave robbers, learn of the haunting and then dispatch of the ghoulies by burning the Inn's sign. By anyone else's pen this would have come off as dull as dishwater, but with the Professor's sarcastic reaction to Hellboy's plan to just burn the sign to exercise the ghosts and then Hellboy's own surprise when it actually does make for a fun little story. It's by no means earth shattering but it's fun none the less.
Art: Again, the highlight of Stenbeck's art here are the wonderful facial expressions he imbues Hellboy with, although I love Mignola under his pen Hellboy never really showed us anything other than mad, really mad or stoic as far as facial expressions so the looks of amusement and shock that Stenbeck gives him are really something else.
Grade:B
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 12, 2018 18:51:33 GMT -5
"Hellboy and the Witch Tree"Hellboy and the BPRD:1953 Witch Tree/Rawhead and Bloody Bones Written by Mike Mignola Art by Ben Stenbeck Colored by Dave Stewart Dark Horse, 2015 Year:1953 Summary: While in England Professor Bruttenholm and Hellboy investigate the burial site of Boudicca's Hag who assisted in the death of hundreds of Roman soldiers.
Plot: I've said it before, but I really do think Mignola is at his absolute best with these short pieces. In just 17 quick pages he sets the stage, introduces the characters involved, introduces the villain, gives us a bit of history and folklore, a great bit of action and an ending that ties nicely into Hellboy's nature and fate. All of that in a single story is a tall order and in a short feature it's all the more impressive and to top if all off he makes it look effortlessly. Boudicca's hag is definitely a one off villain but with her ties to history in the story and the way she mirror's Rasputin and the Blood Queen and their connection to Ugdru Jihad she came off as feeling important. I think my favorite part of this story was that unlike a lot of Mignola's stories which tend to end with Hellboy punching the bad guy into submission this threat was beat by Bruttenholm's brain; he converses with the zombi roman soldiers in period Latin and convinces them to attack the witch. It was a smart, fun twist that really took the story from being fun to being memorable.
Art: While Mignola obviously is the best when it comes to drawing Hellboy and his world if I can't get him Stenbeck is the next best thing. He really knows how to nail the individual looks of all the characters and his style, like Mignola's, is heavy on mood.
Grade:A
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 12, 2018 22:32:43 GMT -5
"The Kelpie"Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953 #1  Written by Mike Mignola Art by Ben Stenbeck Colored by Dave Stewart Dark Horse, 2015 Year:1953 + 1935 Summary: Henry and Professor Bruttenholm recount their first paranormal adventure to Hellboy as their English vacation comes to an end. Plot: This is another one of those early adventures of the Professor that Mignola likes to do every once in a while, and while I enjoy many of these flash backs this is one of them that makes the group a bit of a mixed bag. For a story chronicling the Professor's first adventure you'd expect something big, flashy and full of character insight but sadly this lacks all three of those elements. It's a casual one off that's more tell than show so it lacks any depth or excitement and it's so short that the characters have no real moments of their own making it feel very flat. What's worse is that Kelpie's are really cool mythical beasts and instead of giving us a bit of that folklore as he normally would Mignola just glosses over it with a bare bones definition of what a Kelpie is which is really disappointing. And to round it all off the ending reaches for more in observing that the drowned corpse of their friend being left out for them was a message from the paranormal world...but then treats it like a joke that's quickly laughed off. That ending could have been an interesting look at the world of these creatures; that they just want to be left alone but instead it did nothing with it. Art: Stenbeck isn't given a whole lot to do here, it's mostly talking heads and even the scene with the Kelpie itself is lacking in any action though he does capture why I've always feared horses:  Horse's teeth freak me out. Grade:D |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Feb 13, 2018 11:49:22 GMT -5
"Wandering Souls"Hellboy Winter Special 2016  Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Michael Walsh Dark Horse, 2016 Year:1953 Summary: Budding psychic Susan Xiang and Hellboy head out to investigate a possible haunting of an abandoned mine in Wyoming.
Plot: This is another fun short by Mignola and Roberson that tells a pretty straight forward haunted house story but with a twist of Chinese culture that makes it both unique and interesting. It has all the hallmarks of a good haunting; an isolated and abandoned location, eerie sounds in the dark, odd and unexplained sightings and strange voices, but it goes further as the voices of the dead emanate from a group of Chinese miners who were killed due to the racial fears of the 19th century. It's a slice of old West history that rarely gets representation; we like to see the West as a symbol of pure, rugged American individualism but it was an expansion that was built on the backs of a burgeoning new class of immigrants and although the slaughter depicted here was fictional it sadly has many historical antecedents and to see it treated with respect here makes for some very poignant story telling.
Art: Walsh's art lacks a little of Mignola's signature mood, which is sad for a ghost story, but he nails the characters and his designs for the ghosts were really fun.
Grade:A-
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 21:00:55 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD 1953: Beyond the Fences Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by by Paolo Rivera Year:1953 Summary: When a mysterious creature starting hunting down children in a small suburban town Hellboy heads out to investigate.
Plot: After a series of one shots Mignola and Roberson launch into this four part series that pits Hellboy against a strange beast that's terrorizing a small town. With the story taking place mostly during the day and in a sanitized, shiny new suburban paradise it definitely stands apart from your average Hellboy story but it still has the same heart beating in it with some truly great character beats with the growing Hellboy. The stand out scene for me was the way Hellboy reacted to his discovery that the creature was a little boy's lost dog that had been mutated by encladite, the conflict he feels over attacking a pet even though it's of monstrous size really speaks to who Hellboy is as a person; he may have a monstrous exterior but he has a heart of gold inside and he takes that experience with him when ever he confronts these creatures that go bump in the night. However the story isn't all sunshine and brilliance as the end of the story gets really bogged down with setting up the paranormal cold war with the introduction of the Russian agents and the continued development of the other worldly mineral Encladite first introduced in BPRD 1948, and neither one of those elements are my favorites so it made for an agonizing end.
Art: I've long loved Rivera's clean artistic style, especially the way he captured the simplicity of the golden age of the Marvel heros in the Mythos books but he was never someone that I ever thought of him as an artist for Hellboy. With this being his first sojourn into the world of Hellboy and it having such a unique setting the deck was always going to be stacked against him, but all in all he mostly comes out as successful. While I love the way he portrays Hellboy in the suburban setting(it looks like a norman rockwell painting in every panel) he struggles with the creature design and I was really hoping that when it came to showcase the supernatural he'd change up his look a little to play up the difference between the daylight hours and the night but it was all in the same brush. Still, for a first go round it wasn't too bad.
Grade:7/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 21:20:17 GMT -5
Hellboy: The Nature of the BeastDark Horse Presents #151, 2000 Story and art by Mike Mignola Year:1954 Summary: Professor Bruttenholm sends Hellboy off to England once again to meet some former colleagues of his in the Osiris Club.
Plot: In this short from 2000 Mike Mignola gives us two things that are sure to make any comic fan smile: Hellboy and a dragon! This is a story that could have easily just become a trow away, beat em' up story with Hellboy just fighting a dragon and then walking into the sunset but n typical Mignola fashion he really packs a lot into such a short tale. With an exquisite mastery of pacing Mignola jumps from the members of the Osiris club telling Hellboy the myth of St. Leonard's worm(which is a great little folktale) to fighting the dragon in question and then tying into Hellboy's developing destiny as his spilled blood leads a trail of lilies growing through the woods. It's short and quick but it really packs a punch making it one of my all time favorites.
Art: What I love most about this snappy little story is the design of the dragon, eschewing the normal design seen in most dragons Mignola creates a look that plays into the idea that the European's view of the dragon may stem from their first viewing of nile crocodiles with a very realistic crocodilian look. It's unique look that really sets it apart from anything else I've seen, which again makes it very memorable for a little story.
Grade:10/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 21:37:18 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD: 1954 #1-2"Black Sun"2016  Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Stephan Green Colored by Dave Stewart Year:1954 Summary: When an unknown creature attacks an American scientific party at a remote arctic outpost the BPRD sends out Hellboy and rookie agent Woodrow Farrier to investigate and what first appears to Hellboy as an open and shut case of yet another mutated animal turns out to be far stranger.
Plot:What's really fun about this series is the chance to see Hellboy grow as a character. That isn't to say that Mignola never developed Hellboy over the last 20 years, in fact the opposite is true as the changes the readers went through with Hellboy have been the main selling point, but while that growth has been great to see we never saw how he became the agent we first fell in love with which is exactly what Hellboy and the BPRD is giving us. In the first outings in the 1940's series we saw a young boy struggling to find his identity, in the 1950's we saw him develop from a reluctant, unsure agent to a young man who's discovered he's pretty good at monster slaying...and in this outing we see Hellboy in his sort of sophomore year; he feels he's the expert now and approaches his first mission in charge with an almost jaded outlook. It's an organic growth that just makes you smile because you know what will come of that view because you yourself likely went through a similar phase. And while that setup provides a promising start it sort of falls apart on the back end. Once Hellboy sets foor on the UFO at the end of the first issue, discovering it to be piloted by nazis instead of aliens it all the fun development sort of went out the window and what replaced it was a heavy handed info dump from a two dimensional Nazi general. The concept was great, and I loved the ending when Hellboy was found mysteriously in the Antarctic when he set out off the coast of Iceland but the middle was a slog and a half. I can't help but feel that this would have been much better as a one shot or better yet as one of those early short features that just had a weird concept, a fun punchline and a shocking finale. Those sorts of stories didn't give a lot of characterization but they were fun and I think this concept would have fit that method much better than a full feature.
Art: Despite the majority of these issues being comprised of Hellboy just walking around in the snow and then tied up on an operating table while an over the top Nazi gnawed up all the scenery Green managed to illustrate a good grasp of Hellboy. The expressions on Hellboy's face were perfect, which can be really hard to do as his square jawed features often look contorted if you try to just simply transpose normal human expressions meaning you have to come up with your own physical language. I hope he sticks around as I'd love to see what he could do with a better story.
Grade:6/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 21:53:16 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD 1954:The Unreasoning Beast2016 Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Patric Reynolds Colored by Dave Stewart Summary: When a haunting is reported in Baltimore Agent Xiang and Hellboy go out to investigate and find that the haunting is more than meets the eye.
Plot: While I usually enjoy these little peaks into Hellboy's past that Mignola and Roberson have been giving us this story fell a little flat. We already saw "Been there, done that" Hellboy in the last issue and this story about a house haunted by a flaming monkey ghost manifesting out of a young boy doesn't give us anything new in that regard. And on top of that the action we get isn't all that interesting despite the cool concept of a flaming ghost monkey...and that's really hard to do, I mean it's a ghost monkey and it's on fire so how they made that boring is beyond me.
Art: Despite the unusually disappointing story Reynolds really nails it on the art side. As I said, the story features a fiery ghost monkey and Reynolds gives it a great look making the cute little Capuchin monkey look like he was made of gasoline which fits the idea that he is a representation of vengeance from an arson victim.
Grade:5/10 |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 22:41:06 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD 1954: Ghost Moon2017 Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Brian Churilla Colored by Dave Stewart Year:1954 Summary: Hellboy, Archie and Susan head to British China to investigate a missing village and Hellboy fights Betaray Bill!(Only not really).
Plot: For the first time in my life I approached a Hellboy title with mild feeling of trepidation after the serious let down that was the last issue, but although this story wasn't super memorable Mignola and Roberson manage to weave a decent yarn. The partnership we see here developing between Archie, Hellboy and Susan is pretty entertaining giving a pro-team that echos the relationships he'll later have with Liz and Abe, and the setting was new and the threat of the souls made for a fun ride. That said, although its a vast improvement over the last issue it was a little middle of the road as there's no real personal hook for Hellboy giving it a kind of monster of the week feel.
Art:While Brian Churilla's more cartoony look isn't the best on the characters the setting under his pen really shines, China really comes alive and the scene where we got a glimpse of the Chinese vision of Hell ws absolutely stunning I loved the forms of torture, the people roasting on spits and the red, pointy eared demons with whips. It was familiar, yet new and bold and gave a great cultural insight that words never could have expressed.
Grade:7/10 |
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shaxper
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Posts: 22,867
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Post by shaxper on Mar 2, 2018 23:01:21 GMT -5
Wow. You are just cranking them out tonight!
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 2, 2018 23:09:49 GMT -5
Wow. You are just cranking them out tonight! Ha, sort of,I only actually had to write the reviews for Beyond the Fences and Nature of the Beast after that I was caught up to a spat of the 1950's stories that have come out since we started Off the Racks so I mostly just had to transcribe those. I only have a few more of those 1950's stories left to go(until they publish more) and then I'm back to more classic Hellboy stories which I'm really looking forward to. |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Mar 2, 2018 23:21:48 GMT -5
and then I'm back to more classic Hellboy stories which I'm really looking forward to. As am I! |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 3, 2018 20:42:43 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD 1955: Secret Nature2017 Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Shawn Martinbrough Summary: Hellboy and Dr. Farrier head to Oregon to look into a rash of cattle mutilations.
Plot: In the newest look into Hellboy's past Mignola and Roberson give us a battle between between Hellboy and what he could have been. While it could have given us a great introspective look at how Hellboy views his roll in punching things that look a heck of a lot like him, what we got was a fairly simplistic punch em up that felt repetitive. While the 1950's stories started off really great the last few have been a bit of a let down; there's a lot of great history to mine but these issues feel like so much set up with out a whole lot of pay off.
Art: Martinbrough has a great bead on Hellboy and his facial features; I just wish he was given something better to draw.
Grade: 5/10
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Post by thwhtguardian on Mar 3, 2018 21:11:53 GMT -5
Hellboy and the BPRD 1955: Occult Intelligence
2017 Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson Art by Brian Churilla Summary: A layover on a remote island drops Hellboy into a web of intrigue involving government secrets and foreign agents waging their own cold war over a weapon that might be right up the BPRD's alley. Meanwhile Professor Bruttenholm uncovers a new facet of the cold war and it's supernatural.
Plot: After a few stumbles Mignola and Roberson seem to be back on stable ground again with this tale of mutated monsters and political intrigue. In a lot of ways the book is a culmination of everything that's come before in the 50's and 40's books bringing together the demonically possessed and eternally youthful Varvara from the 1940's and her Russian paranormal team that were first teased 1954 with Harry Middleton from the early Bruttenholm short stories, the proto BPRD of Stegner, Archie and Susan and then introducing a secret British paranormal team really makes for a fantastic mix. With all those characters it's easy to guess that there's a lot going on here and you'd be right as the book is spilt into two stories with Professor Bruttenholm and Susan in England looking up some old friends from the war days while Hellboy, Stegner and Archie are in the South Pacific fighting mutated sea creatures at a secret test site for a bomb based on the mystical element Enkladite first introduced in BPRD 1948. While each story is full of rich characterization I really feel like these two separate stories would have been better served if they were both given the opportunity to breath on their own. That said the way they were tied together in this story to introduce the brewing occult cold war on several fronts really nailed the paranoia of the time and the tease for more to come made ffor a satisfying conclusion.
Art: While I enjoyed Churilla's monsters, and his depiction of Hellboy himself is fantastic the human characters of Hellboy's world are rendered a little too cartoony and young. Stegner and Archie who were introduced in the Bruttenholm driven BPRD 1940's stories are now 10 years older than they were when we first saw them and are veterans of multiple campaigns and suffered serious wounds and so should look weathered and grizzled and yet they're almost unrecognizable here as bright, youthful men of action. In the years since Mignola's semi-retirement as the sole guiding artist for Hellboy's world he's chosen many great artists to continue his work while he focused on telling the stories but sadly Churilla is not among the greatest of those.
Grade:8/10 |
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