Dark Horse Comics have announced a new Young Hellboy miniseries, “Young Hellboy: Assault on Castle Death,” and a new one-shot, “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is a River,” will be released in July. The former, which will consist of four issues, will reteam writers Mike Mignola and Thomas Sniegoski, artist Craig Rousseau, colorist Chris O’Halloran, and letterer Clem Robins, for a direct sequel to last year’s “Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land.”
Picking up in 1947, the series sees Hellboy and his adoptive father, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, relocate with the B.P.R.D. from New Mexico to Connecticut. “The relocation is tough on Hellboy,” says the synopsis: “is he just homesick, or have scrambled memories from the island gripped the supernatural whippersnapper? Meanwhile, word of Hellboy’s survival has also reached an unknown enemy, who failed to kill him once before but is determined not be foiled again…”
Sniegoski teased readers at Superhero Hype!, asking “Who are the Brothers of Desolation, and why do they want Hellboy dead? Will young Hellboy, in the guise of the Scarlet Crab, and his faithful dog sidekick Mac be able to defeat the nightmares which are about to emerge from Castle Death? Or will they need assistance from a certain crustacean-based 1930s pulp hero (Lobster Johnson!)? Only those willing to embrace the thrills and chills of ‘Young Hellboy: Assault on Castle Death’ will know for sure!”
“Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is a River,” meanwhile, is a follow-up to the 2019 “Hellboy Winter Special” story ‘The Miser’s Gift,’ reuniting the same creative team of Mike Mignola, artist Márk László, and colorist Dave Stewart. It sees Hellboy return to a ghostly version of Budapest to retrieve the academic Lajos, who was left behind there in the previous story, after his presence there causes “timelines [to] get crossed, [and] reality [to] crumble.”
Márk László, who resides in Budapest, told Bloody Disgusting, “Hellboy learns that what [Lajos said] is true: Time is not built upon a rock, time is much more like a river. And as the Danube River’s great flood of 1838 repeats itself in the ghost version of Budapest, Hellboy has to fight his way through the phantoms and monsters lurking in the shadows of the sunken city to save the professor and himself. I hope readers will have at least half as much fun reading it as I had drawing it.”
“Young Hellboy: Assault on Castle Death” #1 will be released on July 13, with artwork by main cover artist Matt Smith, and a variant by Tonci Zonjic. “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Time Is a River” will follow on July 20, with a main cover by László, and a variant by Mignola. To check all those and more, head to Superhero Hype! and Bloody Disgusting.
