Writer: Mike Mignola
Artist: Duncan Fegredo
Colorist: Dave StewartWhile Hellboy rages against a deadly soldier of the Queen of Blood, her army grows stronger in preparation for a war of vengeance, in which the end of the world is inevitable.
Mignola and Fegredo reunite for the final arc of the best-selling saga that includes Hellboy: Darkness Calls and Hellboy: The Wild Hunt.
My fellow writer David wasn’t too hot on the first issue. Find out what I thought about the second after the jump.
I’m a relatively big Hellboy fan. Oddly enough, I’ve never read a BPRD issue (much to David’s chagrin), but Hellboy I’ve followed intently. This whole epic trilogy that Mignola has been working on has been really fun so far and unlike a lot of what has happened in Hellboy. That being said, I agree to a large extent on what David had said about the first issue. While I certainly enjoyed it more than he did, I can’t deny that the issue was fairly dense and ultimately an epic recap.
Luckily, the second one does more to solidify the story back into place. The overall saga involves Hellboy rising to the throne of the King of Britain as well as having to fight off an epic army that is supposedly utterly unstoppable. Gruagach finally gets some kind of comeuppance, and there is a lot of foreboding throughout the issue. Meanwhile, Hellboy battles for his life against a deformed minion of the Queen of Blood before being put into a situation of utter hopelessness.
The title of the mini is the Storm, and the entire issue is primarily about a coming war, so it feels ultimately appropriate that the issue is spread out through a rainstorm with a lot of different things being built up for a showdown. I think that Mignola has a very firm grasp on the concept he’s bringing here to Hellboy, which will be a fundamental change to the status quo in the Hellboy books ultimately and result in (assumedly) him not just being an adventurer. I really enjoy the intense mythos that Mignola inserts into his narrative as it helps make the story feel much bigger and therefore more important.
On top of all that, there’s a FANTASTIC little scene that spans about two pages in which we revisit the young Hellboy of 1947. In it, Hellboy laments that he doesn’t think he can be Superman or The Lobster (featuring a great little throwback to my favorite character in the entire Hellboy-verse), and his “father”, Professor Bruttenholm. This little moment, which helps to emphasize Hellboy’s uneasiness with his new lot in life, is a great albeit brief moment that really allows us to reflect on Hellboy as the stoic and intense character he is instead of focusing on just action sequences.
My main fear, though, is that I hope the ultimate pay off isn’t too rushed. The Wild Hunt and Darkness Calls were both fairly sized minis that had enough room to breath and allow the story to flesh out. While I know this is being coupled with another mini, my fear is that this element of the story might be too condensed before hitting us with a cliffhanger that just teases the reader for the next mini. In layman’s terms, I fear that this mini is focusing too much on trying to build up an epic battle (that, for the record, has been built up for the past two stories) before leaving us with a To Be Continued rather than just doing one long mini in which the story plays itself out as well as the other two have.
All that aside, I am enjoying the story a lot, and Duncan Fegredo is fantastic at the art. I’ve always found it amazing that Mignola continuously gets to work with such talented artists that get his style of art and the specific lines and shapes he brings into his own work that makes the Hellboy universe his own. Fegredo is perfect for this, and his handle of the battle scene is nearly pitch perfect, as well as his set up scenes. I absolutely love Fegredo’s artwork in this book, and I have throughout his whole work with Mignola and this trilogy.
I’m crossing my fingers on how this plays out in the end, but I imagine that the Storm will have to be paired with it’s sequel, The Fury, before it really is an outstanding work (as David said in his review). I’m enjoying the build up, I’m just not a fan of build up that ends with a To Be Continued rather than the pay-off we’ve been waiting quite a bit for. I understand the creative process to this, and I actually enjoyed this issue quite a bit and found it to be a good read. I just imagine that the Storm #2 will be much better when it’s collected as The Storm and The Fury.
Final Verdict: 7.4 – Buy
