Mignolaversity: B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth #142

Does the final part of “The Exorcist” arc recover from its shaky previous issue?

Cover by Duncan Fegredo

Written by Mike Mignola, Cameron Stewart, and Chris Roberson
Illustrated by Mike Norton
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem Robins

After tracing the origins of a demonic symbol to an abandoned house in a rural town, Ashley must face the town’s demons before more children disappear.

Mark Tweedale: I had pretty high hopes for this series, and I really enjoyed the first issue, but the second issue didn’t work. Brian, you went from a 9 on the first issue to a 5.5 on the second, and I think that pretty accurately reflects my own feelings too. I was thinking maybe it was just an awkward middle issue, but unfortunately that’s not the case. This issue suffers from many of the same problems, most notably that it is far too talky — and talky in a way that’s often redundant. Mike Norton’s artwork is already doing a lot of storytelling, and the chatter often fought the art.

This isn’t helped by (spoiler alert) the repetitive structure of this issue. This is basically a remake of the previous issue with the ghost woman swapped out for the demon Balam. Ashley pokes around for a bit, finds something supernatural, gets the supernatural creature talking, there’s an info dump, then the situation is resolved almost immediately. The major difference is that the previous issue had its emphasis on the poking around, whereas this issue has its emphasis on fighting Balam.

Am I off base?

Brian Salvatore: Not in the slightest — if this is the type of storytelling we’re going to get from the Chris Roberson era of “B.P.R.D.”, well, I might be checking out after “Hell on Earth” closes shop. There’s so little dialogue in this issue that doesn’t sound stilted or hackneyed, with things being explained and over-explained time and time again. As you mentioned, Norton’s artwork is expressive and tells a lot of the story in a straight-forward and clever way, only to be mucked up by the incessant chatter of Ashley’s internal monologue.

This might be the biggest Mignolaverse disappointment for me in a number of years.

Mark: Considering I very much enjoyed both “Wandering Souls” and “Beyond the Fences”, I’m hoping the writing situation on this arc is unusual. After all, this was originally a story Cameron Stewart was supposed to write and draw, and the change to Chris Roberson and Mike Norton happened very late. With John Arcudi’s final arc waiting in the wings, they couldn’t afford to push the deadline back too far. It seems to me there was a rush to get a script for the artist.

Even still, I’m surprised there wasn’t a paring down of the dialogue in later review stages. The script strikes me as overstuffed and under cooked. The thing is, it would probably bother me less if Mike Norton wasn’t doing such a good job on the art duties. The script seems tone deaf to what the art is doing. To me, that is the single most troubling thing about this arc. This one left me very frustrated to say the least.

And it sort of undid “Exorcism” a bit for me. I was introduced to Cameron Stewart’s work through “Sin Titulo”, which has these fantastic dream sequences that drift back and forth between the real world. The final action sequence was expertly handled. But there was also weirder stuff in there, like when the main character has a bit of paper with eye holes in it, and he stares through to see another time and place. So when “Exorcism” came along, and Ashley had a shell that turned into a sword, and went into this strange, pliable reality to fight a demon, all I could think was ‘Wow, what’s next?’ I wanted see that sort of inventive storytelling at work in the world of demons and spirits.

I wasn’t expecting to see a story where Ashley goes in half cocked, does the first thing that pops into her head, and manages to get through the whole thing with only a few bumps and bruises. I didn’t want to see a rehash of the stuff she did as a first-day novice only more powerful. I wanted to see what new things she could do, see her be clever, see her earn her victory. And seeing that sword reduced to the role of a lightsaber was such a slap in the face.

There has to be more to being an exorcist than just saying the right words and sword fighting. When I think of an exorcist, I think of someone whose powers are channeled through them, and that is exhausting, costly, and dangerous; someone whose art requires they choose their tools carefully, like they’re diffusing a bomb; someone that knows knowledge is power, and wouldn’t blab to a demon what they know just for the reader’s convenience. And there was a lot of stuff in this issue that was just in there for the reader’s convenience, like Ashley explaining to Balam what it means for a demon to be compelled right before she compels him. I mean, I can see how that’s tricky to get across to a reader that isn’t already familiar with the concept of compelling, but both characters in the scene are. It reads like a movie where someone presses pause in the middle of a scene and then both characters turn to the viewer and explain the plot. It’s very stilted.

Brian: I agree with just about all that you’ve said here. I know it seems like we are being overly harsh, but there are a few factors here, all that need to be discussed. The first, perhaps the most perplexing of all, is the art. Mike Norton does an incredible job here — Norton has been a personal favorite of mine for years, but this is among his most expressive and impressive work.

The reason I list this among the perplexing factors in the issue is that, like we’ve both already said, Norton’s art captures a good 50% of the dialogue and renders it unnecessary, and yet the dialogue is still there. This really falls on the editorial staff to take a look at the issue and notice how endlessly wordy it is, and that those words don’t bring anything to the story at all. There’s a sequence early on in the book, where Ashley enters what she believes is a shed, only to find out it is a well house. That’s made clear by the well, the pulley, etc. that is clearly identified. Now, maybe some people don’t know that there are well houses, and have only seen exposed wells. That isn’t a big enough bit of information to require dialogue — there is no reason at all to have Ashley walking around narrating to herself.

And while the compelling sequence you mentioned is equally annoying, something about all the monologuing, as I said last month, just gets so under my skin that I can’t shake it.

But of equal disappointment is the way that Ashley’s character, aside from the bit with her lady friend in the first issue, hasn’t grown at all in the time since “Exorcism”. She might be more experienced, but she’s developed no real new powers, nor has she gotten considerably better at using them. I wanted, as you said, to see a confident, ass kicker, and we get someone who still seems to need to psych themselves up to do their job, and is still a little headstrong and unsafe about what she does. This doesn’t play with the image of a loner on a motorcycle, ignoring the texts from the Bureau.

Mark: Actually, what bothered me is that the story seemed to believe she was a confident ass kicker while she constantly acted like a rookie, yet there were no consequences for her bumbling. I expected part of the fun of this story would be in showing where she excels as an exorcist, but also where she struggles. The Ashley in “Exorcism” was uncertain and second guessing herself, so to see her as completely confident wouldn’t ring true for me. Moments of confidence are nice though.

I was also disturbed by how unaffected Ashley was. I mean, when she’s talking to Balam, he’s eating a child that was alive less than 24 hours ago, and Ashley’s reaction is like someone eating with their mouth open. Yet we’re supposed to believe this is the same Ashley from “Exorcism”, the Ashley whose emotions got the better of her several times, and who went to great lengths and personal cost to save one child. The Ashley in this story isn’t even the same character.

I needed to see that there was some empathy in her, that she was more than just an attitude. Perhaps she functions through barely restrained rage, or perhaps she’s she’s still cool as ice in the confrontation with Balam, but after he’s defeated she breaks down, or… something. Anything. Because Ash DIDN’T save the child this time. Balam was gnawing on the kid’s corpse throughout the entire encounter. At the very least she has to deal with that. I mean, you’d think she’d at least shoulder the burden of telling the kid’s parents.

So ending this story with “Mission accomplished! What’s next?” was the biggest mistake of the issue. It’s mind blowingly bad and completely out of touch with the character. Ash is a character that wears her heart on her sleeve and yet the job of an exorcist involves restraining and controlling emotions. It’s a conflict that could have demonstrated real character growth. All I see in this story is wasted opportunities.

Mike Norton is the saving grace here. The guy has pages and pages of two characters talking in a cave, but he found ways to keep it visually interesting, like Balam’s shifting face. And all those scenes from this issue and the last, where Ashley was exploring, they were all great. He doesn’t just show Ashley doing things, he shows her doing things with a distinct mood, and reacting to what she sees. There’s a lot of personality in those moments.

I’d love to see him on the book again, because he did an excellent job here.

And he’s not the only one. Dave Stewart, again, does a fantastic job, and Duncan Fegredo’s covers for this arc are absolutely incredible. The art side of this issue is firing on all cylinders.

Brian: I think the failures of this arc are even more pronounced because we have waited nearly four years for a new Ashley Strode arc. It is quite possible that this arc was never going to live up to our standards, and I’m trying to be fair with rating the issue on its actual merit versus my hopes for the arc. But even with that knowledge, there still isn’t too much for me to grab on to for future Strode stories. As you said, the ending was expected and stale.

But maybe the biggest sin is that nothing changed with Ashley; she’s exactly the same at the end of the arc as in the beginning, and for a character we only see once or twice a decade, that’s unacceptable. This isn’t a “Lobster Johnson” story — we see LoJo a few times a year, and those stories are more about the setting and tone than they are about the story or the character. For Ashley, she’s a character that stands alone in the Mignolaverse, and one that has the capability to be something totally different than what we see elsewhere in these books. But part of what makes her so compelling is that she’s not yet so calloused by life that she can’t change — and even those calloused, veteran agents experience things that mark them or scar them in their stories.

This feels like the quintessential ‘oh shit, we promised our readers this arc — we better deliver!’ story, instead of a quality tale with purpose and excitement behind it.

I’ve got little more to add — do you want to say anything before we grade it?

Mark: I think you’re right. It feels like this one came out because it was the last possible moment to do another Ashley Strode story before “B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth” ends.

I’m giving this a 5, and all of that’s for the art. I had high expectations, it’s true, and this fell far short of them.

Brian: I can get behind that — 5 works for me, too.

Final Verdict: 5. Excellent art and a problematic script lead to a very uneven issue, especially in terms of characterization.