Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm team-up stories are somewhat rare, so right away “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1957—Forgotten Lives” is something special. But then you probably already expected that, given the cover features the Lobster’s calling card. . .
Written by Mike Mignola and Chris RobersonCover by Laurence Campbell
with Dave Stewart
Illustrated by Stephen Green
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsHellboy and Professor Trevor Bruttenholm team up for some quality father-son time at a New York potter’s field where they try to unravel the mystery of a spectral being haunting the packed graveyard. Upon arrival, the two of them quickly realize there may be more things haunting the buried poor at the mass grave than meets the eye. . .
Celebrated writer Mike Mignola and longtime collaborator Chris Roberson bring you another exciting Hellboy one-shot, with exquisite art by Stephen Green and Dave Stewart!
“Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1956” left things in a pretty precarious place. Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson clearly have a lot of irons in the fire concerning the ongoing occult cold war plotline, so it’s a little counterintuitive to set all that aside to do a series of one-shots.
And yet, as September’s ‘Family Ties’ showed, that isn’t entirely the case. While there isn’t any forward momentum plotwise, there’s plenty of emotional fallout to explore. ‘Family Ties’ did this a little with Susan and Hellboy, and ‘Forgotten Lives’ takes this further with Professor Burttenholm and Hellboy. Both characters are struggling after the death of Stegner, and they bring all that baggage with them into this latest investigation.
Hellboy is feeling more alone at the B.P.R.D., with Margaret and Archie now in a relationship, so many new agents, and Stegner dead. Even Bruttenholm isn’t around anymore, having retreated to his home in Brooklyn, rarely going into the office and leaving much of the day-to-day running of operations to Margaret. All this comes on the heels of Hellboy disappearing for five months in Mexico. Both characters are isolated from everyone else and somewhat estranged from each other. When the Professor reminisces about their trip to England in 1953, he’s referring to a trip Hellboy will always remember as one of the happiest times of his life. So Hellboy and the Professor working together again on this case is about them re-establishing this connection. But it’s a connection that’s re-established while keeping some notable barriers up.
Bruttenholm is not going to talk to Hellboy about Stegner’s death. Hellboy is not going to talk about everything he endured in Mexico.
They confide in each other just a little, but they keep most back. And there’s also the sense that neither one feels like there’s anyone else they could really confide in at the moment. And for now, that’s enough to bridge the gap between them. It’s tenuous, but it’s something. We don’t get Hellboy and Bruttenholm stories very often, so when they come along, they always feel like a treat. ‘Forgotten Lives’ gives us that and then digs deeper.
I’m going to dive into spoilers now. Skip ahead to the verdict if you haven’t read the issue yet.
The other part of ‘Forgotten Lives’ is the mystery at hand. It’s used primarily as a vehicle to explore the character’s emotional states, how they feel about death, how they feel about memory, legacy, and being connected with others. And it does all this by exploring a guy most readers have probably forgotten: Norvell Cooper.
Back in 1999, the Lobster made his first appearance in a back-up story called ‘The Killer in My Skull.’ Set in 1938, the story featured an unnamed police detective in his first (and for a long time only) appearance in the comics. In 2007’s “Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus,” the detective showed up in a back-up feature called “The True History of Lobster Johnson,” where it was revealed that Norvell Cooper gave up his police career to pursue writing for the pulps. His stories about the Lobster became the foundation for Lobster Johnson. Cooper claimed his stories were based on true events, but his habit of introducing outlandish elements completely at odds with reality undermined these claims. In his stories the Statue of Liberty was destroyed. Twice.
Continued belowHis career as a writer was short-lived, and when he could do it no more, he took up a job as a security guard at Gimbels Department Store where he worked till his death in 1957. And that’s it. Cooper was ultimately a joke for readers, used to explain how the public perception of Lobster Johnson strayed so far from the real Lobster.
Then ‘Forgotten Lives’ comes along and takes this joke and turns it into something sad and touching. In one sense, this is Roberson doing a bit of a flex to show just how well he knows the Hellboy Universe—there’re a lot of details intersecting here that fit perfectly with the established history of this world—but he reins all that in to focus on the emotional core.
That’s the really impressive element at play here. All this stuff is used. . . to have Hellboy and Bruttenholm sit in a graveyard together and talk.
This is a deliberately restrained work. It’s not what I was expecting, especially since it brings back Stephen Green, who previously drew “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1954—Black Sun” about Nazis and teleporting UFOs, and “Lobster Johnson: Garden of Bones” about the Lobster fighting zombies with a shovel. But playing against expectations is part of its charm. Following Roberson’s lead, Green is really restrained here, focusing on mood and atmosphere. When Green lets go, it’s when Hellboy’s joy from his memories of reading the Lobster comics bubbles up, so it comes from an honest place. In these extreme highs and lows Green does his best work.
When we think of “Hellboy” stories, it’s easy to imagine some supernatural horror or some pulpy action—especially with the latter, it makes perfect sense to pair a guy that’s bright red and has a giant fist with this material—but just as core to the character are sad ghost stories. I like when these stories come along, because I think they capture more of what it’s like to be Hellboy on an average day. In this case, he and Bruttenholm don’t even solve the case. They don’t even know they helped. They leave the case thinking they failed.
But what Hellboy did made all the difference for Norvell Cooper.
Final Verdict: 9 – “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1957—Forgotten Lives” is a quiet character study, as Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm process their recent losses. And yet, despite the overall melancholy mood, there are sparks of joy in there too.
