Chris Roberson kicks off “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1955” with artist Shawn Martinbrough in “Secret Nature,” a story that fuses the best of classic “Hellboy” and “B.P.R.D.”
Written by Mike Mignola and Chris RobersonCover by Shawn Martinbrough
Illustrated by Shawn Martinbrough
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsA missing group of teens in Oregon’s backwoods leads Hellboy to confront a cryptozoological horror with origins similar to his own!
Mark Tweedale: Can I just say, right out of the gate, that I loved this one? “Secret Nature” isn’t a big showy issue that changes everything, but it gets the tone so right. This feels like classic “Hellboy” while at the same time bringing the elements of “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” into the fold. Most notably, this isn’t just Hellboy’s story, it’s also Woodrow’s.
I was actually a little nervous about this one. For me, the “1954” stories were overstuffed, and this being a one-shot issue, I was worried it’d be the same. Also, Woodrow was introduced in last year’s “Black Sun” arc, but the story didn’t go anywhere with him. He was simply in the story until he wasn’t any more. As a character introduction, I felt like it fell a long way short.
“Secret Nature” is very much the opposite. This issue not only introduces Woodrow properly, but it shows an excellent dynamic between him and Hellboy. These guys make for a great team, so much so that I’m already eager to see them working together again.
So, yeah, I really loved this one.
Christopher Lewis: I have a different feeling on this one. I did enjoy the issue, but there were aspects of the story that worked for me and aspects that didn’t.
The dynamic between Woodrow and Hellboy worked well. It was fun to see Woodrow, who is essentially a nerdy guy, have playful banter with Hellboy, who is a tough average Joe. I also loved that Hellboy came off as the Hellboy we know and love from the early Mignola days.
My main struggle was with some of Woodrow’s dialogue. This issue was really about giving a full introduction to Woodrow’s character, but I felt that in two scenes Chris Robinson had Woodrow say too much to the point that I was taken out of the story. The best example of this was the page with Hellboy and Woodrow walking right before they arrive at the house. Here a whole page was given for Woodrow to tell Hellboy what seemed to be his life story. To me this dialogue seemed like a lot of exposition for one page and came off excessive.
Mark: I had a very different reaction to that. In this issue and in “Black Sun,” Woodrow has been in situations where he’s confronted with blatant racism and hostility and in both cases he’s politely ignored it and kept smiling. This is Woodrow’s way of avoiding escalation, but that doesn’t mean this doesn’t bother him.
The moment with Woodrow and Hellboy talking on their way to a cabin felt like a barrier coming down between them. The façade slips and Woodrow can be a little more honest. Plus there’s a little bit of frustration directed at Hellboy. I mean, he’s a big, red half-demon, so he should understand why Woodrow has to hold his tongue, and yet he doesn’t. So I liked the way all that bubbled up to surface. Woodrow has the air of, ‘How could you think this doesn’t bother me? Of course it bothers me!’
I’ve been Hellboy in these sorts of conversations, and they’re a bonding experience. This moment was so very real to me, so maybe I’m projecting onto it a bit, but I felt like this was a key scene to understanding their dynamic.
Chris: The racism scenes were interesting. This is something that Roberson has been bringing into the Hellboy Universe quite a bit. His take on the Visitor and Ruby being an interracial couple during “The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed” was top notch, and I think he did a good job here too. What really impressed me most was how he played the racism off of Hellboy, who was the one who got outright mad at the perpetrator for his statements, while Woodrow remained calm. It was a great way to show how much Hellboy cares for his teammates, while at the same time allowing a good reason for Hellboy and Woodrow to segue into their ‘conversation.’
Continued belowMark: I think the exploration of racism comes with the approach Roberson went with for the B.P.R.D. combined with this era. Roberson wanted a diverse Bureau, even in its formative years.
But yeah, the Hellboy in this scene reminds me of Hellboy at his best, offering Abe a ham sandwich after rescuing him from endless testing, or venturing in to comfort Liz without wearing a fire proximity suit. Hellboy’s usually thoughtful when it comes to his teammates.
I’m going to verge into spoiler territory now. Another reason I liked this issue was it emphasized the team element. Hellboy and Woodrow work well together and they felt like equal leads. The Hellboy side of the conflict felt like a classic “Hellboy” story while the Woodrow side felt like a stand-alone “Plague of Frogs” era “B.P.R.D.” story. It struck the right balance for me.
Plus Hellboy has started looking more like the Hellboy Mignola drew for so long. Hellboy’s not wearing human boots anymore, he’s got his custom boots made for his cloven-hoof feet. Visual details like this show Hellboy feeling more comfortable with himself.
Chris: Agreed. Something else that really stood out to me was how Roberson and Shawn Martinbrough used perspective and imagery in the cabin setting to foreshadow events as well as give more depth to the story.
As Hellboy and Woodrow came upon the cabin, Martinbrough kept its right side hidden from view. There were also panels that showed Hellboy and Woodrow approaching with the perspective coming from behind the right side of the cabin. The reason I bring this up is because after Hellboy and Woodrow entered the cabin a giant demon busted through the right side wall, so the use of perspective here was done to foreshadow that ‘something’ was on the right side of the cabin and was watching them as they entered.
I was also very impressed with how Martinbrough expertly portrayed action around and inside the one-room cabin before and during the demon fight scene. For these scenes to work Martinbrough had to be constantly aware of the orientation of the house in order to match the background with the every changing vantage point. This couldn’t have been easy to do, gave more depth to the story, and allowed for a full understanding of what was happening.
Mark: That’s true. Keeping track of direction (especially as Hellboy and the demon’s fight takes them away from the cabin and then Hellboy has to get him back there again) was an important part of the ending. The staging never felt clumsy and there was a directness to Martinbrough’s approach so the momentum was always high. Plus, I appreciated that Roberson made Woodrow’s problem a visual one. I mean the sequence didn’t get bogged down when it cut to Woodrow’s scenes. It was a very smooth reading experience.
Chris: The back and forth between Woodrow reading the book and Hellboy fighting the demon did work well.
That leads me into another topic that I would like to explore, which is the book ‘Witchcraft & Demonology: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks and Covens’ by Gustov Strobl. This book has been portrayed in multiple stories, and its author, Gustov Strobl, was Abe Sapien’s nemesis in the “Dark and Terrible” storyline and a mentor to Martin Gilfryd (who later became “Plague of Frogs” antagonist Memnan Saa). Therefore the book has many ties into the larger Hellboy Universe.
A couple of stories that touch on the book are the Hellboy story “Buster Oakley Gets His Wish” and the Abe Sapien story “Witchcraft & Demonology.” In the Hellboy story a bunch of rural kids were found playing around with this book before trouble arose. The book ended up not be a big part of the story, but it is interesting that it always seems to find its way into adolescence hands. Also, in the Abe Sapien story we saw that Professor Bruttenholm had a copy of the book. Since at the end of the “Secret Nature” we saw Woodrow take the book with him back to the B.P.R.D., I wonder if this is the same book that later becomes Professor Bruttenholm’s copy.
Mark: I don’t think it’s the same copy. The two books are different colors. Actually, Bruttenholm had a line teasing a story like this in “Witchcraft & Demonology.”
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Chris: Right on. These are the kind of connections that I love and are good examples of the richness of the Hellboy Universe.
Mark: Yes, it’s the sort of detail that you don’t need to know to understand “Secret Nature” at all, but if you do happen to pick it out, it adds to it. So, are you ready to grade this one?
Chris: This is a tough one for me. The issue has so much going for it with a great team dynamic and Martinbrough’s art, however at the same time I was taken out of the story a few times due to verbose dialogue. Therefore I am going to have to give it 7.75.
Mark: I’m giving this one an 8.5. Like I said at the start, I really enjoyed “Secret Nature.” I liked the old-school Hellboy feel, I liked the dynamic between Woodrow and Hellboy, and Shawn Martinbrough’s art was an excellent fit for it.
Final verdict: 8.1. “Secret Nature” is a great start to “1955” while working perfectly as a stand alone story. It serves as a significantly stronger introduction to Woodrow than his first appearance in “Black Sun.”
