Feature: Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 Reviews 

Mignolaversity: “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club” #1

By | October 27th, 2021
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

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Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, Christopher Mitten, and Ben Stenbeck unite for “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club,” and in the process fulfill a hope for a series I’ve been harboring for years. Read on for my spoiler-free review.

Cover by Christopher Mitten
& Mike Mignola
with Dave Stewart
Written by Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson
Illustrated by Christopher Mitten and Ben Stenbeck
Colored by Michelle Madsen
Lettered by Clem Robins

Hellboy learns about the mysteries of an exorcism gone wrong and more when his occult investigator relative reveals secretive and perilous adventures of one of the Hellboy Universe’s most mysterious societies! Silver Lantern Club member Simon Bruttenholm relates a tale from the dawn of radio, in which Sir Edward Grey and Sarah Jewel go toe to toe with. . . technology?

Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson expand the Hellboy universe with a new tale of strange spiritual happenings. They’re joined by artists Ben Stenbeck and Christopher Mitten, with colors by Michelle Madsen.

The first time I heard rumblings of something called “The Tales of the Silver Lantern Club” was back on the Hellboy forums Dark Horse Comics hosted on their website. They’re gone now, so I can’t look back and be sure of the details, but it was sometime in the mid to late ’00s. Yep, this has been cooking for a while. See, the Hellboy Universe is like that sometimes. Mike Mignola first mentioned “Hellboy in Hell” back in 1997 while promoting “Hellboy: Almost Colossus,” knowing that he’d eventually get to it. And he did, fifteen years later, in 2012, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

So, needless to say, when I found out “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club” was coming out, I was pretty damn excited. It’s an unusual story, though. It isn’t “The Tales of the Silver Lantern Club” that I had once imagined (which were largely drawn from the Sir Edward Grey prologue to “Abe Sapien: The Drowning”). It’s sort of like a “Witchfinder” story, except that while Sir Edward can be the lead at times, he doesn’t have to be—this is an ensemble series, with a whole host of fascinating characters to explore.

Art from one of Ben Stenbeck's pages

To an extent, it allows us to see Sir Edward a little differently. In “Witchfinder,” we followed his point of view so closely, the tone of the story matched his worldview. In “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club,” we get to see how that looks from the outside. And “Witchfinder” was a series made of large-scale arcs, which gives everything a grand scale and a sense of importance. Here, it’s a series of short stories, told through Simon Bruttenholm’s memory of the good ol’ days. This is, after all, a yarn told in a pub, which makes a big difference for the tone.

But it’s also familiar, because we’ve experienced this structure before, with Hellboy in a pub in Hell listening to the tales of Koshchei the Deathless. Appropriately, Ben Stenbeck even returns for the framing sequence in the pub, so it’s hard not to draw the comparison. And it’s also kind of an extension of Stenbeck’s stories from “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953,” with the framing sequence taking place some time between ‘Rawhead and Bloody Bones’ and ‘The Kelpie.’ And, of course, there’s the influence of William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki stories too—something Mike Mignola and Chris Roberson have been very open about in interviews..

But the real magic of it all lies in its characters. Everyone, from the members of the Silver Lantern Club to Hellboy and company at the pub, plays off of each other well. The dialogue bounces back and forth with such distinct delivery, it’s impossible not to hear the voices in your head as clearly as if you were standing in the same room with them.

The bulk of the interiors is drawn by Christopher Mitten, handling all the material from the days of the Silver Lantern Club. He’s worked on quite a few Hellboy Universe projects with Mignola and Roberson at this point, and it shows. There’s confidence in his work. He knows the tone the writers are going for and he leans into it, pushing for broader body language than we’ve seen in past titles. Sarah Jewell is also a big part of this story, and after drawing “Rise of the Black Flame” and “Witchfinder: The Reign of Darkness,” it’s clear he knows this character inside out, especially the way she uses her eyes to communicate certain attitudes. There’s a playful fire in her Mitten never fails to capture in his art.

Continued below

Michelle Madsen is on colors, and I have to call her out because there’s a certain amount of showmanship in the colors of this story that’s rather important to the whole thing working—I cannot elaborate without spoiling the story, but she certainly delivers. This goes for Clem Robins for his lettering too. There’s a building of noise throughout a significant portion of the issue, and Robins doesn’t go too big too soon, but also knows when to walk right up to the line of almost being too much.

The whole team all honed in on the tone so perfectly. I had a great time reading this book.

And even though this is numbered as the first in a five-issue miniseries, ‘The Silver Lantern Club’ #1 is functionally a standalone tale, leaning into the best of the monthly issue format, while sidestepping its pitfalls. There’s just enough tease in the final page to make you want the next issue, but at the same time this issue is totally satisfying on its own. And even if you’ve never read “Witchfinder,” you’ll get everything you need within the first few pages.

Final Verdict: 9 – “Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club” has so many Mignola projects in its DNA, yet it also has a spark all of its own.


//TAGS | Mignolaversity

Mark Tweedale

Mark writes Haunted Trails, The Harrow County Observer, The Damned Speakeasy, and a bunch of stuff for Mignolaversity. An animator and an eternal Tintin fan, he spends his free time reading comics, listening to film scores, watching far too many video essays, and consuming the finest dark chocolates. You can find him on BlueSky.

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