Feature: Koshchei in Hell #4 Reviews 

Mignolaversity: “Koshchei in Hell” #4

By and | April 6th, 2023
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“Koshchei in Hell” #4 reckons with the titular character’s legacy of murder and cruelty. But there is more to Koshchei the Deathless than the lives he has taken. There is no villain to defeat here—rather, this is an introspective issue as Koshchei grapples with himself.

This review spoils pretty much the entire issue. If you haven’t read the issue yet, please do so before continuing.

Written by Mike Mignola
Illustrated by Ben Stenbeck
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem Robins

Koshchei’s sojourn through Hell intensifies! After being betrayed by Hell’s last demon, an exhausted Koshchei is ready to give up. . . But someone from his distant past appears to help him answer for his crimes and, in doing so, prepare him for his next phase of existence.

Mark Tweedale: I keep saying this, but I had high expectations for “Koshchei in Hell,” and yet somehow it keeps exceeding them. And this keeps on happening issue after issue, so my expectations going into this final issue almost felt unreasonable.

And then, somehow, it surpassed them again. And not by a little bit either. For me, this is one of the best Hellboy Universe stories ever. That said, I am aware a lot of this impact comes from years of build-up paying off. “Koshchei in Hell” is standing on the shoulders of stories past, and that’s something I’m deeply immersed in, but it’s not going to hit the same way for everyone. How do you feel about it?

James Dowling: You’re definitely right that it’s a story made great by the works that came before it. There were points where it felt more like an epilogue to the original “Koshchei the Deathless” more than it did a conclusion to this miniseries, but I loved it for that. So much of this series relies on the idiosyncrasy of Mignola’s storytelling both textually and visually, so when that worms its way into the very structure of the book it feels extra rewarding.

The momentous nature of this issue felt, at least to me, the closest anything has been to “Hellboy in Hell” #10, where all the moments are so meaningful, yet presented without artificial fanfare. It doesn’t go for the easy bow on the top. The best example in “Koshchei in Hell” #4 was probably the first few pages. There’s practically no explicitly narrative throughline, but by assembling all the touchstones of the story together, the pages become an incredibly freeform mosaic of the trials that lead us to this point.

So to answer your question, I’m not really sure how I feel, just staggered and happily curious.

Mark: “Koshchei in Hell” definitely leans on visual metaphor even more than usual, which I loved. There are moments throughout where I simply had to stop and appreciate what Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck were doing on the page. I feel like I could write a mini essay about so many sequences in this book! Hell, I could go on a huge rant just about Koshchei’s eyes in this story. But before we get to that, let’s start at the beginning, with Koshchei inside his memories with the demon from the last issue keeping him company.

Actually, thinking on it now, it’s rather appropriate that in the last issue a demon absorbed Koshchei’s magic. After all, Koshchei the Deathless wasn’t the only name he was known by—he was also called Koshchei the Devil.

James: A lot of the introduction frames things as quickly as possible, with a bit of visual flair to keep us engaged, so that Mignola and Stenbeck can dig into the meat of this story as soon as possible. That said, it does really pay off the prior issues. This story could have easily been a one-shot like “Acheron” and covered a lot of the same ground, but bringing in the demon from issue #3 and paying off that descent into obscurity we saw sort of brings this issue into comparison with what came before. It shows the reader how far Koshchei has come, before the second half of the story shows just how far left he has to go.

Continued below

Mark: Right away, the vacuum of color draws attention to itself. Color has been a big part of Mignola’s storytelling for a long time, but there are stories where that is even more true than usual, and “Koshchei the Deathless” is one of those stories. Such a significant part of this issue is wrapped in tombstone grays with carefully curated spots of color—Koshchei’s devil companion, the lillies, Vasilisa, her heart. Dave Stewart’s colorwork is being so blatant that it’s calling attention to itself, demanding that you think about what the colors mean in the same way that the film Pleasantville demanded that its audience think about the meaning of its colors, to the point that if you don’t engage with this aspect, you’re missing a crucial part of the story.

The colors against the grays really draws your attention to what sparks of life remain, in the demon, in Koshchei’s eyes, and in Vaslisa. And, of course, Vasilisa steals every moment. Her arrival, and the way her colors build to a crescendo of golden light, was so moving. The way Ben Stenbeck drew her, reverted to a child, the innocent soul he saved, offering her heart to him absolutely broke me. I still get misty-eyed just thinking about it.

James: I almost wish the cover didn’t spoil her appearance because it was such a sweet moment. We’ve spoken a lot about how varied the focus of each issue in this series has been, and I think her appearance was the moment I knew that was going to be very intentionally paid off. There are so many varied subjects and histories to wrap up in Koshchei’s orbit here, but Vaslisa has always been the one to most incisively cut through the character. Who better to send him on his way to whatever comes next?

Mark: Her appearance on the cover didn’t bother me so much, because she could’ve just as easily been a memory in the story. That she was real, that she returned to gift him her heart, was still something that completely took my feet out from under me emotionally.

While the colors with Vaslisa were so operatic, there were subtle things going on too. There’s a single panel, after Vasilisa says, “Since the dragon found you dying in the woods, you have always been magic,” and it’s followed by a panel of those woods. If you remember the scene from “Koshchei the Deathless,” this was not the color palette it had.

Left: Panel from “Koshchei the Deathless”
Right: Panel from “Koshchei in Hell”

Stewart has augmented the scene to reflect the context in which it is being referenced, and so the colors have shifted to the color palette used in the scene of Koshchei’s rebirth by the Dragon.

From “Koshchei the Deathless”

James: God, he’s a genius. I do like how this issue bridged the visual gap between these two miniseries. “Koshchei in Hell” obviously had to straddle the color palette that comes with Mignola’s Hell, rather than the folkloric palette of “Deathless,” which is why we see the opening landing mostly in grays punctuated by strong primaries, reds and blues. But the “Deathless” palette, those subdued secondaries you pointed out, really creep into the midsection, with the point where Koshchei faces his former victims being the closest to an equilibrium point in this issue as we get. It’s only in the end when he takes up Vaslisa’s heart that we see what I’d call a new palette entirely, or at least one we haven’t been treated to in a while amongst the doom and gloom of Hell and the end of the world.

Mark: I think we have to talk about Koshchei’s eyes. I find this aspect of the storytelling fascinating. In “Koshchei the Deathless,” his eyes are green after his rebirth by the dragon, and they remain that way until the Baba Yaga takes control of him, at which point his eyes change to match hers. Afterward, when he is free, his eyes revert to green again. Early in “Koshchei in Hell,” there’s another shift. You’ll notice his eyes start out green, but when he calls the angels of destruction and descends into Pandemonium to fight Gamori at the end of issue #1, his eyes have changed to blue.

Continued below

Up until this point, he had been content to sit in his library and let whatever happens happen, but when he calls the angels of destruction, the die is cast. He chooses to stand and fight for something. It’s the beginning of a change that comes to fruition in this final issue when he regains his humanity and so his eyes are natural human blue eyes.

James: I think it’s meaningful that he only gets to regain those natural eyes after he confronts the totality of his past, embodied by similarly blue-eyed specters. It’s so interesting how every one of these shifts is accompanied by a character. He’s as much changed by people as by actions.

Mark: Yes. When Koshchei looks at the ghosts of his guilt, they all have his same eye color, reinforcing that they are a part of him. You can feel the judgment in those eyes. I also think it’s significant that while all this is happening, Koshchei’s corpse-like body is adrift in green, the same green of his eyes when he was Koshchei the Deathless. The weight of his memories and the guilt he feels has become his whole world.

James: Yeah, which also mirrors the coloring of the embodied River Lethe, the river of memory and forgetfulness. It’s insanely poetic, really tight visual metaphors all over. On that note, I really like how many designs throughout here echo the Watchers, whether it’s Acheron, Lethe, Styx, Phlegethon and Cocytus, or Koshchei when he takes up Vasilisa’s heart. It’s a synthesis of color and design that reminds me how primordial this story can be.

Mark: Knowing that the candles of Baba Yaga’s were stolen Vril, and it is this from which Koshchei is reborn, the idea of comparing him to the Watchers, to literal angels, makes so much sense. And it’s reinforced shortly after when Koshchei says, “Go away,” and that is enough to obliterate the attacking creature. His power is god-like, to the point that his words alone are enough to manifest his will.

James: Oh yeah, I loved that moment. It reminded me of Doctor Manhattan. I guess we’re getting a similar sort of story about a reluctant immortal who has to reckon with all their history, while unstuck from time. It’s nice to see he has a little less apathy though.

Mark: Yes, if anything the reverse is true. Koshchei’s arc in “Koshchei in Hell” is out of apathy and into compassion.

But before we get to that, there are numerous aspects about this rebirth I want to mention. There’s a moment when Koshchei accepts Vasilisa’s heart, and we get these flashes of past violence, and they start off red, then orange creeps in, then yellows, and then finally golden light. The way the colors move in this sequence so beautifully highlights what Mignola and Stenbeck are doing with the story. The way the color moves through the scene creates such a powerful emotional impact. (This is jumping ahead a bit, but later, Stewart does a similar thing with Sir Edward, showing his career as an agent of the Queen shifting from yellow to red, culminating with the red cloaked Acheron.)

I also loved that Koshchei’s rebirth involved his death. In issue #3, he ended the story as a husk and we could’ve had this story play out very similarly, except having that husk regenerating into a young man. But that’s not what Mignola did. The choice to have Koshchei die, to have his flesh stripped away and his bones littered on the ground, is extremely significant. He isn’t just reborn, he is a new man, born from his greatest deed.

James: Yeah, and it’s a markedly different rebirth to the one we see for Edward at the end of the issue, where his robes strip away and it’s the same unscarred man underneath all along. Sir Edward was always the same good soul under his wounds, but for Koshchei, he has to go through a truly divine chrysalis to evolve, to be unshackled from the scars he bears from his prior masters.

Mark: Koshchei and Edward’s stories are so similar and different, and by contrasting the two against each other, I think the reader gains a better understanding of both.

Continued below

The last thing I wanted to mention about the rebirth sequence is how Mignola uses nudity. In both “Koshchei the Deathless” and “Koshchei in Hell,” when Koshchei is reborn, he is nude. Symbolically, this makes sense—no one is born clothed, after all—and the choice to have children laugh at this too reinforces the innocence of his nudity. It also puts greater emphasis on how he chooses to clothe himself afterward. The warrior’s clothes are gone, and in their place he wears humble clothes. (Stenbeck even goes to the trouble of emphasizing the coarse stitching in the seam at the shoulder.)

This also puts greater emphasis on where he doesn’t have a choice, such as when he reaches for the ridging hoe and it turns into a sword in his hand. And tears form in his eyes. Koshchei, the man that seemingly feels nothing, is able to cry again—what better way to show he has a soul now. That simple panel, with tears in Koshchei’s eyes, was the culmination of everything going on with Koshchei’s eyes in both “Koshchei the Deathless” and “Koshchei in Hell.”

James: It really was something I had to sit with and adjust to. The whole moment shows the reader that the story has decisively left the confines of Hell, and that we’ve arrived somewhere else entirely. There’s such a transformation and it happens overnight, like we’ve woken into one of Koshchei’s dreams.

Mark: After so long in Hell, it was the blue skies that really did it for me. Dave Stewart does blue skies so very rarely in the Hellboy Universe, and even then, when he does so they are rarely the powder blue skies seen here. The way I interpreted it, this is Hell, but transformed to the point that the name is meaningless now. It’s so utterly beautiful.

And it mirrors the change in Koshchei himself. The simple moment when he changes the meager meal on the table into a feast says so much about who he has become now, and what he wants to do with his life. I think this is why the visuals in this final sequence are so striking to me, because they accentuate what’s going on internally with Koshchei.

James: That’s one of the only times he’s really providing something. So many of his good deeds up to this point were violent, or him repairing his mistakes, or attending to Hellboy’s unfinished business. But the feast isn’t simply mercy or redemption, it is a gift, which makes it such a gut-wrenching moment when he can’t take up the trowel and live a life of farming and providing.

Mark: True, but I also like that he doesn’t reject his call to action. He resents it, yes, but he sets off immediately. It’s a far cry from the man in issue #1 that was content for the world to crumble around him while he hid in his library.

Which brings us to the moment with the goat. This page was my favorite of the entire issue. As we know, Koshchei’s soul was originally hidden inside an egg, inside a duck, inside a rabbit, inside a goat, inside a tree on an island beyond the edge of the world. And when we were first presented with this idea, Mignola carefully seeded the idea that Koshchei had lost his humanity along with his soul and his only hope for redemption was to get it back.

Then the goat fled from the island beyond the edge of the world into Hell, and so, when “Koshchei in Hell” was announced, I naturally assumed that this story would lead him closer to finding the goat and regaining his soul. But Mignola and Stenbeck went in a much more interesting direction. If Koshchei had regained his soul, then symbolically he becomes the man he was before. Instead, Koshchei accepts the heart offered by Vasilisa, choosing not to go backward, but forward, transforming into something new.

The desire to go back to the way things were is a trap, and if Koshchei had gone down that path, he would have been doomed. Instead, he chooses to go forward, and his soul, inside that goat, is at peace. It is such a powerful visual metaphor—so much more powerful than if Koshchei had simply found the goat and regained his soul. I responded to it powerfully when I first read it, but as I revisit it, it’s power isn’t diminished at all, but rather becomes even more powerful.

Continued below

James: That was one of the spots I just had to let ruminate, to figure out whether it was optimistic or pessimistic. Every spot Koshchei finds himself in is essentially purgatory, whether that’s in servitude or Hell, or even arguably Avalon.That “I’m sorry. Not as other men” sequence is so sad, and it shows he can’t truly be peaceful here. But like you said, that would be recursive. I think it’s enough that he found his soul again, even if he has grown past the person it embodies.

Koshchei has to keep going. If he did take back his soul, it would be satisfying in a way, but there’s something endearing about a character deciding they could always redeem themself further, that there are more good deeds left, more amends that can be made before he resigns himself fully to humanity and mortality. It’s such a nuanced and almost sweet foil to the archetype of social outcast that we see all through the Hellboy Universe. He’s always been magic and there’s this immutable barrier between him and the world that even if he can’t cross, he will keep looking past by doing what’s right.

I never would have been able to guess that this is where Koshchei and Edward would end up, but it’s just perfect. It’s the fae world that Hellboy saved, and it feels even more resonant seeing the pair as the old gods of this land, like the figures of Norse myth were in “Hellboy: The Bones of Giants.”

Mark: Speaking of mythical realms, the final sequence in Avalon, in “the Britain of our dreams,” was so gently heartfelt. Sir Edward gets the future for himself that he imagined as a young man, a life with Mary Wolf. I can’t help but note Stewart’s color choices here. Mary’s blond hair could have been rendered as gold, and Sir Edward’s clothes could have been any color at all, but both Mary and Edward are restricted to a sepia palette. They are happy, yes, but the sepia adds a note of sadness. They live in a dream of the life that was stolen from them.

James: It’s interesting that even in this other “island beyond the edge of the world,” the conclusions for both Koshchei and Sir Edward feel so different. Edward’s endpoint feels incredibly ephemeral, the sort of return to youthful idealism that Koshchei had to accept he could not have in the end. While Koshchei’s end feels very tangible, he’s more human than he has been in centuries and by picking up a sword, leaving the peaceful farmstead, and walking off into the lands to come he’s accepting an active life again, not simply one of passive existence.

Mark: Plus it’s fitting to have Sir Edward come full circle as his beginning was drawn by Ben Stenbeck, so too is his end.

James: Yeah, it’s weird that the sheer quality of this story makes me worried it might be one of the last ones we see Ben Stenbeck illustrating, but it’s such a summation of his visual identity in his series, it’s hard to think of a better ending for him (except for the one last Frankenstein story I need to see from him).

Mark: I don’t think you need worry. I expect we’ll be seeing many stories still from Mignola and Stenbeck together.

Stepping slightly sideways for a moment, I have to mention what they did with the Snake. In the story of the Garden of Eden, the serpent is damned to crawl on its belly for its sin of tempting humankind, and there’s a direct parallel drawn here between Eden and Avalon. The snake with Sir Edward is shown to be apart from that other serpent by gliding through the air. I couldn’t help but smile at that, because I’ve heard people say, “Oh, did snakes once have legs before first sin?” and in this portrayal it’s nothing so mundane. The snake reads as an ethereal being, which is such a perfect match for his character. Furthermore, this ethereal quality is reinforced by the snake being golden now, not green as it was earlier in the story.

James: I’m such a sucker for that snake. He’s the perfect thematic accompaniment to the story about the environmental progression of Hell, and what he means to that Hell as a character in any given moment.

Continued below

I have one last question for you about this version of Avalon though. Mignola has mentioned in the past how he created “Hellboy in Hell” and the titular environment as a playground where he could essentially make eclectic Hellboy stories forever, and while that changed when he saw the series needed an endpoint, Hell has still kind of been this narrative playground for the best of the Hellboy Universe’s symbolism. Do you think Avalon could be a similar sort of world for future stories, especially the more eclectic ones, or do you think this world is one that can actually be the final destination for its inhabitants? I’m not saying we’ll never get the occasional glimpse there, but do you think this is a world we aren’t going to be privy to?

Mark: I think what Mignola said was true—from a certain point of view. He’s known his ending for a long time, and I think when he mentioned his plans for “Hellboy in Hell,” he was deliberately saying something he knew wasn’t entirely true. Hell was indeed going to be his playground for stories far into the future, but Hellboy would not be the character through which those stories would be told. He’s known Hellboy’s end even before he sent him to Hell, so that time with Hellboy was always going to be limited. But now? Mignola can tell whatever stories he wants in a world that can be whatever he wants.

James: I think I’d love to spend a little more time in this grassy Arthurian “Hell,” even if we don’t necessarily get time with the characters we’d love to see there.

Mark: It’s bizarre to think we’ve been talking about the comic for this long and I still feel like there’s more to explore. I’m genuinely looking forward to hearing what other readers have to say about it, what they see that we’ve missed.

That said, I also wonder if there are readers that are missing some of the greatest moments. Take Dave Stewart’s coloring for example. I think his moments of greatest genius can only be appreciated if you immerse yourself in nearly thirty years of Hellboy Universe comics. It likely won’t be recognised by casual readers at all. But for those paying attention, my god, his work on “Sir Edward Grey: Acheron” and “Koshchei in Hell” is the best work of his career to date (and keep in mind I’m talking about the guy that’s won a ten of the thirty-one Eisners for Best Coloring). Dave Stewart is to comics colors as John Williams is to film scores. Stewart uses his medium to convey character, story, theme, and feeling—he is a storyteller first and a colorist second. He is so acutely attuned to what Mignola and Stenbeck are doing, but then he somehow deepens it and takes it further.

James: You’re right. I don’t think I could even comprehend how he manages to layer these poetic symmetries into his palette so perfectly over decades of stories layering over one another. Sure, you could say parts of it would be natural, or instinctive based on his style, but there are moments that are just too momentous to be dismissed as acting on muscle memory.

As dramatic as it sounds, understanding the color in these books reveals an entirely new plot progression over the stories presented, and Stewart is presenting their own culmination here, palettes of worlds embracing the key colors of all these actors and touchstone scenes, forming into something equally reminiscent of the inventive peace provided by Avalon.

I don’t know if that lack of recognition is something to be too sad about though. Like music, as you mentioned, every reader will feel it, and won’t even know why they’re being moved. There’s obviously so many specific moments that echo the past as you said, and it’s hard to pick those out without a lot of immersion into these books, but I think people will pick up on more than they realize, and those colors are the ingredient that will keep them coming back to these stories and stringing them together as works of art.

Mark: Yes, the images are allowed to say so much more than words could. Just look at the final panel, an image of water flowing, leaving us with the question of where it flows to next. I can think of no better ending.

Continued below

James: With the riverbank featuring a patch of lilies, the flowers that grow from Hellboy’s blood, a sign once again of the fallen caretaker of Avalon, now that the realm has found a new one. Edward Grey and Koshchei both orbited Hellboy as character foils, and this book (especially with “Acheron” collected in the paperback) has really shown how they grow past him when he’s gone. I like to think that the final panel is really the perfect summation of it.

Mark: I think this must be among our longest reviews ever, and while I could still somehow go on, we probably should give our grades. I don’t give a 10 very often, and whenever I do, I weigh the choice heavily. It is absolutely earned here. 10 was my initial reaction, but it’s the way this story rereads that truly cemented it. “Koshchei in Hell” is a masterpiece.

James: I can honestly say that this story is without fault. Every single creative choice is intentional, justifies itself, and displays nuance. It’s a technically perfect story, and I love it as a subjective person just as dearly. It’s absolutely a 10/10.

Final Verdict: 10 – Mike Mignola, Ben Stenbeck, and Dave Stewart’s “Koshchei in Hell” defies the expectations of the reader, giving us a profound story of transformation. Even among the Hellboy Universe’s best stories, this is exceptional.


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James Dowling

James Dowling is probably the last person on Earth who enjoyed the film Real Steel. He has other weird opinions about Hellboy, CHVRCHES, Squirrel Girl and the disappearance of Harold Holt. Follow him @James_Dow1ing on Twitter if you want to argue about Hugh Jackman's best film to date.

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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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