Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck drag Koshchei to his lowest point yet as he is enslaved by the Baba Yaga. They also bring back a key character we haven’t seen since “Hellboy: The Storm and the Fury” …
Written by Mike MignolaCover by Mike Mignola
Illustrated by Ben Stenbeck
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsKoshchei attempts to defy Baba Yaga, but it comes at an unbearable cost.
Mignola returns to Hell and to the bizarre folklore that’s filled some of his greatest books, reuniting with one of his favorite collaborators, Ben Stenbeck (Frankenstein Underground, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels, Baltimore).
Mark Tweedale: In our last review you spoke about how each issue of “Koshchei the Deathless” focused on a distinct phase of his fall. I think I’d call this his “wriggling with futility like a worm on a hook” phase.
Christopher Lewis: That is very eloquently put. I was going to call this issue something more uncouth, like the “Koshchei is completely f—ked” phase, but honestly your statement captures the essence of the issue. Futility being the key as Koshchei has been ensnared, knows he has no hope of escape, and yet he continues to try to defy the Baba Yaga’s commands. It is a theme that permeates the issue.
Mark: Yeah, Koshchei even gets to the point of ruining himself to spite the Baba Yaga. We’re really catching up to the Koshchei we met in the ‘Darkness Calls’ arc now, straying into familiar. With that comes a definite change of pace, slipping in and out of montage mode.
But the major change is with Hellboy. Up till now, the stories Koshchei tells have been largely detached from Hellboy, but Vasilisa’s death is something Hellboy’s clearly still pissed about, and he sinks into a glowering silence. So we lose those little comments from Hellboy that I’ve been enjoying in previous issues. There are still the occasional funny moments, but overall this issue is bleak and unforgiving.
Chris: I personally think the change of pace in this issue has a lot to do with Koshchei being forced to do things that are against his own conscience. In the past he made his own bad choices and afterwards the creators always gave the air of possible redemption (regardless of knowing the direction of the story). Now Koshchei is doomed, and after the Vasilisa climax Koshchei is broken by the horrific nature of what he was forced to do.
Really I think he feels guilt for what he did there, which is one of the reason he approached Hellboy cautiously before jumping into his tale about Vasilisa. I also thought Stenbeck presenting Hellboy and Koshchei straight on during that part of the dialogue truly emphasized Hellboy’s anger that you mentioned, but also emphasized Koshchei’s shame.
Mark: There’s a definite chill in those pub scenes.
Still, it’s not all bleak. I found the Vasilisa sequence is an island of hope in the middle of the story, utterly untouchable by the Baba Yaga. When we discover Vasilisa’s true nature, it deepens her part in ‘Darkness Calls.’ Vasilisa’s mere existence taunts the Baba Yaga. Yes, there is some tragedy in Vasilisa’s tale, but ultimately she is a light that the Baba Yaga can’t extinguish, and the one good act of Koshchei’s life that the Baba Yaga can’t undo. In ‘Darkness Calls,’ Hellboy was thrown into the middle of that conflict, but he never knew fully what was going on. He’d seen Vasilisa die, and from his vantage point that was a tragedy. He never realized that was Vasilisa once again cheating the Baba Yaga of her revenge. Each death is its own victory—she’ll always be back tomorrow.
Revisiting material like this can be tricky. You don’t want to rob the original story of its power, but you don’t want to just tell the audience what they already know either. Yet this is an essentially part of Koshchei’s tale, and it’d be weird to gloss over it. Mignola’s solution is an elegant one: Koshchei sparing Vasilisa echoes down into ‘Darkness Calls,’ where Vasilisa saves Hellboy from the Baba Yaga’s clutches, and ultimately leads Koshchei to the release of death that he craves.
Continued belowPlus, I like that in this issue when Koshchei considers himself damned and utterly lost, he commits an act of compassion, which sets in motion the events that free his soul. It reminds me of the freed souls in “Hellboy in Hell” #6. There is hope even in Hell.
Chris: Your statements bring up something that has been nagging me since the beginning of the Koshchei series, and it has to do with Hellboy’s odd skin pigment in the bar scenes. His skin tone was that same color in “Hellboy in Hell” #6 through #8 when Hellboy was affected by the erinyes, and I have been wondering if there was something about those “Hellboy in Hell” issues that could have significance in our Koshchei story. Now that you mention souls being freed in “Hellboy in Hell” #6, I am curious if the bar scenes have been Mignola’s way of subtly foreshadowing that Koshchei will gain salvation at the end of this journey?
I have to say, the thought gets me excited to read the final issue.
Mark: I figured the skin tone was to anchor the story as roughly taking place in the middle of “Hellboy in Hell”. Ages ago, Mignola spoke about how he could write “Hellboy in Hell” for as long as he wants… given the developments in “B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know,” he clearly had more plans than he was letting on, but it’s easy to see how this could still be the case. It was such a long stretch of time and Hellboy can bump into anyone down there.
Let’s grade this one, shall we?
Chris: I am going to continue to give this one a 9. Fantastic storytelling throughout. Looking forward to seeing how this one ends. Hopefully with Koshchei’s redemption.
Mark: I’ve honestly no idea how they’re going to wrap this tale up. A redemption for Koshchei could work, I suppose… Honestly, I’m trying not to think about it too much so that I can enjoy the surprise.
I’m giving this an 8.5. I know it was necessary for the story, but I missed Hellboy’s comments. They’ve been a big part of my enjoyment throughout the “Koshchei the Deathless.”
Final verdict: 8.75 – With only one issue left, Mignola and Stenbeck continue to keep up the high quality in this series. Bring on the finale!
— BONUS REVIEW —
HELLBOY: RETURN OF THE LAMBTON WORM
Written by Mike Mignola
Illustrated by Ben Stenbeck
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem Robins
Chris: When it was recently announced that a brand new Hellboy comic written by Mike Mignola and illustrated by Ben Stenbeck was going to be published in the May–June issue of Playboy, I couldn’t wait to read it. The last time we had this creative team together for Hellboy specific stories was a few years ago in “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953,” where they knocked it out of the park with four stand-alone shorts about Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm investigating paranormal occurrences in England.
After reading “Hellboy: Return of the Lambton Worm,” it is safe to say that this feels a lot like the “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1953” stories—after all, it’s another short story about an adventure with Hellboy and Bruttenholm in England, except this time the investigation takes place years ahead of the current “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” series in 1960.
Mark: We’ll be kicking off “1956” arc later this year, so 1960 isn’t that far off. The Mignola–Stenbeck stuff from “1953” remains my favorite material in “Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.” to date, so it’s definitely good to see a little more, even if it’s only six pages. It really feels like the kind of short stories Mignola was making in the late 1990s and early 2000s. After he finished ‘Box Full of Evil,’ and introduced the Crown of the Apocalypse stuff, there was an ominous shift in the short stories—Hellboy often met characters that hinted at a destiny he had no knowledge of. It’s an element in play in ‘Return of the Lambton Worm’ too.
Chris: I also found it came off like a prelude to a larger “Hellboy” story. Potentially a future one-off story of “Hellboy in Hell.”
Continued belowMark: Perhaps. I find it reminiscent of Igor Bromhead saying he’ll see Hellboy in Hell… I figure Bromhead’ll see Hellboy, but Hellboy probably won’t see Bromhead. It could easily go either way, so if they have an idea for another story, awesome, if not, that’s fine too.
The thing that struck me in ‘Return of the Lambton Worm’ was the way Bruttenholm encourages Hellboy to disregard what he heard the demon say. I would’ve expected the opposite from him, and yet it makes sense, especially given what we know about how in the 1980s he’ll handle delving into Abe Sapien’s past (see “Abe Sapien: Regressions”). Bruttenholm delves into these things, but he protects his children from what he finds.
Chris: I took the ending a little differently, and saw the last panel and dialogue as Trevor and Hellboy decompressing after the difficult events of the of story. It really reminded me of early Hellboy one-shots where the stories ended on fun moments with the characters not taking the events of the story too seriously.
Mark: Ah, yeah. That style of ending pops up a lot in the short stories, though it hasn’t lost its novelty. Still, it’s hard to beat ‘The Hydra and the Lion’ in that regard.
‘Return of the Lambton Worm’ is largely an inconsequential story. I know some people don’t want to pick up Playboy, but this’ll end up in the “1960” trade some day. I feel like the short stories are an integral part of the Hellboy Universe, so I’m glad Mignola and co. are still finding space for stories like this, even if it is popping up in a rather unconventional place.
