Artist Ben Stenbeck makes his “Lobster Johnson” debut in “Mangekyō.”
Written by Mike Mignola and John ArcudiCover by Tonci Zonjic
Illustrated by Ben Stenbeck
Lettered by Clem RobinsThe Lobster foils an attempted prison break, but must answer to the person behind it—the assassin, witch, and longtime enemy the Crimson Lotus, one of the most enigmatic villains of the Hellboy world.
Christopher Lewis: The Lobster is back with another one-shot and I am happy to see that the Crimson Lotus came along with him. Typically after reading a story as great as the previous arc, “The Pirate’s Ghost,” I get little apprehensive about starting the next issue of a series. If the follow-up story is not up to par then the drop off can feel pretty steep. However, since I was excited to see the Crimson Lotus again I jumped right in, and boy I am glad I did.
For those of you that remember, the Lobster first encountered the Crimson Lotus back in 2013’s “A Scent of Lotus,” and due to her magical abilities she is one of the few foes to have ever escaped the Lobster’s ‘justice.’ In this issue we see John Arcudi throw the Lobster into a living nightmare as the Lotus pushes him to his limits. Also, this issue brings Ben Stenbeck into the LoJo world and I was very pleased with what he brought to the table.
Mark Tweedale: I’m always happy to see Ben Stenbeck on a Mignola title. Aside from colorist Dave Stewart (who’s also on this issue), no other artist has been working with Mike Mignola continuously for so long. He’s even eclipsed Guy Davis’s eight-year run at this point. As of this issue, he’s been doing this for nine years now, and it shows. Oddly, this is his first time drawing the Lobster though.
“Mangekyō” is a new story, and it stands alone, but it is picking up some threads from “A Scent of Lotus” and I think readers will get more out of this issue if they’re familiar with the story. Actually, I’d go further and include “The Burning Hand” and perhaps even “Get the Lobster!” to that list, not because they’re essential plot threads or anything, but simply because having those stories in the reader’s mind will help some moments pop.
“Mangekyō” seems to be looking forward to. We know where the Lobster’s story ends, in Austria, 1939 (a mere four years after this issue), while dealing with Nazis. The seeds for that are already being sown. The Lobster is coming up against Nazis more and more frequently, and the Crimson Lotus is an Axis agent. In fact, at this point in the Lobster’s career, he’s never met someone as formidable as the Crimson Lotus. (He doesn’t meet Memnan Saa until 1937.)
We’ve seen so many stories with the Lobster running circles around the villains, but here the opposite is true. It’s something I expect we’ll be seeing more and more of as “Lobster Johnson” continues.
Chris: There has definitely been an evolution to the Lobster throughout the series and also with his foes.
The beauty of watching the Lobster go up against an enemy as powerful as the Lotus is that her magic doesn’t phase him. In this issue, he knows he is outmatched but doesn’t care or show fear. He just won’t stop and it is truly fun to observe.
That being said it doesn’t hurt that Stenbeck was at the helm. Stenbeck has a very specific style to his art, but I have never seen him do something quite like what he did with this book. During the fight scene (that we will talk about more in depth later) there were panels and pages where perspective and pacing continually changed that was phenomenal, almost like looking through a Mangekyō (Japanese for kaleidoscope).
Mark: The book definitely leans heavily on Stenbeck. This isn’t exactly a plot-heavy narrative. Most of this is atmosphere, and for large portions, it seems like Arcudi was content to give Stenbeck room to play. He’s also a good artist for drawing characters introduced by other artists and still capturing the character, so he’s perfect for a book with the Grand Guan Ji returning. It’s been four years since readers have last seen him and having a character that makes you go, ‘Oh, I know him,’ even though he’s being drawn by a different artist isn’t something everyone can pull off.
Continued belowThat said, I was a little thrown by the ‘shootin’ your throat out’ reference at first. While I recognized the character, I didn’t remember that specific event. This is one of those times I wish it had a little editor’s note saying ‘see “A Scent of Lotus.”’
Chris: The ‘shootin your throat’ out reference surprised me because I had thought the Lobster was the one who had shot Ji in the previous story. However, I went back and reread “A Scent of Lotus” and it turned out that the monkeys were the culprits. I did find that the ‘reread’ added a lot of value for me when going through this issue, therefore I definitely agree that readers would get a richer reading experience if they look back at “A Scent of Lotus,” but it is not required.
That being said, I enjoyed Stenbeck’s approach to the monkeys. In the past Guy Davis and Sebastián Fiumara have presented them with a maniacal look, but here Stenbeck portrayed the monkeys as simple creatures with childlike appearances. While the maniacal look was menacing, this childlike feel was more frightening to me.
Mark: I’m going have to verge into spoilers. For me, I find the Noh monkeys are most frightening in the way they’ve been written other stories. Arcudi has this way of having them do things without us seeing them do it—I don’t know why that creeps me out so much, but it does—but here, we see them and their actions fully, so they didn’t seem as effective in their creepiness. However, they’re playing a different role in this story. They’re meant to lead the Lobster to the Crimson Lotus, so they’re not meant to be as creepy. This time they’re supposed to seem more defeatable. It emphasizes the moment when the Lobster strays into the Lotus’s trap that much more powerfully.
When the Noh moneys appear later in the issue, puppeting the Guan Ji, that’s when they became really creepy again. But if they’d been that creepy from the beginning, then the visions with the Crimson Lotus wouldn’t have been less of a dramatic shift in the story. So the depiction of the Noh monkeys throughout the story becomes a key controlling factor for the intensity of tone.
Chris: Right on. At the end of the story, we also saw that the dead monkeys had reverted back to looking like children, except this time with creepy smiles on their faces. The fact that the monkeys used a childlike facade to disguise their true nature and deceive others was the reason I found them scarier than previous iterations. That being said, they definitely led the Lobster into a trap. However, I am not sure if the Lotus planned it all along or just took advantage of an opportunity that arose. Regardless she was ready for the Lobster and put him through hell, or as she said: “You are in the yōkikai (demon world) and you are my guest.”
From here the issue felt like a bad dream, and it was mainly Stenbeck’s art that took it to the next level. Every panel felt like the Lobster was off-balance and disoriented. The page that captured this feeling the best was the one of the Lotus’s faces broken into four panels with the Lobster falling haphazardly into her mouth. This one page is symbolic of this entire encounter and is truly phenomenal.
Mark: It’s a cool layout for showing movement too, leading the eye from the top left to the bottom right. Maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels like Stenbeck is doing stuff like this more often. I remember “Witchfinder: City of the Dead” had some stand-out moments like these.
This sequence was the highlight of the issue for me, and I liked the visual callbacks slipped in to show the Lobster’s disorientation in both space and memory.
Right:From “Lobster Johnson: Mangekyō”
I had fun picking the references to past stories there.
Chris: It really was amazing for Arcudi to switch characters in that scene. I was unsure of the reason for the change, but I like your interpretation, disorientation of memory.
Continued belowWhen the whirlwind stopped, it was for a short moment so the Lobster could see that Ji had become the Lotus’ puppet. The Lotus wanted to show the Lobster that he had no control and that he was helpless to stop her from harming his friends. She really is a cocky character and likes to show off.
Mark: She’s theatrical, and in that regard, she can demand an artist that can take their art to that same level of theatricality. This is a little bit of a strange story though, in that it’s set before both “Metal Monsters of Midtown” and “The Pirate’s Ghost,” which were both in 1936, whereas this is 1935. I’m glad both Cindy and Harry weren’t in this one because the way “The Pirate’s Ghost” left things, I think it could have confused casual readers.
Because “The Pirate’s Ghost” changed the status quo somewhat, I went enjoying this as potentially the last “Lobster Johnson” story of its kind. The Lobster’s always been a pulpy character, but “The Pirate’s Ghost” made it very clear what a pulpy vengeful character means when translated to real terms. He is monstrous, and I can’t enjoy the series in the same way that I used to. I’m ready to enjoy it in an entirely new way now. So there was something about this story that felt like it was closing the door on certain kinds of stories.
Whether John Arcudi and Mike Mignola do shift the tone of the series in the future remains to be seen of course, but I think if it didn’t shift somewhat, I’d be a little unsatisfied.
Chris: We will see. I think it is grading time. I’m going to give it an 8.5. It was a unique and well done Lobster story taken to the next level by Stenbeck’s art.
Mark: I’m giving it an 8. Stenbeck’s art in the sequence with the Crimson Lotus toying with the Lobster’s perception of reality was the highlight for me.
Final verdict: 8.25. Stenbeck’s work shines in “Mangekyō.”
