Abe digs deeper into the mystery of the frog monsters in Suwanee and into his own past. There’s a few surprises in this one.
Written by Mike Mignola and Scott Allie
Illustrated by Sebastián Fiumara
Colored by Dave Stewart
Lettered by Clem RobinsA small Florida town manages a strange kind of survival in the shadow of a giant monster where Abe finds secrets about his origins and his role in the end of the world.
Mark: In the last issue, Abe discovered that the frog monsters are back, thanks to an Ogdru Hem in Suwanee. Considering the Black Flame once told Abe that he was what the descendants of the frog monsters would become, the first of a new race of man, this gives Abe an opportunity to confront an aspect of himself he’s been hiding from since “Hellboy: Seed of Destruction”.
Mike: It seems like the opportunity is there, but that a part of him is still fighting to deny his connection to the frogs. This issue points a few times to the idea that the frogs are just animals and that they retain nothing of their human lives, which has pretty much been debunked by now, right?
Mark: Yeah. I mean, the first batch of frog monsters in “B.P.R.D.: Plague of Frogs”, the ones that were created from humans, were different from the ones that were born frog monsters. They could change back into humans and impersonate them convincingly. And all frogs have an innate language and religion. They have a culture. Yeah, they’re different from humans, but they’re certainly a people and not animals.
But for Abe, I suppose it was easier to kill creatures that looked like him if he could say, “I’m a person, but they’re just animals.”
Mike: I’m also thinking back to the frog Zinco had in their possession not long ago. The one who’s ‘language’ was manipulated to reveal that it was actually repeating a human name. Was that in “Reign of the Black Flame?”
That’s something Abe would have no way of actually knowing about, but is still out there. Do you want to briefly unpack the “Seed of Destruction” comment you made?
Mark: That was a mutant, not a frog. It was in “B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Flesh and Stone”. That’s been hinted at a few times, especially in the “Wasteland” arc, but that moment in “Flesh and Stone” was the first real confirmation.
The “Seed of Destruction” thing is something I’ve spoken about before in Hell Notes and a few other things. There’s a scene in there when Abe mentions that he senses a kind of kinship with the frogs.
Later, in “Gods” (the arc when Abe is shot by Fenix), Abe mentioned in an argument with Devon and Kate that when the Black Flame pointed out how much he was like the frogs, it brought up a fear he’d been trying not to have for fifteen years. And “Seed of Destruction” was set fifteen years prior to “Gods”.
Mike: Ah, a mutant! Minus a point for me.
So lots of exposition this issue, with a lot of what was eluded to about the fate of the townsfolk being pretty plainly laid out. I sort of get the feeling that the series is really trying to pull itself out of the well-worn groove it’s been in for the last two years and become something bigger. There’s the familiar lonely-Abe tone to the issue, but all the while the larger universe is bearing down on him. Like, we’ve got frogs, and that’s huge, but we also have the usual guy-who-wants-to-get-in-Abe’s-face-about-nonsense. Did you get the same impression of things?
Mark: Yeah, I did. I mean, really this is the same sort of story as several arcs in the “Abe Sapien Dark and Terrible” cycle. What makes it different is Abe’s attitude and approach. I mean, there’s one scene in there (which we’ll talk about when we get to the spoiler-filled section of the review) where Abe admits something that’s potentially even scarier than the frog thing.
Continued belowMike: So less scary was the conversation Abe had with William. I though this sequence was kinda cleverly done. It’s main purpose was to introduce a character who could unload a bunch of info, right? But there was also the idea of Abe interacting with someone else who had a name given to him by those he lives with. But unlike Abe, he’s ok with it. He’s comfortable with knowing the name he was given at birth, but also assuming the moniker he’d been assigned.
That may all be a stretch, but it was interesting none the less.
Mark: That may be an aspect of it. I hadn’t really thought about it that way. But yeah, I think it was mostly about the exposition that needed to be covered. William is close enough to Isaac and Autumn to be able to talk to Abe about Isaac’s wife, but distanced enough that he wasn’t going to get too upset by Abe’s line of questioning. I mean, you could see earlier how Abe was walking on eggshells with Autumn.
And then there’s Lloyd. I don’t think Abe wants to talk to him, not since he pointed out that when the frog monsters attacked in the last issue, none of them attacked Abe.
Mike: Oh, yeah, that was totally William’s primary function, but I was happy to see that there was a little nuance to him. Anything you want to explore before we get into the spoiler zone?
Mark: Only to sing the praise of the Fiumaras again. I’m really enjoying Sebastián on this arc. He really sells the unsettling nature of suburbia next to an odgru hem. That was the other aspect of that William scene. It’s two guys walking down the street having a conversation with an ogdru hem looming over the proceedings.
Oh, and Max Fiumara’s cover is fantastic. It’s one of my favourites in this whole series.
Mike: Agreed on both counts. The design for the cover knocked my socks off when I first saw it in previews.
But there was an interesting turn in the issue’s art, wasn’t there?
Mark: Yeah, there was. We’re talking SPOILERS now folks, so skip to the final verdict if this isn’t your cup of tea.
So, this was my favourite part of the issue for several reasons. But man, what a surprise to turn the page and have Tyler Crook’s art in front of me!
Mike: Yeah it was, even though I thought it was Sebastian riffing on Crook’s style, like he did with Mignola last issue! “Wow, he’s really doing it,” I thought. Womp womp!
So Crook’s back, and treading some familiar waters as we turn our focus towards England and the Poole family. And as it turns out, a prediction you made a year ago has finally come to pass!
Mark: What prediction was that?
Mike: About Mona’s egg being similar to Langdon’s.
Mark: Oh, right! That one. Yeah, I expected that. I was not expecting to find out that Mona’s egg was the home to an Ogdru Hem spirit, Istra-Hem. I sat up and went, “Oh man, I guess Sir Edward Grey didn’t handle that situation as well as I thought he did.”
I’ve been waiting for “Abe Sapien” to pick up the threads of Unland for a while. I figured it would be in one of the flashback one-shots though, so having it pop-up as a part of the ongoing story was quite a surprise.
Mike: Yeah it was! And I certainly didn’t think that the next time we’d see the Pooles would be in the 21st century. I guess the family just quietly lived undisturbed with an ancient spirit for a century?
So we’ve already covered Abe being told he’s the next evolutionary step for the frogs, but now we see Mrs. Poole tell him that he is a vessel. How much weight do you think that carries? And is she eluding to the same idea as the Black Flame, just with some sort of metaphor?
Mark: The vessel thing rings very true to me. I mean, in “Abe Sapien: The Drowning” we got to see a glimpse of the spirit of the sea, Oannes if you want to call it that, or Dagon. This is the spirit that taught early humans by sending its children to live among them.
Continued belowAnd if you ask me, this spirit of the sea looks identical to the one that was in the egg Langdon found. I think it’s the same spirit that merged with Langdon.
The thing is, Abe has mentioned a few times now how he remembers Langdon now. So I’m wondering… when will he start remembering Dagon?
Mike: Man, that’s a question! So, Dragon has always inhabited other vessels, right? That’s how the mechanics of this works? If that’s the case, I wonder if it’d be memories like we have, or something a little more abstract. Emotional memories, perhaps?
Mark: …No idea. At all. But if Abe is this ocean spirit, or a vessel for it, then he’s basically a god. The implications of that are… too big for me to comprehend.
Mike: Could this be a step towards getting the band back together? Hear me out: Abe is actually an ocean god, Johann is working on getting into a Vril-powered suit, Hellboy’s got an army of the damned waiting on him, and Kate has an all new power set at her disposal. We could be working towards the team that does battle at the end of the world.
But then a part of me thinks that idea is getting a little too close to super heroics to ever come to fruition.
Mark: I’m not expecting to see Hellboy for a looooooong while yet. He still has things to do in Hell. But I do think this is heading towards a group that’s capable of fighting the Ogdru Hem in a very real way. We have Liz, who seems to have the power of a Hyperborean “Heart of the City” (“Frankenstein Underground” readers will know what I’m talking about. She’s potentially the most powerful Vril-user alive), Johann in a Vril Energy Suit (or at least that’s where next week’s issue seems to be heading), Agent Ted Howards with his Hyperborean Vril-channelling sword, and there have been a few hints now that Abe is somehow connected to Vril power too.
So yeah, I can totally see these guys banding together and taking down the Black Flame… and having everything go to crap. Come on, this is the Mignolaverse. Things are going to go hideously and horribly wrong in a way they won’t see coming.
Mike: I feel bad about being so excited for the end of the world!
But back to Abe. You covered the entirety of the Unland mini last year, were there any other payoffs or easter eggs you were excited to see?
Mark: Well, everything with the egg was a big payoff. It’s an Ogdru Hem vessel. And Zinco was all over Hallam. I was a little sad to see Ada Morse was a puppet for Istra-Hem. She was my favourite character in “The Mysteries of Unland”.
But I guess the main thing was seeing Tyler’s art again. With him doing “Harrow County” now, I figured he simply wouldn’t have time to do any more work in the the Mignolaverse for a while. I honestly thought “B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth: Grind” was his last issue. And then this popped up. So that was really cool.
Mike: Yeah it was. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I had become to his washes and watercolors. I guess part of why I didn’t realize it was him right away was that beyond the inks it was all Stewart. And speaking of color, how about that big black and white panel? I got to that page and it flipped my lid! Even when it comes to the absence of color, Stewart knows exactly the right decisions to make. In that panel, it was doing nothing at all.
And I really like Tyler’s Abe. So wide-eyed and humanly-proportioned.
Mark: Don’t get me started on Dave Stewart! He pulls all this together. I mean, look at what this arc has been doing. We’ve had Sebastián doing his usual fantastic stuff alongside drawing like mid 90s Mignola, then Tyler Crook was thrown into the mix (there’s even one panel with his ink wash look from “The Mysteries of Unland” in there), not to mention so many different flashbacks. And throughout all of this, Dave Stewart is the glue.
Continued belowThe thing is, Sebastián could have drawn all of this in his own style all by himself and that would have been fine. But a deliberate choice was made to approach this arc differently. This is a case where the style of the artists is being used to tell the story in a powerful way. I’m really digging it.
Mike: Oh me too. It’s an interesting way to not only emphasize the importance of what’s happening, but to reference when it happened without going the route of footnotes. You see the early Mignola style and you know what urea is being referenced. Same with Crook, you see it and instantly know where the threads are coming from.
And I especially like that Crook made the pages happen, as opposed to having Sebastian do his take on them. It would never have worked if Mignola came in and did those pages last issue, right? He’s just too different of an artist now for the point to have carried. But the Unland stuff was recent history, so it’d almost have come across as weird to not have Crook just come in and do it, right?
Anything you want to cover before we pin a score on this one?
Mark: No, I think that’s it. Spoilers over.
I’m enjoying this arc. Plot wise, there are some very interesting things on the table. Although I’m a little nervous that they’ll be quickly diffused with only one issue to go. I hope not, but it’s happened before, and it’s unsatisfying.
Art wise, I am absolutely loving this arc. It’s just so inventive in its approach to telling the story, and for me this is the talking point for this issue. This is getting an 8.5 from me.
Mike: In terms of art, this arc is doing everything it needs to. As far as narrative, I still feel the momentum of how the series has shaped up so far, and really hope we’re close to breaking from it. The Incredible Hulk reference was a sign of self-awareness, which I’m taking as a good omen. Let’s call it a 7.5 from me.
Final Verdict: 8.
