After a week off, the Mignolaversity crew is back with a look at the latest from Mignola, Arcudi and Crook.
Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Illustrated by Tyler CrookWhile the young psychic Fenix stumbles upon a monsterworshipping version of Burning Man, Liz Sherman finds herself stuck in a ruined hospital and pitted against a mad doctor and his monster–sized, mutated feline!
David: I’m not sure if you feel like this Brian, but it seems like it’s been forever since we’ve reviewed B.P.R.D. I know that’s not the case, but jeez, I’ve missed this book! This week, we’re back with the second part of “Lake of Fire” from Mike Mignola, John Arcudi and Tyler Crook, and we touch on a lot of little parts and have the new Dr. Clyburn bringing the crazy ruckus. What did you think of this issue?
Brian: It must be because of her extended absence, but I am loving every scene with Liz in it. I said this last month, too, but I didn’t realize how much I missed her while she was gone. We also got a nice couple of Fenix scenes (more on those later), and some great at HQ moments as well. I can’t say that all that much happened in this issue, but it was another wonderful character-driven issue, and this arc continues to be setting the stage for what is coming next for the Bureau.
David: Yeah, I really am enjoying the Liz stuff as well, especially after having read through all of Plague of Frogs and the first three Library Editions of Hellboy. Seeing her back in the mix and her standing up for people was really great. It was great to see – and pardon me for using this – the fire back in Liz once again. Crook does a masterful job with her as a character, and anyone who is a fan of great character acting in comics should pour over his work with her. Plus, I love Arcudi’s voice for her as well.
That said, this is definitely a slow burn. It’s five issues long and there is a lot to get through, but it sort of feels like we’re eking through three stories while most of the recent (successful) arcs have been highly focused on one story. This feels transitional through and through. Definitely a chess piece mover of an arc. I by no means that’s a bad thing, but it’s undoubtedly a thing.
Brian: Can’t argue with you there, David. The area of this particular issue that really fascinated me were the parts with Fenix. We all know she’s not exactly a fan favorite, but I think the flashbacks in this issue were appropriate and felt true to the character, not like some retconning to make Fenix more sympathetic.
I was just telling Matt, our EIC, earlier today about how much I hate when people say things like “As a father, I…” I don’t think you need to have kids to feel things about kids in media.
That said, as a father of a daughter, the Fenix stuff really broke my heart. It hit me pretty squarely in the sad zone, and that story, paired with Liz’s story, makes for some compelling comics. It also made me wish that Liz was there for Fenix as a kid, to help her out the way she’s attempting to help Andrea, her sick roommate.
David: Oh, I agree with that entirely. I don’t really look at as retconning anyways, as we’ve never really seen any of Fenix’s past. We’ve only been given a very base look at who she is, and things like this help develop her quite a bit. In fact, this is the most true development we’ve ever gotten for the character, and I’m really glad to see the Mignolalverse masters spend some time giving us a bit more to go on when it comes to a character who so far has been huge in import and the opposite of that in terms of likeability. My only issue is it was a hard transition between present and past that could have been alleviated by having a simple box that said “10 years earlier” or something. Seemed strange not having that.
Continued belowI like the Liz/Fenix parallel you have there, and I really think that’s a direction we’re eventually heading in.
All that said, my favorite part of this story was the open. Giarocco catching up with Nichols and Gervesh, them coming across Agent Howards…that was awesome and just top notch character work, and I continue to love how they are building the human cast. I have to ask though, Giarocco gave Nichols a serious double take to the last thing he said. What the hell was going on there? Am I dumb and simply do not comprehend what was going on there, or did you not get it either?
Brian: I think she was just shocked by him calling swords “donkey jawbones.” She’s clearly not hip to the same slang he is.
I agree that the human cast has been pretty intriguing lately – just the fact that we know the names of “grunts” like Giarocco, Gervesh and Howards is a huge change of pace from 2-3 years ago. I think it makes the book even more enjoyable and relatable, and makes the stakes of the end of the world even more real. As much as we care about guys like Johann, Abe and Hellboy, end times sort of suit them. It suits the “regular” folks a lot less.
I also want to take a minute to praise Tyler Crook’s work here. This is far from the most dynamic script to work from, and yet he made the scenes exciting and interesting, even when it was folks eating in a cafeteria, or sitting in a beaten up hospital. His Liz work has been great, and the last scene in the hospital basement, perhaps because of the relative banality of the first 15 pages, was truly terrifying.
David: As I mentioned earlier, I think one of the things that he excels at most of all is the mannerisms and acting each character goes through. It’s a subtle gift, and something many readers don’t really look for, but in an arc like this it is paramount to its success. Crook accentuates the shock of Carla in that aforementioned scene (“donkey jawbones” IS weird), the general unseemly mania of Dr. Clyburn and everything Liz is going through.
Two straight issues we’ve been given a sequence where she plays with a candle, and you know and I know that this is serious foreshadowing so an event transpiring with a candle. Or at least that’s what they want us to think. Either way, in the hands of a different writer or artist, that scene wouldn’t work nearly as well. In this case? Man oh man, Arcudi and Crook crush it.
Anything else you have to add before grading?
Brian: Not particularly. This gets a 8 from me – a good issue, no doubt, but not special enough for a 9. Your thoughts?
David: The concept of a metronome book is a fascinating one. It’s weird how a book can be continuously good for so long that you don’t really pay attention to it unless a) something goes really right or b) something goes really, really wrong. Steadily reviewing everything from the Mignolaverse makes us hyper aware of that effect, as this is an 8.0 book for me too, but I have to wonder: if we were getting this kind of quality out of the average Big Two book, wouldn’t we be going freaking nuts about the Golden Age of comics coming?
It’s funny how that works, but as is, this book is consistently a very good book, and it earns that 8.0 for sure.
Brian: One day I was going to tally up all of my Mignolaversity ratings vs. my other comic reviews to prove a point, as well. These books are extremely well done and, like you said, only get a spike on our radar when they succeed beyond reason or fail beyond belief. But, alas, there are worse problems to have than just being really, really, really, ridiculously good comics.
