When this issue was solicited, we presumed that this would be a title on the fringe of the Mignolaverse, with only limited ties to the modern day B.P.R.D. titles.
Boy were we wrong.
Written by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Illustrated by Jason LaTourAugust 1944: a man in a suit of iron armor drops from an American warplane onto a French battlefield, where he attempts to fight his way through an army of Nazis and the massive war machine they keep protected in an armory.
Brian: Disappointing the folks who thought this was a prequel to Peter Gabriel’s 1986 hit single, “Sledgehammer ’44” is actually a World War II-set miniseries, dealing with the good ol’ US of A fighting some Nazis. Before we set started, David, do you care to share with our readers where we may have seen the armor,Project Epimetheus or Sledgehammer, before?
David: Well, this little guy is the Iron Prometheus from Lobster Johnson: Iron Prometheus. It also, according to John Arcudi in an interview with CBR, appeared in the background of B.P.R.D. The Dead in the basement of the Colorado offices of B.P.R.D. So it’s been around. That’s right, right?
Brian: Correctamundo! This is a missing piece in the history of that suit, and we get to see the full scale of what the suit is capable of here. Let’s start general – what was your overall impression of the issue?
David: Well, first off I want to touch on the obvious tie the suit has to modern times. It’s powered by Vril energy, which is tied to the Hyperboreans, which gives a tie to Gall Dennar, Edward Grey AND The Abyss of Time. Plus, it ties to Lobster Johnson. Brian, this is the Kevin Bacon of B.P.R.D. stories.
I thought it was a great little book. I’m not going to lie – I like almost any World War II story, and I like those stories even more when they have robots in them. What’s not to like, really?
Brian: I may not have the blanket WW2 love that you do, but I thought this was a damn solid comic. It’s odd, because this felt the least like a Mignolaverse comic of any one we’ve ever reviewed, I think. Even the LoJo stuff has a certain Mignola essence to it, but this had the least traces of that of any related title.
That isn’t a complaint, just an observation. Do you agree?
David It still has a certain feel to it, but there’s no real obvious connection like with other books. Well, besides that it starts with nazis, which obviously Hellboy has the connection to. So I’d say yes and no. It feels as much like a Mignolaverse book to me as LoJo does, certainly.
Really though, I have to give a lot of props to them for this. You see people complain about the Mignolaverse getting away from what matters, but to me, I don’t care as long as the comic is good, and this is a good comic. I’m really excited to see where this goes.
Brian: Plus, as you just stated earlier, there are a ton of tangential connections to other B.P.R.D. books. To me, this is a different beast than something like “The Abyss of Time,” because this is being positioned as a separate book. I get if “Abyss of Time” wasn’t up to certain people’s expectations, because it is a borderline side story in the main book. This is wholly different.
Something I found interesting on the title page of this book: Number 1 in a series, the familiar numbering system employed by various Mignolaverse titles. So, there are definite plans to take Sledgehammer through time, which sounds like a lot of fun, even if its just through various American wars. I can’t wait to see him in the Shit fighting against Charlie.
Let’s talk about our pal Jason LaTour on art. I thought his style was pretty perfectly suited to this story. The letters column revealed that this was initially to be illustrated by the late John Severin, who passed away before he could finish it. I thought LaTour, especially in light of the Severin influence, knocked this out of the park.
Continued belowDavid: Yeah, it was a bit sad to read the bit about John Severin in the end (although I liked Scott’s write-up about the whole deal), but LaTour is a great artist in his own right, and someone used to working with Mignola. I thought he was a great fit for the book, even if his style did feel different than what I’ve gotten from him before. I really dug his robot on robot action. That fight between the two of them was great, even if it did have a quick finish.
Also, I wanted to give major props on the revelation on what Sledgehammer ’44 actually was – that was a fun little touch that felt very of the time.
Not to go too in to depths of this book, but did you look up what Epimetheus was? He was the brother of Prometheus and one of the many relatives of Atlas. The word effectively means “hindsight” and between the two brothers, he was the foolish one. That’s a loaded name. Do you think there is anything we can glean out of that? I think its interesting that this robot suit was part of a project that, inherently by name, was a regret. Any thoughts on that?
Brian: LaTour is great, and he managed to strike a balance between the classic war setting and his own style, which made the book feel both familiar and fresh. Really extraordinary stuff.
On to Epimetheus – of course I looked it up! You’re talking to the king of overly researched annotations columns! I took the name as a preemptive apology to the one who wears it: “Just so you know, this is a bad idea. But, Nazis ain’t gonna kill themselves!”
David: I knew you did! Yeah, that’s a good take from it.
So, anything else to add before the grade, my friend?
Brian: I think we’ve covered all the major pieces.
As for a grade, I’ll give this a solid 7.5 – how about you?
David: I’ll give it an 8.0. Honestly, this is like the prototypical double for me. Quality at bat, moved some runners, set up some pieces. Have I mentioned I’m excited that baseball is coming back?
Final Verdict: 7.75 – Buy
