Mignolaversity: “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1

“The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 takes readers through the history of Ted Howards and Gall Dennar, two of the most prolific warriors to wield the sword at the story’s center. Picking up from “B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know,” Mike Mignola, Rob Williams, Laurence Campbell, Quinton Winter, and Clem Robins deliver a focused and exciting journey about the search for hope.

Cover by Laurence Campbell
with Dave Stewart

Written by Mike Mignola and Rob Williams
Illustrated by Laurence Campbell
Colored by Quinton Winter
Lettered by Clem Robins

From the ancient warrior Gall Dennar, to Sir Edward Grey, to the B.P.R.D.’s Agent Howards, the iconic Hyperborean sword from the world of Hellboy has landed in many influential hands. And this has been no accident. Trace the sword’s path through the adventures and encounters that finally brought it to Ragna Rok, at the end of the world, and witness the sword’s journey through history.

Hellboy creator Mike Mignola gives us a new tale from the world of Hellboy, cowritten by Rob Williams and featuring the art of Mignolaverse veteran Laurence Campbell to deliver never-before-seen Hellboy lore!

• The story of the Hyperborean blade!

Mark Tweedale: I’ve been anticipating this one for a while. I thoroughly enjoyed Rob Williams, Ollie Masters, and Laurence Campbell’s “Old Haunts” in 2020. It was a book written with care in letting the art tell the story. So reuniting most of that team for “The Sword of Hyperborea” was immediately exciting.

After having read the issue, I have to say, this does not not read like a writer’s debut into a world more than twenty-five years old. Williams took to the Hellboy Universe like a duck to water. While the story is set in the prehistory, narratively it falls after “B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know” picking up with Gall Dennar after the death of Ted Howards. And right away, this is the issue’s greatest charm.

There were a lot of things I loved about ‘The Devil You Know,’ but there were several character deaths that didn’t work for me. Howards was one of those characters. His death unfolded in a sequence running parallel to Hellboy fighting Rasputin, with the Howards section taking up the bottom third of the page. It meant that each moment was punctuated by a completely different fight with different goals and emotional stakes. It gave the sequence a sense of detachment—we weren’t wholly present in the moment. And by having the two sequences side by side, Ted’s death felt just like any other. It didn’t say anything specific about who that character is and what he stood for.

That scene is revisited in the opening of “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 with all the beats playing out the same, but with a framing sequence before it that changes the mood of that sequence. The sequence itself now has the full page, and Campbell’s freed up in his layouts. It’s amazing how much panel size for certain beats changes the mood.

Ted Howards’s death hits here. And this time it feels character specific. For that reason alone, the comic is automatically a must-read.

James Dowling: There was something about the central conceit of this book that drew me in immediately, beyond just the promise Laurence Campbell at his peak working under the script of two of the best writers to ever script for him. It’s a story about a man tugged along by a piece of living history and all the grave duty that implies. So far the first issue has delivered all of that in spades.

You’re right about how uncannily this book slips into the timeframe and visual language of the Mignolaverse immediately, especially with the debut of Rob Williams. In fact, I’d almost worry that it fitted too well, and could be entirely too intimidating to new readers or those who haven’t read ‘The Devil You Know’ with enough care. Williams and Mignola pretty effectively squash that fear however, by moving to a far more silent journey. After its prologue at the end of the world, the story becomes more streamlined and evocative, allowing the reader to follow the emotion of it, regardless of events and continuity. It’s the smartest approach when the stakes are this high. Considering the factors at play, the pair don’t constantly reiterate the corruption and destruction of the world, they just imply it and thus leave it ever present.

Mark: Oh yeah, “The Sword of Hyperborea” is pretty dense with Hellboy Universe lore, but the way it’s written, you can let that wash over you and still follow everything. There are a lot of smart choices made in the structure.

James: I like that this story also morphs the flashbacks that are tied to Ted/Gall, moving from recollections of the past/future to a full “unstuck in time” idea after the events of ‘The Devil You Know.’ Not only is he living non-sequentially, but he’s also hiding in the past from a grim future and his own death in it. It means we can travel up and down the history of the titular sword, but have an emotional throughline with it.

With that, I really agree with your thoughts on Howards’s death in ‘Devil You Know.’ It was a conclusion that was incredibly sprawling and didn’t necessarily linger on the deaths of our beloved main cast, since the central point of that story is that Ragna Rok is a cycle with a new beginning, not just an ending. However, that means we never really had an in-text way to mourn these characters who we got so attached to. “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 gives us that for Ted/Gall. It’s such a gut punch throughout. We’re getting the most sword-and-sandal Hellboy Universe story ever, but it’s still a pretty grim affair because of what hangs in the background of Ted/Gall’s mind.

Mark: The framing sequence before Howards’s death is so crucial to why this works too. Personally, I believe one of the best ways to make a reader care about a character is to show what and who the character cares about. It’s easier to invest in characters when they invest in each other. Williams reintroduces the reader to Howards, but also his relationship with Liz. And it’s not a mechanical “these two are in a relationship” way… he shows them emotionally engaging with each other. Howards is sharing his fears with Liz and Liz bolsters him. And then we have his death, framed in the context of saving the people running into the Hollow Earth, into Frankenstein’s Hyperberum, the last refuge of humankind.

And that emotional core flows through the rest of the story. It’s why this works. Gall Dennar is a pretty silent character most of the time, but we can feel the emotion of that conversation with Liz propelling him forward.

James: Liz really is a constant presence in this issue, and it’s great because it shows how the writers want to embrace every part of Ted/Gall for their portrait of him, not just the central duality that leaves him disconnected from the rest of the cast.

It also makes that disconnect even more poignant, due to the really well-executed imagery and visual shorthand on display here. It makes the book very concise, so that it can really expand outward when it needs to, which is often when Ted/Gall is missing Liz the most.

Mark: Oh, and it really helps that Laurence Campbell’s layouts are so damn perfect. Early on, there’s a page that essentially functions as a teaser for the whole miniseries. It’s a bunch of stacked panels, all exactly the same aspect ratio. We get a glimpse of an eye (the woman on the cover of #2), a diving suit (#3), and a guitar (#4). But, because Campbell is so specific, this teaser page feels like a continuation of moments before. There are two panels, one from page 1 and the other from page 5, both with that exact same aspect ratio. It’s subtle, but it subconsciously makes us connect them to the “teaser” panels of page 6. I’ve stuck them all together in the image below so you can see what Campbell was doing:

This is why I love reading Campbell-drawn stories. He’s so specific in his layouts.

James: I also absolutely adored that page. It really reminded me of Andrea Sorrentino’s art, specifically his “Gideon Falls” covers, due to the shared circular shape in all those panels, it’s that idea of surreal visual symmetry that pulls a lot of the narrative weight in a really dreamlike manner. It also illustrates the whole “past as prologue” idea at the centre of this whole book. There are so many people who’ve held the Hyperborean Sword, but due to its nature, all of them end up being singular in how they fulfill the grand design of that weapon. I didn’t even notice how it mirrored the panels from earlier though! Great spot.

Mark: Shall we dive into spoilers?

James: Yeah I’m dancing around a lot at the moment, let’s dig into it.

Mark: So, one thing that’s been bothering me a bit lately with the Hellboy Universe titles is the drop in page count. Usually they’re twenty-two pages, but around the time “The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery” came out, that dropped to twenty. That’s not going to hurt all stories the same way and some manage this limitation without me really noticing it, but there have been a few issues that were hurt by this restriction. So, this issue, which is twenty-four pages, felt so good. The breathing space of those extra pages makes such a huge difference. We haven’t had twenty-four-page comics since 2008’s “B.P.R.D.: The Warning.” Considering how much the second half of this story relies on Gall traveling alone and feeling the weight of years passing, those extra pages make all the difference.

James: It’s smart too, because if we had any less space in this issue, it would have had to cut into some of the more silent art-forward moments. They’re the most plot expendable, but I’d also argue they’re what defined this issue and left it really scorched in my mind visually. All throughout, we’re reminded of Ted/Gall’s placement in this world, the near-splash page portrait of him on page 1, the reminders of the events of ‘Devil You Know’s’ final fight, the prehistoric vistas, the sheer size of the Ogdru Hem. . . it’s this steady artistic drumbeat throughout that, while decadent, shows exactly where the protagonist is in the world, and what he means in this millenia-spanning crusade at that moment.

Mark: And it’s our goodbye to the character. The issue begins with Howards’s death and ends with Gall Dennar’s. Spending that extra time with him matters.

This is yet again a smart bit of writing. For a long time readers have been discussing the nature of the Ted Howards and Gall Dennar connection. Because he’s so rarely a point of view character and he never has a moment where he sits down and goes, “This is what this experience is like for me,” readers have had to intuit what it’s like. Here, Howards’s death hangs over the whole issue. Gall Dennar is severed from the future, and simply through the story unfolding, it explains a lot about the nature of that connection without directly discussing it.

It’s propelled by emotion instead, and again, this is why the story works. It’s not going to let this stuff derail the focus on a character journey.

James: Yeah, this issue shows not only the loss, but also the real loneliness of grief. There was a sequence on page 14 that really highlighted this for me where colorist Quinton Winters limits the palettes, placing Gall’s silhouette alone amongst the rain and landscape. Again, it’s this perfect piece of the genre that feels so much more emotionally resonant given that Gall’s lost this facet of himself, everyone he knew in that life, and the love that arguably spanned just as far through history as he did.

That said, there were some parts of Winters’s coloring that didn’t stick the landing for me. Beyond the cold blues and bombastic reds of the opening sequence, a lot of this issue felt quite limited. It could definitely just be a choice that doesn’t mesh with my preferences, but I’d argue it felt restrictive of Campbell’s art, allowing all the visual elements to sort of seep together into this shared homogenous color wheel. This was most apparent to me in how he rendered the Ogdru Hem. I can appreciate not wanting to retread the defining colors of Dave Stewart, but this felt like a more sanitised version of that, rather than something remarkably new. It’s not swinging in a new direction, just avoiding the one we’re used to.

Mark: When we’ve had the same colorist in this world for so long, especially Stewart who does colour callbacks spanning literally decades of comics, changing the colorist affects how a story is read. So, the wolf spirit, which is colored blue—I don’t know what the blue means in this context. Is Winters referencing Stewart’s use of blue or is he simply coloring this issue in isolation? I wonder this because this wolf spirit is meant to be connected to Liz, which is an interesting idea, but we don’t have a precedent for it, so I’m looking for any cues I can find for how to interpret it. The blue could be a reference to the Black Goddess, which is linked to Liz’s power—I mean, there’s a whole miniseries where Liz was kidnapped in an attempt to use her as a conduit for the Black Goddess—and we also know that the Black Goddess was born from the belly of a wolf.

I’m probably grasping at straws here, but if Stewart was coloring, I might feel more certain about this being a connection or not. This isn’t a bad thing, it just makes me second guess my instinctive reading of a scene.

But Winters colors for emotion well. The opening scene, with Ted Howards in cold colors as he’s filled with doubt, then having Liz enter the room, bringing with her a warm palette—that stuff heightens everything Campbell and Williams are doing. Later, when Gall is saying goodbye to his tribe, even though the scene is at sunrise, Winters uses a restrained palette, rather desaturated when compared to those preceding it. It makes you feel the isolation and desolate emotional state of Gall.

James: Yeah, I think that properly summarises my read on Winters, he colors well for evocative sequences—the fire-side fight scene between members of Gall’s tribe highlights this well—but there’s less implication in his color. It’s a shame given how strong Campbell’s visual language is.

Speaking of Laurence Campbell’s really strong visual language, the end sequence of this issue shows just how well he can move between dynamic action and surreal character drama. There are so many vignettes, balanced conflicts and echoes of other wielders of the Hyperborean Sword balanced here. Not only that, but the sequence is made to be intentionally chaotic while balancing all that, so many other artists would lose their way with that, but Campbell pulls it all together to make something that feels cohesive in its chaos.

Mark: That comes from Williams’s writing too. You mentioned earlier the cyclic nature of things in the Hellboy Universe, and you can see that at work here. I mean, we were introduced to Gall Dennar back in “B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth—The Abyss of Time” in a story where he fights an Ogdru Hem spirit, Mera-Hem. And wouldn’t you know it, Gall Dennar’s journey to Urrasan brings him into conflict with Mera-Hem yet again.

This isn’t just a random fight either. In this era, the Ogdru Hem are either sleeping after their long war with the Watchers, or they were killed and are trying to break into the world as Ogdru spirits. These Ogdru spirits need worshippers and sacrifices to regain their physical form, so it’s an era of cults. The T’shethuan shamans would channel Vril to banish these spirits back to the Abyss. And thanks to those shamans, the Ogdru spirits never gain a foothold, not until 1994, when Sadu-Hem becomes the first Odgru spirit since the war with the Watchers to fully regain its body.

This is the context in which Gall Dennar dies. His death stops Mera-Hem from being that first Ogdru Hem to regain its body. He died literally saving the human race. Just like Ted Howards.

James: Yeah, it’s a great solidification of him in the ranks of the Hellboy Universe’s silent heroes. None of the major protagonists, other than maybe Lobster Johnson, are really celebrated for their achievements. They’re all held in reverent history, but mostly it’s a story about averting horrible crises in near-silence until that balance becomes impossible to keep.

That’s also what I loved about the start of this issue, getting to go back to the cavalier attitude of the B.P.R.D. from the end of ‘Devil You Know’ was a treat. They’re all used to the end of the world, and have their own lives built into this war to keep them going. It’s a real achievement that Williams matched the diction of those characters so uncannily.

I’m wondering, with so many periods and aspects of the Hyperborean Sword explored here, where, and when, in the world do you think this series is taking us?

Mark: I can’t help but smile at the way we all call it a sword when that’s not what it was intended to be originally, but it’s what Gall Dennar’s grandfather fashioned it into. While the Hyperborean swords do have that blade shape, that’s not where Ted/Gall’s sword comes from. The bit that’s broken off on the bottom, its hilt, reveals its true purpose. You can actually see the same device in action all the way back in “B.P.R.D.: Hollow Earth” being used by the King of Fear, where it’s used to channel Vril.

As to where we’re going, I think I know more than I should say in this case. I know the years each of the remaining issues are set in, though I don’t know the final destination. We’ll be discussing that in an interview later today with Rob Williams. I had a lot of fun with it and he offers a lot of insight into your question.

Part of what makes “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 so great is that while it is the first part of a larger story, it’s a complete story on its own. And it stuck the landing magnificently. Wherever this series is heading, after reading issue #1, I’m very confident it’s going somewhere satisfying, and that the characters we meet along the way are going to be more than just mechanical vessels to explore the Hyperborean Sword’s history. They’ll be fully realised characters, and I’m looking forward to meeting each of them. What are your hopes for the series?

James: It really is such a strong singular story, which just makes me hope I can continue to be as wowed as this by the book. As long as we see a lot of different genre stories from the Sword’s history, and we manage to keep hitting some of the same emotional notes, I’ll be happy. This issue was so disparate in its locales, but pulled together a very clear emotional arc from that. If the series can keep pulling that off over and over, I’ll be talking about it for years to come.

Mark: There’s an extremely strong central idea at work, so it’s definitely off to the right start.

James: “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 is an amazing example of what a powerful shared vision in both creative direction and creative team looks like. The story leaps past continuity boundaries with a clear emotional message, while the creators prove themselves perfectly in lockstep, to the point where even the parts I personally chafe with still feel essential to the finished book. “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 is a 9 for me.

Mark: I couldn’t possibly go lower than a 9. But given the emotional resonance of it all, how well it functions as a coda to “B.P.R.D.: The Devil You Know,” not just in terms of its plot, but also its themes, and how it’s such a pitch perfect goodbye to a beloved character, I have to go with a 9.5. This one hit hard.

Final Verdict: 9.25 – “The Sword of Hyperborea” #1 is a stunning Hellboy Universe debut for Rob Williams, and an emotionally satisfying victory lap for Laurence Campbell. What could have been an interesting side story is instead an essential read. No “Hellboy” reader should miss this.