Mike Mignola, Thomas Sniegoski, and Craig Rousseau are telling a feverish tale with a young Hellboy, Mac the Dog, and the Lobster, but is there more going on that we first assumed?
Written by Mike Mignola and Thomas SniegoskiVariant cover by
Craig Rousseau
Illustrated by Craig Rousseau
Colored by Chris O’Halloran
Lettered by Clem RobinsThe feverish Hellboy, aka the Scarlet Crab, breaks into the ghoulish Castle Death accompanied by his dog Mac and a surprising but familiar face. But the castle holds strange and dangerous occult items that do not mix well with Hellboy’s hallucinations—especially when the shadowy Brotherhoods assassin makes his move!
Breaking with tradition, I’ve decided to show Craig Rousseau’s variant cover off here at the top instead of the standard cover. We seem to get one of his variants for each miniseries, so it seems right to show it off. (I especially love Mac appearing in his own little circle, mimicking old comics covers showcasing a special appearance.)
The standard cover is also something extra special. Both Craig Rousseau and Matt Smith have slipped a few Tintin references into “Young Hellboy” a few times, but this is by far the most overt, a direct homage to the classic image of Tintin and Snowy running in a spotlight.
It’s very cool to see. Anyway, on to the comic.
At this point, Hellboy is in “Castle Death”. . . which happens to be the warehouse full of all the film studio props the Bureau had to clean out when they moved into their new headquarters. So with Hellboy running into prop skeletons, suits of armor, and racks of weapons, there’s ample opportunity for his imagination to latch onto something and turn it into something more fearsome.
And yet, this issue doesn’t have the same wild energy of the last. Hellboy’s sickness is getting worse and his energy is flagging. Rather than running from one encounter to the next, he staggers and sways. Most curious of all, though, is the information coming from the Lobster. Where before it was just we-need-to-get-into-Castle-Death-to-stop-the-bad-guys kind of stuff, in this issue his story suddenly got oddly specific.
The conceit of ‘Assault on Castle Death’—that Hellboy is sick and hallucinating an adventure with the Lobster—strays into strange territory here. In the past two issues everything in the hallucination had an improvisational quality to it. Hellboy sees figures in the distance, they become zombies; a vending machine becomes a crazed robot… but in this issue there’s a break with that. The Lobster gives us backstory, introducing us to a guy called Gustav Goulrich and his ties to the Nazi occult bureau and space program.
It’s not exactly something we’ve heard before, but it’s close enough. Certainly, there are similarities to plots from stories like “Hellboy: Conqueror Worm” and “B.P.R.D.: 1946,” and if the next issue’s cover is anything to go by, it looks like Hellboy will be running into creatures similar to Von Klempt’s Kriegaffen, which Hellboy won’t run into until 1959. All of these strange similarities are too much to chalk up to a child’s imagination. There’s something else going on here, but what, I have no idea.
Robert, the killer stalking Hellboy, is a curious character when compared to Hellboy, and this comparison is quite pointed because it’s done through flashbacks to when Robert was a child, so we can contrast Hellboy’s childhood with Robert’s. And Robert’s childhood sucked. Hellboy at least still gets to be a kid.
This issue also brings Bruttenholm back into the story. He’s still wrestling with dreams of his time on Un-Gaaah’s island, including a few details from the last time the Brothers of Desolation attempted to kill Hellboy. I’m very curious to see how he reacts when he sees something from his dreams in real life, like Robert’s dagger. After all, this is Professor Bruttenholm we’re talking about—he’s not just going to shrug off something like that. We already know from the “Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible” series that he spent many hours in hypnotic regression sessions with Abe, Hellboy, and Liz. I wonder if he’d attempt a regression on himself.
Continued belowIn terms of the storytelling mechanics at play, #3 is mostly just taking what was already at work in prior issues and pushing it further. The changes between Hellboy’s fantasy and reality happen much more rapidly, and now there’s a flashback exposition sequence from the Lobster and Bruttenholm’s dreams, and Robert’s memories… each has its own unique look thanks to the way Rousseau draws them and how O’Halloran colors. Hellboy may spend most of the issue pretty disoriented, but thanks to Rousseau and O’Halloran, we know exactly where we are.
“Young Hellboy: Assault on Castle Death” #3 was a fun issue. There is one major scene in here I haven’t spoken about, in part to avoid spoilers and in part to see how it’s handled in #4. I get the feeling that the next issue won’t answer all the questions this one raised.
Final Verdict: 7.5. ‘Assault on Castle Death’ #3 raises many questions. Hopefully issue #4 can answer a few.
