The more Hellboy movie commercials I see on TV, the more excited I am about the upcoming film. But what really has caught my attention is how much my non-comics reading friends are talking about the movie. The brief glimpse of the visuals and the title character's attitude seem to have really struck a chord with a potential audience, and I get the feeling that Hellboy could prove to be a spring blockbuster hit. Not surprisingly, Dark Horse has been putting out plenty of Hellboy-related comics, and lucky for us, the publisher and creators aren't just churning out drek. Though not the most accessible of B.P.R.D. stories, it's a thoroughly creepy one. The best move here is bringing in an artist whose organic and twisted style suits the world of abominations and apparitions that the characters routinely explore.
The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense boasts a wide array of operations, and one of them is a storage and observation facility in New Jersey. A scientist of considerable reputation has come to visit the facility, but he's done so with a nefarious goal in mind: to free something imprisoned within. Two shootings and one communications blackout later, the agents of the B.P.R.D. -- led by Abe Sapien and Lize Sherman -- descend upon the building, and they get a lot more than they bargained for.
Guy Davis's style is radically different from that of Mike Mignola, who created these bizarre characters, but you could find no other artist better suited to bringing them to life. Mignola's dark, gothic style is a simple one, merging simple, sharp shapes to hint at unusual forms. Davis's style is much more flowing and organic, and it offers up the most disturbing in horror imagery one can find in comics. He brings the fungus creature to life with seeming -- and disturbing -- ease, and the transformation of the frog creatures is just as creepy. Davis handles the more inhuman B.P.R.D. agents quite well too. Dave Stewart's muted and eerie colors add an even more offputting and chilling quality to the art.
Mignola's script touches upon the origins of several members of the team here, and I'm assuming the goal is to get newer readers to seek out that older material. It could result in confusion, though. Though not completely inaccessible, a little more information about the abilities of each of the team members -- especially Johann and Roger -- would have been welcome.
Where Mignola's script succeeds is in its effort to establish an atmosphere of real foreboding. Though Abe tells us that something big and bad is about to happen, the writer's already established it. These characters are accustomed to weirdness, and the fact that they're in over their heads says volumes and fosters suspense and tension.
Note: This comic book was not among this week's new releases.
