This miniseries follows right on the heels of the last B.P.R.D. mini, Plague of Frogs, and although it is a jumping-on point, it's also very much a continuation of that excellent series. The creative team is joined by John Arcudi as co-writer, and while it's hard to always figure out who brings what to the table when there's more than one writer, I don't think I'd be far wrong in guessing that the slight uptick in humor is due to Arcudi coming onboard. Don't get the idea that B.P.R.D. has gone all wacky, though... there's plenty of creep factor here, not to mention some dark times as the bureau worries it has lost another operative in Abe Sapien and finds itself facing down the frog cult, which is growing in strength even as the bureau suffers from budget problems. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm starting to think that I like this new B.P.R.D. "series" more than Hellboy itself in some ways, and even if that is crazy, certainly it's true that the B.P.R.D. under this creative team has been exceptional.
I like that there's so much going on in this issue, and yet nothing feels like it's given short shrift. Mignola and Arcudi jump around in time and place a little, showing us an example of the cult's incursion in North Dakota, the "birth" of the new B.P.R.D. team leader, the grisly work of one of the villains or what's going on with Abe and Kate along with the main story of what's actually going on with the B.P.R.D. core team. The result is an ongoing series feel without losing the approachability of a new first issue, and it really does feel like something big is coming down the pike. This is not a forgettable miniseries that doesn't really enter into the Hellboy canon, it is a continuation of the story that happened as Hellboy goes off to explore the world a little.
While the villains in The Dead are returning from the original Hellboy miniseries, there's definitely not a backwards-looking or overly familiar vibe to this book. The frog cult seems far more deadly than before, and rather than being isolated to creepy mansions or European castles, they're taking over parts of America and Canada, and the bureau doesn't seem equipped to fight them. Rasputin and some of the other villains also seem to have been more or less put to rest with Conqueror Worm, so the villains feel more like something new, a creeping cult, rather than a reiteration of Nazis or elder gods that we've seen in previous Hellboy tales. It fits right in with what has gone before, but it also feels new, and I like that.
There's also a wonderful mix of tone in the series. There are some actual laugh out loud funny moments, such as Captain Daimio's insistence that Roger get a wardrobe change, just as there are some very dramatic and sad moments, including Abe learning some unpleasant truths about his past life. There are scary moments, including the death of the B.P.R.D. team in the opening or the "videotape" of Daimio rising to life in the morgue and there are "widescreen" moments like the introduction of the new headquarters. There are also just a lot of nice moments with the characters, from Liz's increasing distrust of the bureau to Roger's almost sad and yet kind of funny cluelessness, a result of his latest "death" no doubt, and the character of Ben Daimio makes a good impression right from the start as someone I want to see more of.
Which leaves only the art to talk about, and I really cannot speak highly enough of the work that Davis and Stewart are doing on this book. Look at that lush depiction of a farmhouse in North Dakota, the evocative rain-soaked streets of Rhode Island, the eerie canyon where a creepy man feeds bloody remains to mushrooms or the moody last page of the book, and it's clear that these guys are up to anything the writers might ask of them. Not to mention the more subtle moments that Davis captures, most notably when Abe Sapien starts to realize what he lost in his past life, and the reader can feel him sort of sinking into a funk as a result of that. The staging of those scenes says it all, and Arcudi and Mignola step back and let the art do it's job on those sequences, resulting in some emotionally powerful stuff. 10/10
