World Famous Comics: Hellboy Volume 2: Wake the Devil (Hellboy (Graphic Novels))
Hellboy Volume 2: Wake the Devil (Hellboy (Graphic Novels))
By: Mike Mignola Publisher: Dark Horse Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Dark Horse Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 144 Publication Date: December 10, 2003
Amazon.com: The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Sound like something out of the X-Files? Well, it's one better; it's Hellboy, the world's greatest paranormal investigator. A mysteriously conjured demon, he's essentially a big red guy who goes looking for trouble. The catch is that he's not really the best investigator; let's face it, he's no Agent Mulder. But Wake the Devil always manages to maintain its creepy edge, in no small part due to Mignola's art, which may seem familiar. He did the set designs for Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula.
Product Description: A murder in a New York wax museum and a missing corpse lead Hellboy into ancient Romanian castles on the trail of a sleeping legend: the original nobleman vampire. Nazi scientists prepare for the return of their occult master and the end of the world, and Hellboy confronts his purpose on earth.
Mignola Takes on Writing Duties NEGATIVES - Mignola doesn't seem to handle the story as good as John Byrne, who wrote the first Hellboy collection. Mignola is a way better artist than he is a writer - There are many plot moments and entire scenes that make me wonder why they were included at all. There is a scene where Liz accidentally causes another teammate's death, which would be great for tension and character development, but it never gets paid off. Liz just doesn't appear again after that scene--the only payoff we get is Hellboy reflecting on how everything in the mission went wrong. There was an entire subplot about Rasputin's Nazi followers and this talking head that they find... but it never contributes to the main arc of the story. They just seem like random scenes thrown in with no discretion, and really take away much needed page space from a story that is was already a bit convoluted. - Again, due to the major page space that deals with plot elements that didn't need to be dealt with, we don't get as much Hellboy as I expected. He's the character I come to read about, but he seemed almost secondary, as if the subplots took up so much space that his character arc was only sprinkled here and there. In his afterword, Mignola says that the subplot involving the Nazi's was much smaller in his original plan and the talking head wasn't included at all. The story might have been stronger had he stuck closer to the original plan, in that case.
POSITIVES + The binding of this book is substantially stronger than that of the first book. The cover of the Seed of Destruction literally had to be glued back on, but this one remained strong through the entire read and shows no signs of letting up + Mignola creates some truly creepy moments, especially with the demonic Hecate and Baba Yaga. + The art shows great improvement as well. Though Mignola still sticks to his high stylized angular method, the colors and details jump out way more than in previous Hellboy stories. The amount of elbow grease that went into achieving that effect is apparent. + The cover gallery in the back is simply perfect. Though I'm not sure how a one of them relates to the actual content, each cover is astounding. There is a cover that is just plain cool, a beautiful heart-wrenching imagine, and a few really funny ones. As far as extras (which this is rife with, what with an epilogue crafted especially for the book as well as both an introduction and an afterword) + The aforementioned epilogue is a great look into Rasputin's feeling after the events of this story, and features Mignola's best writing in this volume, which gives me hope that he's improved with time.
Overall, it's not as strong as the first volume, but its still a series that is well worth continuing. Judging from the quality of the epilogue, Mignola (as a writer) has improved with him. I trust that, by the next volume of Hellboy, I will be able to give this series at least '8/10' reviews.
6/10
marvelous Hellboy is just light-years ahead of almost every other comic I've ever read. The plotting and dialogue is almost literary and the art is just fantastic.
Graphic SF Reader Some good, old fashioned monster hunting. A death in New York leads to a vampire in Romania, the possible offspring of something a lot worse.
The team gets a new member when a homunculus is discovered, and finally, have to deal with that witchy-poo Baba Yaga and some other strangeness. More top notch Hellboy goodness.
Way Better Than "Seed of Destruction" Wake The Devil is better than its predecessor, "Seed of Destruction". The writing is far more cohesive, entertaining, and flows without the hiccups that plagued "Seed".
Rasputin returns with another presence from beyond calling the shots, but Mignola also works in a few more historical or legendary figures, including Dracula (or a stand-in for him), Baba Yaga and the Furies, as well as introducing new characters like the goddess Hecate, the evil industrialist Roderick Zinco, the "brain in a jar" mad scientist Herman Von Klempt and several other well-characterized Nazis. Mignola also adds a touch more overt humor to this volume along with some terrific banter and a sense of history between Hellboy and his B.P.R.D. compatriots, hints more at Hellboy's mysterious destiny without veering into "chosen one" cliches and basically maintains and even widens the eclectic mix of genre influences while seeming more focused and sharper in general. There's nothing really wrong with Seed of Destruction, but Wake The Devil is really where Hellboy comes together.
One of the things that really struck me about Wake The Devil was that the characters seemed to be having more fun, and that comes across in some ways as Mignola having more fun as well. Flying solo without Byrne as scripter and obviously bolstered by the success of his first Hellboy effort, Mignola seems more confident of himself, more sure that Hellboy is what he wants it to be, and that confidence comes across not just in a more complicated backstory for the villains but in a general sense of fun in the characters. There's even some outright slapstick, such as Hellboy's jetpack failing or Abe's sardonic "Hellboy's blowing things up again" when Castle Giurescu goes up.
What I really liked, though, was a slight shift in the dialogue. Though it's not so noticeable as to be jarring, Mignola does sort of get away from the more bombastic and Silver Age elements of Byrne's scripting in this volume, replacing it with a more wry tone that veers from scholarly to regular guy with ease. Quotes from William Blake and pompous, insane rants by Rasputin exist alongside good Hollywood banter like Hellboy heading off to Romania in search of good food with the Bendis-like turn of phrase "paprika chicken, baby!" Hellboy in particular benefits from an infusion of a little more humor and confidence, trash-talking his opponents and muttering to himself in self-deprecating tones when he gets himself into trouble. Of course, it's not just in the humor that the dialogue shines, as Mignola has a gift for the villainous turn of phrase, as when Nazi villainess Ilsa utters the memorable bon mot "Oh, I would cut open the world to see it bleed." Now that's what I call a bad guy line of dialogue!
Leaving aside the manner of the storytelling in terms of dialogue, Wake The Devil also benefits from a complexity of design. The plot that Hellboy goes out in search of is tracking down a vampire who may or may not be the legendary Dracula. In the course of this investigation, he runs afoul of his old nemesis Rasputin, who is tied in with an Elder God-like "Dragon" and a trio of Nazis who originally helped raise Hellboy, as well as a mad scientist villain that Hellboy had a run-in with in a previous short story. What's amazing isn't just that all of these villains (a good half dozen in all) are so interesting and well-fleshed-out on their own, but that Mignola's tale links them all, from vampire to Nazi to mad monk to mad goddess to Russian witch/goddess, and it all just flows so well together. There's a sense of a tapestry behind all of this, and if Mignola hadn't figured out by this point just what Hellboy's actual destiny was and how he tied into all of this, well, his script certainly had this reader fooled on that score.
The only aspect of Wake The Devil that isn't an improvement on Seed of Destruction is the artwork, because it would have been very difficult to improve upon. Mignola does open the book up a little, shedding some sunlight and open spaces on the B.P.R.D. and getting them out of creaky mansions and swamps exclusively, but he maintains the mood with European castles, forgotten labs and haunted forests too. The change in colorists, from Chiarello and Hollingsworth to Sinclair, is also a slight change but can't really be called an improvement, as all are expert colorists and Sinclair's work here is excellent, perhaps a little stronger on the brighter, sunlit aspects than Hollingsworth or Chiarello might have been but otherwise just a continuation of the strong coloring we've already seen. In addition, Mignola has some spectacularly choreographed action scenes in Wake The Devil. Probably the most memorable is Hellboy's brief but powerful showdown with Giurescu, but his fight with Hecate or the Furies is equally impressive.
Hellbot Vol 2 This is definitely awesome. Continuing Mignola's story of the big red devil with a giant stone fist, volume two explores deeper into the mythos of Hellboy. A must read.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
