World Famous Comics: Hellboy Volume 6 : Strange Places
Hellboy Volume 6 : Strange Places
By: Mike Mignola Publisher: Dark Horse Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Dark Horse Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 152 Publication Date: May 10, 2006
Product Description: Mike Mignola returns with his first new Hellboy collection since 2002's Conqueror Worm. After leaving the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, Hellboy's travels take him briefly to Africa, then for a two-year stint at the bottom of the ocean. An ancient witch doctor, a giant fish woman and keeper of the secret history of the universe force Hellboy to either accept his role in the coming apocalypse, or have that role stolen from him. Weird undersea creatures and talking lions populate this turning-point adventure, which reveals secrets buried since Hellboy's very creation. This volume collects Harvey-and-Eisner-award winner Mike Mignola's Hellboy series The Third Wish and The Island with over a dozen unused pages and a new epilogue.
Read all of them, then read them again I love the drawings, the characters and the storyline. And even more the questions it brings. Soul, evil, love, destiny, God, "Why am I here?"
It isn't a distraction from the most important things in my life, its a chance to see them through another lens.
Mignola's Hellboy at his very best Hellboy is one of the stalwarts of comics today - since its creation in the early 1990s, Mignola's work on the book, from his witty, well-researched writing to his deceptively simplistic, blocky artwork, has never dipped in quality. Indeed, in this sixth volume of Hellboy, Strange Places, we find Mignola at the very height of his narrative and artistic powers.
Having left the BPRD (Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense), Hellboy travels to Africa, where he eventually ends up in the depths of the sea and runs afoul of the Bog Roosh, a dreaded sea monster, and three mermaids, and is made prisoner. After achieving his freedom (I won't tell you how), Hellboy washes ashore on an island that has become a ship's graveyard and holds a castle harboring dark secrets - secrets related not only to the occult origins of the earth, but also something very close to Hellboy.
While Hellboy is, without question, a sort of postmodern horror comic, Strange Places is especially powerful in its ability to merge and re-interpret fairytale and folk motifs (mermaids, etc.) as well as literary influences (Mignola notes that the latter parts of the volume were inspired by famed horror author William Hope Hodgson). It is by turns moody and jovial, light and heavy, violent and spirited. Not to be missed.
Graphic SF Reader The final Hellboy volume is the weakest of them, so far. It is split into two longer stories. In the first, Hellboy has some submarine work to do, as a seawitch tries to get some mermaids to given him a direct infusion of iron via his cranium.
The second takes him to Africa to deal with a witch doctor.
A little more is seen about his background, as well.
Anung Un Rama - The Key and the Crown Anyone familiar with Hellboy knows he has been fighting Nazis and demons and other, more bizarre, beasts since his inception back in WW II. The problem with all those battles is that they really had no personal meaning because, in the end, they never really addressed the truth that Hellboy fought inside. He has collided with Rasputin and stopped what Rasputin thought was the end-all, sure, and he has turned aside the temptation to take the world and pave the sky with blood. Still, there are the inner demons within the demon that even he does not understand; the hand and the key, Anung Un Rama/ Sancti Abjura - the true name he wears, Ogdru Eb Jurhad - the seven crawling in their abyssal skyline, and all the fights he has fought do not address the fact that demons keep talking about his future and that he was made - not born. In this lifetime he has been walking in a man's world, too, doing a man's deeds and hoping this was enough to redeem the humankind. He has even been filing his horns and courting the dominion of love, hoping beyond hope that these things could be his. Still, he is no man no matter what he wants and the other books have explained that as they have battled little evils and bigger demons while expunging answers in the aftermaths. Now, it has come to see the broader strokes and this book starts setting up that sight.
The Third Wish In The Third Wish, Hellboy find himself in Africa seeking answers as to why he exists. He seeks council from a holyman, and in the process he finds himself ensnared in another battled that seeks to claim his soul and, respectively, his hand. This leads him into the depths with three Merfolk, all wanting a wish from a seahag called the Bog Roosh, and it is here, in the cave of the Bog Roosh, that Hellboy finds out how the things he has seen and the other things, Hecate and Baba Yaga amongst those, play out as pieces in a game that can undo the world - and more.
In The Island even more is uncovered, explaining everything that Hellboy is and even more in an attempt to bring fans up to the place they need to be so they can see the coming tide. This is possibly the one story that covers every angle that could be covered with Hellboy, telling of the dragon and the hand and the things that came before. While I cannot say much on the subject without giving something beautifully-conceived away, I can say that this is one of the most important stories made that covers what Hellboy is and what the prophecy is all about. It also shows that Mignola wants to make things move; he has made things and he has contorted reality and now he is taking the three major stories he has produced and begin the motion of a clock he has always meant to tick.
For anyone that notices something different about this book, it is because there is something starkly different. This book isn't the same "Nazi-fighting" that Hellboy normally finds himself in but is instead the beginning of something new, heralding "the something" coming. While it didn't seem like it at the time, a new series has appeared to continue this, Darkness Calls, and shows that Mignola isn't becoming tired of Hellboy or that he wants to try something different that involves a new character. Mignola has simply been doing other things and has, for some time now, been trying to build Hellboy up to where an audience understands his plight and how much he has at risk. Without his strides into the realm of mortality we wouldn't know about his friendship with Abe or his kinship with other people in the B.P.R.D., or the fact that he really does love Liz Sherman. That took a lot of Nazi-bashing and a lot of demons mentioning who he was to get through to us all, droning at the fact that Hellboy is meant for something bigger. And now something bigger is at the door, knocking.
For fans of Mignola, you know what you want and you know how Mignola tells a story. He builds pieces upon pieces, hiding things in the open as he layers around them, and he likes to use fairytales to make things seem timeless and beautiful. That was what the Bog Roosh was, and that was something of what The Island reflected. Moreso, however, it was all build, wanting to see how things are set into motion. For anyone keeping score, Mignola doesn't disappoint and this comes HIGHLY recommended because it really does serve a purpose aside from the stories themselves.
Good Hellboy right here... Ok...I just finished this one "and it is good" - a quote from Spinal Tap (If you don't know what Spinal Tap is, get a life and buy it) Mingnola has done a great job and continues to please the masses with his quality comics and movies...If you have not read this and are a fan of "Hellboy" comics get this...it is a trip to say the least.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
