Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm [Paperback]

Mike Mignola (Author, Artist)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2004

At the end of World War II, American costumed-adventurer Lobster Johnson led an Allied attack on Hitler's space program, but not before the Nazis were able to launch the first man into space. Now, after sixty years, Hellboy is partnered with an artifical man - a Frankenstein's monster implanted by Bureau scientists with a bomb - to travel to the ruined castle in Norway to intercept the returning capsule, and its single passenger. . .the conqueror worm.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Winner of the 2002 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series, this story promotes Guillermo del Toro's upcoming film by reminding readers how fine Mignola is as a visual creator and how skilled he is at setting up outrageously melodramatic scenes to illustrate. Hellboy was a baby demon retrieved by psychic investigators who couldn't bring themselves to destroy the little imp. They brought him up to be a not-especially-secret agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. In this story, the massive, red-skinned hero is sent to investigate the ruins of a castle where Nazis conducted occult/scientific experiments, accompanied by his colleague Roger the Homunculus and supposedly aided by a blonde Austrian agent who isn't what she seems. They soon encounter undead Nazis, space aliens and the early 20th-century costumed crime fighter Lobster Johnson. Meanwhile, a space capsule launched from the castle in 1939 is about to land, containing an evil spirit from the stars. From here, the plot sails into even weirder territory. Readers who let themselves be carried along, however, can enjoy beautifully designed pages full of dark shadows and images of skulls and gargoyles. Hellboy might look silly on a midtown street corner at high noon, but it's hard to laugh at him as he fights monsters in dark gothic crypts draped with tattered swastika banners. Mignola counts on the power of the art to push his readers through thickets of absurdity until they come out the other side, into a state of delirious wonder. Sometimes he succeeds.
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Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; 2nd edition (February 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593070926
• ISBN-13: 978-1593070922
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 6.7 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mike Mignola is best known as the multiple award-winning creator, writer, and artist of "B.P.R.D." and "Hellboy", but has fostered several other projects like "The Amazing Screw-On Head" and "Baltimore" with Christopher Golden. Although he began working as a professional cartoonist in the early 1980s, drawing 'a little bit of everything for just about everybody' - including characters like Batman and Wolverine - he was also a production designer on the Disney film "Atlantis: The Lost Empire". Mignola also acted as a visual consultant to Guillermo del Toro on "Blade 2" and the film versions of Hellboy, which were broadly adapted by del Toro from the original comic series. Mike Mignola currently lives in southern California with his wife, daughter, and cat.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Hellboyyyyy!, August 23, 2011

By 

Surferofromantica "S.O.R." (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm (Paperback)

One long story throughout. Hellboy and Roger the homunculus investigate strange Nazi goings-ons in Austria, only to find out that there's a new Nazi conspiracy trying to re-connect with a horror set in motion in 1939 that aims to give Lovecraftian ectoplasmic elder gods earthly form so that they can bring about the end of the world (sure, why not?). There's a Rubezahl and the first appearance of the totally bitchin' Lobster Johnston (an early Captain America, to be sure), and some really spooky 61-year-dead talking skeletons. Another Kriegsaffe (number 10), captive executioner aliens executed, haunted scientist Herman Von Klempt's head floating in a jar with robot arms and electric zappers, an army of human experiments emerging from the jar after 61 years, talking bats and rats and snakes, new frog creatures, and another encounter with a shadowy Rasputin-like figure (actually, it is Rasputin), before the final confrontation with the evil ectoplasm. Great meeting between Rasputin, Hecate and Baba Yaga.

5.0 out of 5 stars Mignola is in rare, rare form. A Masterpiece., September 20, 2010

By 

paul a james - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm (Paperback)

As a lifelong comic fan (yes, I said comic) I would pick up books for art first and story after. It's how I got into Love And Rockets, how I discovered Frank Quitely and other great artists. Mignola on the the other hand i buy for writing first and foremost. Now I love his art and I feel honored to read a story that he has written and penned but his writing is unlike anyone else (David Mamet is the closest I think.) In The Conqueror Worm he shows why he is a master of the genre. I won't go into a storyline here but there are plot points that raise philosophical and scientific questions. He believe he does serious research to create these flights of fancy. And in Conqueror Worm he raises a doozy of an idea!
Giant "lifeforms" living in deep space that look like jellyfish and swallow worlds. Creatures that seek nothingness and despise the light of life. The battle between a world that lives albeit with different life than humans (a new era of man) vs. darkness and emptiness forever. Mike put his foot all in this one. An excellent book. In fact collect them all, I have!

4.0 out of 5 stars What I expected, September 9, 2010

By 

Ian Bain - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm (Paperback)

The glue for the binding was undone, but that has happened to me with two other Hellboy collections I have purchased in store. Other than that no issues. Good read.