Customer Reviews

Hellboy, Vol. 6: Strange Places

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Mike Mignola is taking a breaking from drawing Hellboy, and as the last pure Mignola Hellboy book we're going to be seeing for a while, this is a real treat. Collecting the two issue mini-series "The Third Wish" and the two part "The Island" along with a new epilogue for "The Island" and bonus material, this is the thickest Hellboy yet. "The Third Wish", which takes place directly after the last Hellboy story, Conqueror Worm, takes place almost entirely underwater and is a great read. It gives perspective on how other supernatural beings view Hellboy and his place in the world. However, "The Island" is where this book really picks up. After spending a good chunk of time underwater, Hellboy washes up on a mysterious island and is soon caught up in the long dead struggle between a priest, a heretic, and something much, much worse. The Island also gives insight to Hellboy's right hand, and even the creation of the Ogdru Jahad. With this addition of an epilogue and additional sketches, this book is a great buy for any Hellboy fan, and I recommend it fully.

This is definitely vintage Mignola. Poor Hellboy is still trying to run from his destiny, but the further he runs the closer that dreaded destiny becomes.

There is much about the story in "The Third Wish" that is quite sweet despite its dark underwater character. But when Hellboy finally washes up to shore after having been down below for two years, the story in "The Island" becomes much darker and even more apocalyptic than the series had already been tending.

As always, I'm mesmerized by Mignola's art work and hope that any subsequent "Hellboy" offerings drawn by others will have this same power. But in the long run, I'm the most fascinated by the character of Hellboy himself. Fate versus free will--it wasn't until "Hellboy" that I realized such deep, essential concepts could be more than adequately dealt with in a comic book or graphic novel.

I came to the original "Hellboy" comics via the 2004 motion picture of the same name. In my opinion, the film is a masterpiece in its own right. But the character of Hellboy in Mignola's original comics is much, much deeper and more iconic. If it wasn't for Mike Mignola's genius in creating such a complex, complicated, and conflicted character there would have been no film for me to fall in love with.

The priority of genius must go to Mignola and "Strange Places" is a prime example of that genius. Highly recommended.

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.

Hellboy goes to Africa to meet a strange wandering sorcerer who sends him to battle sea hag Bog Roosh and her three misguided grand-daughter mermaids. They capture Hellboy and two are foolishly destroyed by their monster of a grandmother, who needs to wipe Hellboy off the earth to prevent the apocalypse, blah blah blah (everybody is so worried about the right hand of doom). Wonderful horror, flooded tombs, fate and destiny, the evil bones of a drowned werewolf bent on revenge against Hellboy, whales, bells, the eye of Baba Yaga, eldritch forest spirits doomed by Hellboy's capture, besotted hog-man Gruagach (who only dreams of revenge against Hellboy) at council, not to mention the souls of dead sailors in their jars. Caribbean pirate ghosts and Hecate reveling and debating with Hellboy, a dead heretic revived recounting the ancient creation of the race of humans, demons and elder gods, including the formation of the right hand of doom itself, preserved for a time by the Hyperboreans (crazy, all-over-the-place story, this), and the spectre's ultimate reduction from a demon to a ghoul re-executed by a long-dead Inquisitor (shades of witch hunter Henry Hood here). Wow! Mignola includes illustrations from a pirate ship graveyard story that he was never able to finish, showing Hellboy battling the moss monsters. Righteous! No word balloons, but lots of reading between the inked and early pencil sketch lines (possibly one of the coolest things I've seen in the Hellboy books so far).

"Hellboy, Volume 6: Strange Places" collects two past Hellboy mini-series: "The Third Wish" and "The Island", and they're both great reads. The former is pretty much a traditional Hellboy story, as Hellboy gets mixed up with some creepy mermaids (not the pretty, fetching kind of mermaids usually seen in popular culture); and the latter is more of an epic history of the Hellboy world rather than a specific horror story. But, don't worry, it's a fascinating history, with more than enough creepiness to satisfy Hellboy fans. As in past compilations, there are many value-added bonus materials in this collection: additional story sequences, sketches, a meaty introduction, etc. This is an enjoyable volume all around.

The sixth collection of Mike Mignola's incredible HELLBOY series, STRANGE PLACES collects two separate two-issue mini-series, THE THIRD WISH and THE ISLAND, along with a brand-new epilogue, the never-before-seen pages from an aborted version of THE ISLAND, and a sketchbook section, along with Mignola's notes about the creation of the issues.

After quitting the B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense), Hellboy gets kidnapped by a trio of mermaids and taken "Unda de sea!", to meet his fate at the hands of The Bog Roosh, a very fishy, VERY angry Mer-thing. Creepy sea-life abounds, insults and fists are hurled, and much ado is made of Hellboy's destiny as "Anung Un-Rama", the harbinger of the apocalypse.
Many fishy butts are kicked, let me tell you!

After a whopping TWO YEARS sleeping with the fishes, Hellboy washes ashore, drinks with skeletons, meets some old fiends, and learns all he never wanted to know about the secret history of life, the universe, good, evil, and giant Lovecraftian Gods.
Secrets are revealed.
Futures foretold.
Battles foreshadowed.
And, as always, Mignola manages not only to entertain, but also to creep the hell outta me.
Leave the nightlight on.....

Mike Mignola has done it again with an excellent addition to the series. The mythos of Hellboy grows deeper and Mignola reveals some of his frustrations and sidetracks in creating the seminal character. Included are the failed rough drafts for the second story-an entire narrative scuttled because it wasn't quite right. Attention to detail like this make the noir adventures of Hellboy that much more enjoyable.

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.

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.

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.