B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth vol. 4 — The Devil’s Engine & The Long Death

The first story in this collection, “The Devil’s Engine,” is another good bit of supernatural action consistent with the series’ high standards.  It picks up from where Agent Devon and the homeless “psychic” Kate Fenix were left at the end of vol. 2 as the latter tries to bring the former back to B.P.R.D. headquarters, only to encounter a giant earthquake and three very hungry crustacean monsters along the way.  Artist Tyler Crook makes the action flow well look good while regular writers Arcudi and Mignola also give us some hints for upcoming stories and tell us exactly why Kate shot Abe.  Personally, I find her reason to be quite believable.  So we’ve got a strong first half here, but the second… I have issues with it.  It’s not exactly bad, but I can’t get into these issues without a major spoiler regarding the fate of one of the characters involved in it.  In all honesty I was expecting a bit more from the creators than what we got here.

(Spoilers after the break.)

“The Long Death” brings us back to Capt. Benjamin Daimio, one of my favorite characters in the series.  He was first introduced way back in vol. 4 of “Plague of Frogs” — coincidentally, Arcudi’s debut as the regular co-writer of the series and the point where it all started to click for me — and made an immediate impression.  Daimio was clearly intended to represent a “military” mindset given his special forces background, but instead of clashing with the untrained B.P.R.D. personnel he got on with them pretty well from the start.  It wasn’t the way you’d expect this kind of introduction to play out and it wound up endearing him to me immediately as a result.

All that came to an end in vol. 8 when his were-panther curse manifested itself and the man wound up slaughtering a good portion of the organization.  Most notably, he took out the new body that had been grown for Johann’s spirit.  After having been confined to living in a containment suit for decades, the organization’s medium was extremely upset at having lost his new physical form.  Since then, we’ve seen numerous indications that he has been planning some kind of revenge for this act.

Now he has his chance.  After a series of mysterious disappearances are reported in the same area of British Columbia where Abe told the organization that he took out a giant monster alone (back in vol. 1 of “Hell on Earth”), Johann offers to lead a team up there to investigate.  Having also noted that Abe took another trip up there a few weeks after the incident, he realizes something must be up.  That Daimio is there is no surprise to the reader, but it would appear that his curse has finally robbed him of all of his humanity.

At least, that’s the idea Arcudi and Mignola want to convey here.  The problem is that I don’t think they communicated it all that well.  When Abe encountered Daimio again, he seemed to be pretty much in control with the only thing stopping him from coming back was a sense of shame at what he had done to the B.P.R.D.  It felt like the setup for what could eventually be his redemption and maybe even a return to a regular role in the series.

That possibility is cut off at the knees as Daimio, in his were-panther form, attacks the team sent to investigate and kills a few while mutilating the ranking officer.  Now, we’re meant to think that this shows him to be an out-of-control beast that needs to be put down, but I think the creators made a very basic error here.  We never see Daimio in his human form “lose control” or give any sense that he’s a danger to others.  Having him do all of the killing in the were-panther form gave me a sense of cognitive dissonance in that even though it was the man, it still felt like it wasn’t — that it was “the monster” instead of the man.

A few scenes of him trying to restrain himself and failing would’ve solved the problem and maybe even convinced me that this good character deserved to die.  We didn’t get that here, so when his death finally comes it doesn’t have that sense of great tragic loss that the creators were clearly shooting for.  Instead, it feels like Daimio was written out solely for dramatic effect and to underline the fact that this “Hell on Earth” world is a harsh place where happy endings are not in the cards for everyone!  A mechanical development necessitated by the plot rather than character.

At least it has some great art.  This is the first I’ve seen of artist James Harren and he nails the creepy and weird atmosphere of the series right from the get-go with Johann’s vision of a mass of eyballs, teeth and tentacles springing forth from his suit in the B.P.R.D.’s cafeteria.  He also gives us a suitably haggard Daimio and vicious were-panther, with the fight scenes between Johann’s possessed bodies and the Wendigo being the visual high point of the volume.

Though “The Long Death” is disappointing, it’s not a total loss.  Of course, even though Daimio dies here, there’s always the possibility he could come back in some new form down the road.  Personally, now that Hellboy is in Hell, I’m hoping that he’ll be encountering the man for the first time down there.  It may be a fruitless wish, but in spite of Arcudi and Mignola’s efforts here I’m not ready to let the character go just yet.