Hellboy: The Beast of Vargu and Others

“Hellboy” isn’t driven anymore by an epic story about the title character’s role in the end of the world.  Instead, creator Mike Mignola is free to give us more stories about the character’s adventures prior to his death.  “The Beast of Vargu and Others” serves up four stories in that vein.  Three of which are quite good.  If you’re wondering which one is the ringer, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that it’s the one co-written by Scott Allie.

While the writer has occasionally done some quality work in the Mignolaverse, most of it can be readily classified as mediocre.  This includes its big finale, “The Devil You Know.”  I’m not just bringing up Allie now to harp on my problems with him.  No, I’m bringing him up because it bears mentioning that he was effectively run out of the industry several months back when his abusive and predatory actions towards women were brought into the spotlight.  Again.

By that I mean, Allie had already been demoted within Dark Horse when these actions, usually fueled by alcohol, were made public.  It wasn’t until further details became clear about the awfulness of his actions earlier this year that the company, and Mignola specifically, cut ties with him.  I’m not sad to see him go, and the story he co-wrote here doesn’t change my feelings at all.

“Saturn Returns” is the longest story in the volume at three issues.  Its focus is split between Hellboy investigating some deaths that might be monster-related in New Hampshire, and Liz Sherman adjusting badly as someone in the B.P.R.D.’s care.  As Hellboy works with the F.B.I. and some local cops to get to the bottom of things, Liz escapes from the organization’s base and runs away to New York.  She may not have a penny to her name, but she’s sociable and has her pyrokinetic abilities to fall back on.  I’m sure she won’t get on the bad side of some criminals while she’s there.

This is definitely a story.  It has a beginning, middle, and end with some action-y bits that even involve ghoul-fighting along the way.  What it really doesn’t have is a reason to exist.  Liz’s early days with the B.P.R.D. have already been shown before and we don’t get any new insight into the character with this story.  The same can be said of Hellboy’s adventures, which are as bland as you’ll see in the Mignolaverse.  Christopher Mitten turns in some solid work on this tale, but he doesn’t really get a chance to draw anything truly weird or interesting.  It’s an ordinary story about ordinary people doing ordinary things that also happens to have a ghoul in it.  And Hellboy.

The good news is that the stories surrounding “Saturn Returns” are much better and read like vintage “Hellboy” adventures.  That is to say they’ve got great art and stories that have some interesting weirdness and twists to them.  “The Beast of Vargu” is a good example of this as it finds Mignola reunited with Duncan Fegredo to tell the story of the time Hellboy met up with a duke who had pledged his soul to Hell and the gypsies who helped him stop the demon’s rampage.  Except, it’s the gypsies who do most of the stopping as a result of their storytelling and puppetry skills.  Demons, monsters getting punched, weirdness with a twist, and expectedly fantastic art courtesy of Fegredo.  It’s everything a proper “Hellboy” short story should be.

“Krampusnacht” is just as good, if not better, as it sees Hellboy pitted against Santa’s demonic counterpart.  Only for the monster to find out that Krampus is tired of his job and just wants to go back to Hell.  Some fighting ensues and we learn a bit more about the Krampus legend at the end in a way that almost pushes the story towards goofiness.  That it maintains a suitably creepy and somber mood throughout is down to the excellently moody and detailed artwork from Adam Hughes.  He’s an artist who doesn’t do a whole lot of regular comics work these days, but he always manages to impress when he does.

Last up is “The Return of the Lambton Worm” wherein Hellboy and Professor Bruttenholm find the real-life resting place of John Lambton and the “wyrm” he is said to have slew.  One moved cross later and Bruttenholm is forced to fend off the wyrm while Hellboy has another one of those encounters where a demon tries to get him to embrace his bad side as the Beast of the Apocalypse.  Yes, it’s a slight story, and the shortest one in the volume at six pages.  It does have the benefit of being enlivened by great art from Ben Stenbeck, which keeps it ahead of “Saturn Returns.”

All told, the quality of the stories here make for a halfway good “Hellboy” anthology.  That actually places it in the bottom half of such things as the best “Hellboy” collections (at least in the early days) were the anthologies.  The good stories here are still enough to make this worth a read for dedicated Mignolaverse fans, and “Saturn Returns” is just more boring than offensively bad.  At least we won’t have more stories of its kind to look forward to either with Hellboy or the B.P.R.D.