Koshchei in Hell

With the Mignolaverse having transitioned over to hardcovers for its collected editions, I realize that not every title justifies that treatment or cover price.  That said, if one that’s written entirely by Mike Mignola and illustrated partly by him, but mostly by Ben Stenbeck, can’t justify the format, then what can?  That’s the case we have with “Koshchei in Hell” which collects the four-issue miniseries of the same name plus the “Sir Edward Grey:  Acheron” one-shot.  The latter is a prequel to the former as the man once known as Witchfinder faces off against an old enemy, acknowledges a new threat and has to make a decision about his future.  Before he can do that last thing, he needs to let Koshchei know that Pluto is coming back into Hell.  Where the former warrior was once content to read and drink the rest of his life away, he realizes now that there is no escaping his original calling.

As the main “Hellboy” saga has since wrapped up, Mignolaverse stories have been about two things:  Adventures that its characters had before the end, and adventures they’ve had after it.  This “Koshchei” series is obviously about the latter and it’s all about the last days of two of its more prominent supporting characters (and several minor ones).  It does provide worthy wrap-ups to Koshchei and Sir Edward’s stories with the welcome amount of weirdness you’d expect to see from them as well.  Both stories look every bit as good as you’d expect them to with Mignola and Stenbeck handling the art chores as well.  It’s all enough to make me say that this is a collection that will definitely be appreciated by existing fans of this particular fictional universe.  Which is good because I can’t imagine anyone else finding something here to invest themselves in, or be willing to pay the hardcover tax for it.