Category: hellboy universe

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Hellboy and the B.P.R.D: The Beast of Vargu and Her Fatal Hour

This is a review of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Beast of Vargu and its sequel, Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: Her Fatal Hour, both written by Mike Mignola. For the past six months I’ve been reviewing B.P.R.D. (aka Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) titles – you can read the last one here – and while I enjoy them, I like changing things up.

Please note that these tales take place in 1962 and 1979, so none of the current members of the B.P.R.D. are present. These are stories of Hellboy when he was a member of the B.P.R.D. He quit because they put a bomb in the brain of Roger, his golem buddy, in a graphic novel I haven’t reviewed yet.

In The Beast of Vargu, Hellboy travels to Romania to meet the Wolf Man – er, the Beast of Vargu, a creature that looks like an enormous wolf with wings. The Beast kicks Hellboy in the teeth, which is strange, because normally Hellboy is the one who does all the teeth-kicking. Background, for the unwary/uninitiated: Hellboy may or may not be the Anti-Christ – he periodically snaps off his horns, which regrow – but part of his gimmick is that he’s the monster that monsters are scared of.

Not this time. A bruised and bloodied Hellboy is found by a young Roma woman. She takes him to her cigarette-smoking mother, who treats Hellboy to a puppet show wherein a puppet Hellboy and a puppet Beast of Vargu fight, but this time Hellboy kills it. Do you think the Beast is really dead? That’s a rhetorical question; of course it’s dead!

Next we have the sequel, Her Fatal Hour, when the no-longer young Roma woman summons Hellboy to help out with her psychotic suitor, aka Satan, who comes crawling down the chimney at midnight to claim her soul. Hey, it happens. Hellboy pummels the Evil One wearing his host’s pink, flowered bathrobe. We also learn that Hellboy has a High Noon poster in his bedroom, which totally fits.

I enjoy the shorter Hellboy stories, which all follow the same template: Hellboy beats the crap out of an exotic monster. Sometimes nice and simple is best. Recommended for those who like horror, the occult, the Hellboy universe, and Devils who come crawling down chimneys.

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B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine

This is a review of B.P.R.D.: The Universal Machine. Read my reviews of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth volumes. The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense consists of Abe Sapien, fish-man; Ben Daimio, dead man walking; Johan Kraus, ghost in the machine; Liz Sherman, fire starter; Roger, homunculus stewed in horse manure (R.I.P.). We also have Dr. Kate Corrigan, academic, who in this volume takes center stage.

The death of Roger the Golem continues to have repercussions. Dr. Corrigan travels to Ableben, a charming small town in France to meet a collector, who may have the obscure book needed to bring Roger back. The collector is an odd fellow, as collectors often are. He shows off his collection, including a stuffed baboon that people in the Middle Ages thought a werewolf, along with the replica of a magic ring that rests upon his finger. True to B.P.R.D. form, the town is full of actual werewolves.

While Kate travels to France, the remaining members of the B.P.R.D. do their version of sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories. Daimio’s story is the standout, a tale of blood and murder as he and his team are slaughtered in Bolivia by the minions of a jaguar god. Not to be undone, Krauss tells us how he fell in love with a female ghost, and used her grieving husband to keep seeing her. Interestingly, Daimio is the only one who correctly calls the story pathetic.

Meanwhile, Kate is stuck in the collector’s shop, which is bigger on the inside than the outside and which seems to have faded from our reality, leaving her companion stranded in a phone booth surrounded by werewolves. A dwarf and a group of aristocrat vampires join the party. The collector gets pushy, as collectors often do when arguing over prices. Kate cuts off negotiations – as well as the finger with the magic ring – and feeds it to the dwarf, who transforms into a demon, and that’s when the shit hits the fan.

Recommended for fans of occult comics, Hellboy, and the X-Files!

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B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame

This is a review of B.P.R.D.: The Black Flame, the fifth volume of this series. Read my reviews of the first, second, third, and fourth volumes to catch up. B.P.R.D. stands for Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, and its members consist of Liz (firestarter), Roger (golem incubated in horse manure), Johann (friendly ghost), Abe (fishman), and Ben (dead man walking).

In this volume, the war on frogs continues. By frogs, I mean enormous frogmen. Roger the golem has become a tough guy, just like his idol Captain Ben Daimio. Both have heads hard as rocks, so they have a lot in common. Liz meets a mysterious figure in her dreams who stuffs cryptic warning notes down her throat, which she spits out upon awakening. Abe Sapien mopes about his undead wife, and then rejoins the team. Not a lot happens with Johann in this volume, but his time is coming. Oh, and a team member dies.

However, the star of this volume has to be Landis Pope, a corporate CEO who dons a cape and tights – a fantasy of corporate CEOs everywhere, although it’s unclear if they’d be superheroes or villains – and starts referring to himself as The Black Flame. He trains a pair of captured frogmen to talk and releases them into the frogs’ lair in the hopes that they will worship him.

Or something like that. Mr. Pope is out of his mind, so it’s tough to tell what he wants. Why would any sane human being want to wipe out humanity and rule over a bunch of frogmen? The Black Flame’s plan works, sort of. The frogs tell their frog friends, who use him to summon a creature that looks like it’s out of Pink Floyd’s The Wall movie (art courtesy of the great Guy Davis). Afterwards, the Frog Men keep the Black Flame alive as their prisoner, just in case the monster he’s just summoned wants lunch.

I suppose there’s a lesson to be learned from this, but I’m unsure what it is. Frogmen are smarter than you think, maybe? Anyway, another great entry in a great series, and as such highly recommended.

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B.P.R.D.: The Dead

This is a review of B.P.R.D.: The Dead. A short recap: this is the fourth volume of the series. You can read my reviews of the first three volumes here, here, and here. B.P.R.D. stands for Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, whose members number Liz Sherman (Firestarter), Roger the Golem, Johann (medium), and Abe Sapien (fishman).

In this volume, the B.P.R.D. gets a new member! Ben Daimio has a simple origin story – he wakes up in a body bag. Daimio’s dislikes include being dead, people with triple-digit IQs, and Liz Sherman. To be fair, in Liz’s case the feeling is mutual. Daimio’s face is mutilated, which might give horror fans a clue as to his real origins.

The B.P.R.D. are trying to contain the frog monsters from the previous volume, who are spreading like wildfire. Since the froggies are heading west, so does the team. They move to a base in Colorado, only to discover it’s occupied by more than stray critters and mice. Gunter is a German scientist who says he’s been trapped in the base since it closed in the 1950’s. Of course he’s lying; Gunter has seen Raiders of the Lost Ark and knows all the cool holy relics are stored in military compounds.

Missing from the action is Abe Sapien, who stays behind in Rhode Island, where he meets his wife – or maybe it’s his ex-wife. It’s complicated. Anyway, she’s dead now, but unlike most of the monsters in this volume, she doesn’t want to bring about Ragnarok. She just wants her husband (that’s Abe, sort of) to stay with her.

Back in Colorado, Johann starts acting strangely as the citadel’s ghosts – all German scientists – awaken. Gunter has a plan that involves the Spear of Destiny and opening a gateway to Heaven. Unfortunately, Gunter didn’t watch the part of Raiders when they tried to use to ark. His plan works, sort of. He creates a Gunter angel, and his flapping skin forms the creature’s wings.

Great work from Mike Mignola (story), John Arcudi (story), and Guy Davis (art). A special shout-out goes to Guy Davis’ wonderfully creepy monster designs. Recommended for fans of Hellboy, horror comics, and the X-Files.