Panya: The Mummy's Curse

[thwhtGuardian]

This is a book that I desperately wanted to enjoy because Panya the Mummy was one of my favorite supporting characters that Mignola came up with during his run on B.P.R.D. so a solo story for her is right up my ally...but this book just suffers from a serious case of prequel-itis. Rather than giving us a moody, ambiguous monster story we are instead "treated" to a very perfunctory feeling origin story taking us step by step how Panya went from an ordinary girl to a living mummy. And while a by the numbers "secret" origin story can sometimes be enjoyable if you can get past the reliance of the usual tropes and just take it for what it is, but for Panya you can't even really do that because so much of what makes Panya work as a character is her mystery and the tension of how who she was and how she came to be was so artfully doled out in dribs and drabs. Sadly, this kind of development is something of a pattern for Roberson's work with the Hellboy Universe; he has a habit of telling rather than showing with everything just spelled out too cleanly instead of being open to the reader's interpretation. It's safe...and frankly a little boring. There's nothing offensively bad here, it's all well written but it's just not very exciting which is a death note for me.

[Kirby101]

I liked it a little more than you, but I don't disagree with your assessment.

[thwhtGuardian]

I liked it a little more than you, but I don't disagree with your assessment.

I will say that the art was fantastic, so I'll likely stick around but storywise it just came across as flat.

[thwhtGuardian]

I'm still sticking with this, but the pacing better pick up as it was beyond plodding here and at the same time it felt really disjointed from the first issue. On top of all that there is so much telling rather than showing.

[Kirby101]

What did I read? When is this compared to last ish? Didn't the Temple get destroyed last issue? Panya is still a servant to the same woman? I have no idea what anyone is talking about.

[thwhtGuardian]

What did I read? When is this compared to last ish? Didn't the Temple get destroyed last issue? Panya is still a servant to the same woman? I have no idea what anyone is talking about.

Yeah, it felt like we skipped an issue. It was just so lacking in context and ultimately it didn't move the plot forward or tell us anything new about Panya.