Hellboy in Hell #9–10

[Harry McTell]

Can't wait for #10!!!
I've absolutely loved the HBiH series.
MM at his best.
Will be sad to see it end...

[Penoy]

Yeah, bracing myself for the last issue. That cover to 10 is amazing.

[zerodemon]

Oh my gosh.

What does it all mean? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

What a great issue.

For those of you wanting to understand a little better, follow the link to Mignola's "The Magician and the Snake."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5604593/this-...-read-all-day/

[borntohula]

Oh my gosh.

What does it all mean? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

What a great issue.

For those of you wanting to understand a little better, follow the link to Mignola's "The Magician and the Snake."

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5604593/this-...-read-all-day/

Cool! I did not know about that story. While not a Hellboy (?) story, it further solidified my thoughts on the ending, while also expanding it.

[Penoy]

im dying here!!! LCs doesnt open till an hour!

[LobsterJohnson]

Wow. That was an incredible issue.

[Junior Wormwood]

Wow. That was an incredible issue.

Indeed. Feeling rather emotional on this end. I've read it three times now, and still can't put it down.

SPOILERS BELOW

Pouring over those last pages, I'm searching my memory for any sort of hidden meanings. The characters on the beach and the one in the cage... Is this harkening back to something? Bits of it make me think of wandering back through Africa, then to Harry Middleton's house. And after reading Mark's column on Multiversity, and seeing the magician statue and the shapes... Has Hellboy truly gone over into the realm of myth? Maybe this is the obvious interpretation, and I'm a bit blinded by the emotion of it all at the moment to fully grasp it. Beautiful stuff.

[Joker]

wandering back through Africa, then to Harry Middleton's house.

I thought these, too.

There's a lot to unpack here, but my take away is it isn't really supposed to be that literal of an ending. It's symbolic for "an ending." Hellboy can't die as the magician did, because he's already dead. But if you look at that story, I think it represents how Hellboy, or Mignola himself feels in that moment.

[Junior Wormwood]

I thought these, too.

There's a lot to unpack here, but my take away is it isn't really supposed to be that literal of an ending. It's symbolic for "an ending." Hellboy can't die as the magician did, because he's already dead. But if you look at that story, I think it represents how Hellboy, or Mignola himself feels in that moment.

Well said. After pondering over for the past several hours, I have no doubt that it is supposed to be ambiguous. And I love this about Mignola's work. I remember him saying years back that the beauty of fairy tales and myths is that they don't have to give you all of the details, all of the reasons why things work the way they do. This is what keeps them eternal in the face of changing and evolving science.

I'm so looking forward to the library edition of HBiH.

[DannyBoy7783]

I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing that HiH went on longer. I expected, initially, a bit more exploration and gritty reality but in the end I would say I am satisfied. I think Hell is appropriately whimsical and terrible and not totally Earth-like. There's an order and sophistication to its chaos that I find unexpectedly charming. It is exactly how it should be.

I absolutely love that Hellboy did, in fact, become the beast of the apocalypse...just not the one everyone expected. Maybe that's an obvious twist, I'm not sure, but I constantly felt myself wondering where this story would go over the past ten issues. At first I found it very difficult to accept Hellboy's physical death, then he became this somewhat weak/sickly and confused wanderer. But in the end he rose to the occasion and became the destroyer of a (under)world.

His character has been on such a long journey and all he ever wanted was to be left alone. He just wanted to be a man and live his life. I hope now, at the end, he can finally do that.

(And it was left just ambiguous enough to allow for a glimmer of hope that this isn't really the end. Just enough of the old Hell has survived to make you wonder what could happen next. What of the army being forged in HiH #2? And what of the Ogdru Jahad and Ogdru Hem...and Pluto...still so much left in play.)

I was introduced to Hellboy with the release of The Third Wish #1 (still my favorite cover) and have been captivated by it ever since. Bravo Mr. Mignola.

[zerodemon]

I think there are several ways of deconstructing the whole "Magician and the Snake" ending. In the most literal sense, we could see it as a silent death for Hellboy, but that doesn't ring as true.

Questions...

Is "The Magician and the Snake" now canonical in Hellboy's Hell? Is the suggestion that Angus Weir was The Magician? Will Pluto make an appearance later on?

I think it's probably true that there is more metaphor in Hellboy coming across the shapes. I think the suggestion is that Mignola is The Magician, and Hellboy was his snake, and they've spent a good old time together while that life lasted, but now it is over.

Of course, there's a more interesting possibility here... Is Hell the place that the Magician sent the shapes away to? Are the shapes that Hellboy finds about to return to earth to some other magician who has overextended his power, and will Hellboy be coming along with them? The issue does end with the words that first greeted Hellboy when he arrived on Earth as a baby. Have we reached the point in Hellboy's hero's tale where the hero returns from the underworld?

[mscorley]

I finished it! Its over, its sad, I'm sad, its so melancholy but good.


SPOILERS


The one thing I didn't like, or, missed, was Edward Grey not showing up in the end some how.
Did he say he was going to help Hellboy do his final task and the ghost told Ed it was going to cost him something great. I forget exactly...

I have more questions, like about Pluto and what it all means in the end, and what the repercusions on earth are, and is the Ogdru Jahad ended in any way tied with this or is that a whole nother topic, and so on.. but I figured those things would be partly unanswered.

I'm mainly just disappointed Ed didn't pop up even as a talking point.

[borntohula]

Read screw on head last night. Whole book felt like it took place in the hell of hellboy in hell. Simillar characters (same?), the skull with a skull lid, numbered dissected bodies, the snake and the circle, cube and triangle marking the end.

Anything thats been discussed?

Perhaps it ties into Mike saying something in the lines with Hellboy's hell more less how he sees things in his head.

Regardless. To me, the ending is more felt rather than understood.

As for Edward Grey. Perhaps he'll see his own line of stories similar to how hell on earth took place in BPRD instead of in the main hellboy book. Or Frankenstein's venture underground.

[Kees_L]

Indeed. Feeling rather emotional on this end. I've read it three times now, and still can't put it down.

SPOILERS BELOW

Pouring over those last pages, I'm searching my memory for any sort of hidden meanings. The characters on the beach and the one in the cage... Is this harkening back to something? Bits of it make me think of wandering back through Africa, then to Harry Middleton's house. And after reading Mark's column on Multiversity, and seeing the magician statue and the shapes... Has Hellboy truly gone over into the realm of myth? Maybe this is the obvious interpretation, and I'm a bit blinded by the emotion of it all at the moment to fully grasp it. Beautiful stuff.

I thought these, too.

There's a lot to unpack here, but my take away is it isn't really supposed to be that literal of an ending. It's symbolic for "an ending." Hellboy can't die as the magician did, because he's already dead. But if you look at that story, I think it represents how Hellboy, or Mignola himself feels in that moment.

!SERIOUS SPOILERAGE!

I'm feeling actually amazed at how beautiful this comic is. Amazed once more both as all over again.
I do agree that the magician bit is more about Mignola than about Hellboy, since to me it seems analogous to a storytellers' voice bringing a story to a close.
As how miss Kate Mignola did all those years ago.

And the moving out of Hell past the statue into the cobweb Middleton house seems like the wandering farewell of a spirit.

But I'm struck by how fluid and how profound Hellboy ends it all. Wìth Hellboy completing his rejection of the fate laid out for him, by taking on his fated shape for putting out hellfire once and for all, with breaking the horns for a final time, as if leaving that secret Pluto thing both as the Ogdru floating candybar Jahad to their own devices.

About becoming part of myth: I think Hellboy has been convening or rubbing knuckles with myth throughout his lifetime, although he never wanted part or be to acknowledge such.
I mean Hellboy fought with Hecate herself plus he slew all the Hellish bad cats by his own hand. Apart from talking to faeries or having a fishface for a friend that's pretty mythical right there.

Even if this was the last of Hellboy forever, it feels like Edward Grey might yet be to pop up again someday or have more to tell at least. As for the BPRD, I can't help but wonder how long that continues and whether that will be made to end as profoundly and richly as Hellboy was.

I'm stoked by all this. You are one buff storyteller Mr Mike (and friends)!!

[The Lobster]

Continuing the point about of Hellboy becoming a mythological figure, this issue and the Fury directly compare him to Thor

Hellboy - The Fury #1 (of 3) (2011) - Page 8.jpgHellboy in Hell #10 (2016) - Page 15.jpg

Also cool tour of Mike's studio

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...nap-story.html