Hellboy in Hell #9–10

[topfueluhl]

Issue #10 was so good, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

[Harry McTell]

Issue #10 was so good, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Agree.

The art was absolutely fan-tas-tic!!!
Like a juicy burger on a toasted potato roll or a slice of warm chocolate cake with a glass of cold milk.

The story is still being processed though...
I'll read it again at least couple times this weekend.

[middenway]

Issue #10 was so good, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Yeah, me too.

[Kees_L]

Yeah, me too.

SPOILERS, LO!

I like how you said it in your therapy-review on HiH #10, how remarkable it was to be seeing and hearing Hellboy take on a first-persion voice in HiH #9,

with talking about the 'now' both as about how Edward Grey had been speaking about "a chance to start over".


And when I was done reading #10 in full, I felt like I had seen Hellboy actually become the Beast of the Apocalypse,

yet with still denying himself the throne or the burning crown, but with killing off the remainder of his armies instead.


And I was reminded by a letter I once wrote to mr Scott Allie's Hellmail (around 2009) about how to me Hellboy sort of seemed like a super-weapon with legs but also

one adorned with 'free will' it would seem. Like if Hellboy wanted he could be to sit on his hand putting Ragnarok at a stalemate of sorts.

This letter wasn't printed or replied to however.


But now after reading HiH #10, I wonder if that isn't what ocurred here. Which begs the question what use or outlook the Ogdru Jahad would still be to have,

with its main minions awoken yet with its fated weapon gone?

Plus the Pluto figure (could this be Hellboy's sister per chance?), if she would claim former Satan's chair,

maybe Hell could rise anew, so that the living world upstairs wouldn't need to become to crumble or only on its own good time.

Maybe the stories still to come will be to reveal. I'm excited at least for what is still to come.

[Joker]

Maybe the stories still to come will be to reveal.

I believe it's worth noting that BPRD 144 cover features Mignola's Hell... and who knows yet what 145 will show.

[topfueluhl]

I believe it's worth noting that BPRD 144 cover features Mignola's Hell... and who knows yet what 145 will show.

That's right! And the Abe Sapien #35 cover shows the new world tree and Alice, both of which were shown in Hellboy in Hell #7.

[Kees_L]

I believe it's worth noting that BPRD 144 cover features Mignola's Hell... and who knows yet what 145 will show.

That's right! And the Abe Sapien #35 cover shows the new world tree and Alice, both of which were shown in Hellboy in Hell #7.

I guess, yes, mainly since either Hellboy's Hell or Hellboy's World or be it the B.P.R.D.'s, those all intertwine as sides to the same coin.

Even the other writers to each of the titles as making up Mignola's story world all amount to one and the same upper-

and nether realms I would be to think. So characters like Edward Grey and Abe and Liz or any of them, potentially even LoJo, might still

be to face particular bits of context one way or another. Although the fate or actual role of Hellboy seems solidified, with meaning stuff

context-wise, those bits of meaning may come to be solidifying for other characters their roles as well, I would think.

And I'm feeling stoked for such!

[Junior Wormwood]

Reread the whole run of Hellboy in Hell last night, and wow... Works so incredibly well as a single go. Once collected as a library edition, this will be the most beautiful thing on my shelf.

More unpacking and conjecture...

Once Arcudi announced he was leaving BPRD, obviously things needed to kick into high gear for all the books. It's no coincidence that that title, HiH, and Abe Sapien are all wrapping up at the same time. Abe will soon be visiting the very site of Hellboy's death in England, where Alice told Hellboy in HiH #7 will be the only place essentially still existing (sic). Will Abe be granted access to Hell here? In the upcoming BPRD arc we know that Hell plays a roll. It's obvious some sort of convergence of these books is just over the horizon, and I couldn't be more excited for its arrival. Is this all harkening back to Liz's vision in King of Fear somehow, or should we concede in giving up on that vision ever becoming reality? I also can't help but wonder what roll Edward Grey may still have to play in all of this. If Hellboy's horns still rest on the floor of Hell, could these somehow serve a purpose as we've seen before with that group of witches? Again, it's all conjecture. Whatever's in store for us, I trust it will be an amazing ride.

And Hellboy's wife telling him if he wants a new life, he first has to finish his old one is such a great metaphor for Mike's own life. Just so wonderfully done.

[Kees_L]

Reread the whole run of Hellboy in Hell last night, and wow... Works so incredibly well as a single go. Once collected as a library edition, this will be the most beautiful thing on my shelf.

More unpacking and conjecture...

Once Arcudi announced he was leaving BPRD, obviously things needed to kick into high gear for all the books. It's no coincidence that that title, HiH, and Abe Sapien are all wrapping up at the same time. Abe will soon be visiting the very site of Hellboy's death in England, where Alice told Hellboy in HiH #7 will be the only place essentially still existing (sic). Will Abe be granted access to Hell here? In the upcoming BPRD arc we know that Hell plays a roll. It's obvious some sort of convergence of these books is just over the horizon, and I couldn't be more excited for its arrival. Is this all harkening back to Liz's vision in King of Fear somehow, or should we concede in giving up on that vision ever becoming reality? I also can't help but wonder what roll Edward Grey may still have to play in all of this. If Hellboy's horns still rest on the floor of Hell, could these somehow serve a purpose as we've seen before with that group of witches? Again, it's all conjecture. Whatever's in store for us, I trust it will be an amazing ride.

And Hellboy's wife telling him if he wants a new life, he first has to finish his old one is such a great metaphor for Mike's own life. Just so wonderfully done.

It's cool to read how people are liking their reading, with sharing how they do.

On Liz's vision I'm not particularly feeling it must reflect reality in order to be a vision at all. I'm thinking those moments may have meant particularly a Liz moment and as a reader I haven't been made witness to how Liz would be or have been feeling about it one way or another.

And so the Mignola-drawn two page bit showing Hellboy through the voice of Hecate or either Edward Grey (I don't quite recall), I would feel those to over-encompass Liz's vision - although it may still get revealed as proving yet to be resolved.

On the witches and the horns (plus where did the actual RHOD end up) I'm not betting money. For witches the biggest rise to the occasion throughout mythology would seem to be either Hecate's worship with afterward during Celtic lore the reign of the Goddess Of War - which Nimue seemed to be reflecting back to.
And if anything, as far as targetting Hellboy any those witches got thwarted pretty much.

As such I'm hesitant about whether either "current-day" witches - or either ilk like acorn-brained Rasputin or the fat-bellied guy - could ever be making ripples in a pond.

The little known Pluto person however, or either just Abe and Alice and Liz and such characters themselves, they may come to be significant in ways they wouldn't have even bargained for.

Especially Edward Grey, since he seems to have become cursed or fated to some particular plight - perhaps by Hecate herself, when she was still her own self.
He is portrayed as having the power to dabble with the very fabric of worlds it would seem, plus during Hellboy's existence he has been seen many a time as some kind of Watcher, as if he was bestowed or somehow capable of residing amid such mythical beings as the Faerie Dagda and his kin at 'Tír na nÓg' (the Celtic "otherworld") among the 'Tuatha Dé Danann', or in short the (ancient) Celtic humans their mythical ancestral counterparts. As referenced within the text and dialog in the Hellboy books occasionally, visually bóth as literally.

I'd think, since as you say, the stories will be to do the talking.

[Angilasman]

Issue #10 was so good, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

Agreed. I imagine somehow that this story will change each time I read it.

These issues, and Hellboy in Hell in general, have been the purest manifestation of Mignola's style, and too see the Magician and the Snake story from the Screw-On Head collection tie-in right there at the end just felt right.

[thwhtGuardian]

It was certainly beautiful but it left me a little dissatisfied.

[Kees_L]

It was certainly beautiful but it left me a little dissatisfied.

I'm sorry for that, thwht!

But I wanna say I very much admire your respectfulness at how your post appears worded.

[thwhtGuardian]

I'm sorry for that, thwht!

But I wanna say I very much admire your respectfulness at how your post appears worded.

I still loved it as it had some of Mignola's best art ever but after the ending of the Fury and the build up we got in Hell I was expecting something bigger. This just felt incomplete and kind of rushed to me.

[Kees_L]

I still loved it as it had some of Mignola's best art ever but after the ending of the Fury and the build up we got in Hell I was expecting something bigger. This just felt incomplete and kind of rushed to me.

I see.
I think that for me as a reader I felt strangely uncomfortable with the idea that Hellboy would arrive in Hell for sort of doing away with the destined things his RHOD would be to mean, so he could roam free.

And the bit about him being to suffer an ailment according to a doctor skeleton - the condition as painfully visible in the cover to HiH 7 - for me implied that indeed Hellboy wouldn't be able to ever become destiny-free at all.

So I guess in the end I was really feeling it kind of couldn't not be the actual end, because Hellboy himself appears to have been rooting for it, as seen when he's pinned to the tree, almost admitting to his Spanish 'Vegas wife' that he only was getting slain in order to see what would happen.

As such I can really like how Hellboy has been adrift eversince Strange Places, not as becoming myth but as finding out he'd BE myth moreso than being any mortally living type-of-entity.
Which I love, the idea that humans or animals live 'as mortals' but that deities or champions or immortal souls can't, due to their state of not being mortal.

So I can sort of see what you mean with 'rushed' but my thinking is that Hellboy himself would have been doing the 'rushing' or the 'aching' for it. I don't feel either Hellboy's death or his time in Hell would be too little fleshed out at all, plus now that it happened I think I'm glad he didn't went to face his destiny of doom in grand style over Golden Escalators and such, but that it all happened so organically instead.

What I'll be "doing wrong" as a reader is I'm afraid I'll start wanting the BPRD to end now sooner moreso than later too - but I'll get a grip somehow, because I must .

[thwhtGuardian]

I see.
I think that for me as a reader I felt strangely uncomfortable with the idea that Hellboy would arrive in Hell for sort of doing away with the destined things his RHOD would be to mean, so he could roam free.

And the bit about him being to suffer an ailment according to a doctor skeleton - the condition as painfully visible in the cover to HiH 7 - for me implied that indeed Hellboy wouldn't be able to ever become destiny-free at all.

So I guess in the end I was really feeling it kind of couldn't not be the actual end, because Hellboy himself appears to have been rooting for it, as seen when he's pinned to the tree, almost admitting to his Spanish 'Vegas wife' that he only was getting slain in order to see what would happen.

As such I can really like how Hellboy has been adrift eversince Strange Places, not as becoming myth but as finding out he'd BE myth moreso than being any mortally living type-of-entity.
Which I love, the idea that humans or animals live 'as mortals' but that deities or champions or immortal souls can't, due to their state of not being mortal.

So I can sort of see what you mean with 'rushed' but my thinking is that Hellboy himself would have been doing the 'rushing' or the 'aching' for it. I don't feel either Hellboy's death or his time in Hell would be too little fleshed out at all, plus now that it happened I think I'm glad he didn't went to face his destiny of doom in grand style over Golden Escalators and such, but that it all happened so organically instead.

What I'll be "doing wrong" as a reader is I'm afraid I'll start wanting the BPRD to end now sooner moreso than later too - but I'll get a grip somehow, because I must .

Oh I didn't find it lacking because we didn't see him raising hell's army or anything like that but simply because plot wise the story just stops. There's no real ending here, no real emotional impact or sense of catharsis for any of the characters involved or the readers. And I'm not looking for a happily ever after either, or to have everything all wrapped up nicely with a bow...but there has to be something definitive and we just didn't get that despite the beautiful art.