Hellboy volume 4: The Right Hand of Doom


By Mike Mignola, with Dave Stewart & Pat Brosseau (Dark Horse)
ISBN: 978-1-59307-093-9

Hellboy is a creature of vast depth and innate mystery; a demonic child summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists at the end of the Second World War but rescued and reared by Allied parapsychologist Professor Trevor “Broom” Bruttenholm. After years of devoted intervention and education, in 1952 Hellboy began destroying unnatural threats and supernatural monsters as lead agent for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

This forth fearsome grimoire of graphic terrors and grave wit combines some new material with a gathering of shorter satanic sagas garnered from Dark Horse Presents #151, Dark Horse Presents Annual #1998, Gary Gianni’s The Monster Men, Abe Sapien: Dreams of the Dead and Hellboy: Box Full of Evil #1-2, communally spanning 1998-1999 and offering insights into different stages in the unique life of the “world’s greatest paranormal investigator”.

‘Part One: the Early Years’ leads with the mordantly surreal and hilarious ‘Pancakes’ (Dark Horse Presents Annual #1998 and seen in colour for first time) as a certain 2-year old terror enjoys his first taste of a human treat and is forever lost to the Lords of the Realm Infernal, after which Mignola begins his engaging, informative and ongoing directors’ notes on all the spooky stories contained herein…

Based on a 6th century English legend, ‘The Nature of the Beast’ (Dark Horse Presents #151 and also moodily coloured by Dave Stewart for this tome) finds a youthful Hellboy circa 1954, attempting to slay a dragon for a strange group of wise men with a hidden agenda before ‘King Vold’ – created specifically for this volume – sees the monstrous monster hunter in magic-drenched Norway in 1956. He’s been despatched by Professor Bruttenholm to aid scholarly colleague Edmond Aikman in confronting the spirit of a spectral wild huntsman, but once again mystic glamour, the promise of power and the allure of gold have turned a trustworthy ally into a dangerous liability…

Following more of Mignola’s insider information, ‘Part Two: the Middle Years’ begins with ‘Heads’ (a back-up from the March 1998 One-Shot Abe Sapien: Dreams of the Dead) with Hellboy exploring a ramshackle Kyoto dwelling in 1967 and outsmarting a six-pack of particularly gruesome Japanese cannibal monstrosities.

‘Goodbye, Mister Tod’ is likewise a back-up vignette (from Gary Gianni’s the Monster Men, August 1999), set in Portland, Oregon in 1979 with the increasingly world-weary investigator called just too late to help a medium who specialised in materialising ectoplasm. All the paranormal problem-solver can do now though is expel the horrific elder god slowly breaking its way into our reality with one of the grossest tactics ever seen in the annals of ghost-busting…

‘The Vârcolac’ originally appeared as six episodes in promo-pamphlet Dark Horse Extra. Here it’s been extensively redrawn and reformatted to fully feast on the action-packed spectacle of Hellboy battling an ultimate vampire so huge it can “eat the Sun and cause eclipses”…

As Mignola explains for ‘Part Three: the Right Hand of Doom’; after half a decade of tumultuous scene-setting, he finally started to answer some long-extant questions about his infernal foundling.

Answers began seeping out in eponymous short ‘The Right Hand of Doom‘ from Dark Horse Presents Annual #1998 – presented here in colour for the first time – as the BPRD agent meets a priest with a connection to his arrival on Earth during WWII. Adrian Frost has an ancient document depicting Hellboy’s arcane stone appendage and offers to trade it for the true story of his terrestrial nativity and subsequent career.

The cleric learns how a Lord of Hell and an earthly witch spawned a child of diabolical destiny and how the grand plan was derailed by destiny and a human-reared child who moved Heaven and Hell to live his own life…

That background was soon expanded in 2-part 1999 miniseries ‘Box Full of Evil’ when Hellboy and BPRD associate Abe Sapien return to modern-day Britain to assess a mystic burglary. Old enemy Igor Bromhead has used his magic to steal the ancient metal coffer Saint Dunstan used to imprison a devil, but by the time they find him the vile plotter has opened the box and sold its contents to debauched Satanists Count Guarino and Countess Bellona.

Their facile joy is short-lived as the little double-dealer takes possession of the cask’s true treasure. In return for paltry wealth and appalling knowledge, the freed demon shares the secret name and true nature of Hellboy as well as his Abysmally-ordained destiny. It even helps Igor ambush the investigator, usurping both Hellboy’s true power and ascribed role in the destruction of the universe…

With that misappropriated magical might, the demon begins to end creation but has not reckoned on the incredible will and sheer bloody-mindedness of the paranormal troubleshooter, nor those other ancient powers of the Earth who have no intention of dying before their appointed times…

This astounding tale of hell-bent heroism and cosmic doom is then followed by an all-new 4-page epilogue which offers dark portents of further trials for the monster who will always be his own man…

Wrapping up the spectral showcase is a reproduction of the superb and spooky cover of the French collected Box Full of Evil plus a huge ‘Hellboy Sketchbook’ section, offering a variety of breathtaking drawings and roughs spanning 1993 through 1999.

Baroque, grandiose, fast-paced and deceptively witty, these tall tales will captivate adventure and horror addicts in equal amounts, making this another lovingly lurid lexicography of dark delights no comics fan or fear fantasy fanatic should be without.
™ and © 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2003 Mike Mignola. Hellboy is ™ Mike Mignola. All rights reserved.