Mike Mignola's Hellboy: Seed of Destruction 1 (2 of 2)

The thing that got me into Hellboy was the Alan Moore blurb on the back of one of the collections -- I cannot find it right now but he talks about all the influences that have been synthesized: Kirby, Lovecraft, Toth, world mythology. Hellboy, and his world, is a design triumph, a tremendous artistic success. I just want to grab a few moments where Mignola handles his influences beyond superheroes.

The first panel is split between a haunted castle structure (which turns out to be a broken church with no roof) and a prose diary in courier type-writer font, prose right out of the pulps. An American Sergeant, gruffly skeptical of all the paranormal stuff going on around him, writing in England in 1944 and World War Two is thrown in as well. The next panel is a triumph -- The Nazi dark priest or whatever. This guy combines three different kinds of bad guys into one formidable whole – A Nazi, a Satanic High Priest, and a Mad Scientist – he has a swastika on his chest surrounded by a upside-down pentagram; he quotes Lovecraftian speeches about evil, but also has crazy techno gloves that have a host of wires connected to what look like various power sources. I think he is generating a kind of lightning blast, but the point I think is another allusion, to Frankenstein, the creation of a monster with a soul. Mignola is setting a great stage for the introduction of his character.

In his office, the professor says he feels that he has been cut off from his past, that he cannot remember, that he is too old. Hellboy’s first line ever is to tell the professor that he looks fine to him. The line is reflexive: Mignola is telling the audience that the horror comic is not cut off from its past even though superhero comics dominate, that there is a lot to draw on and a lot to remember.

I realized that I was moved to write these posts this week because of Morrison’s most recent Batman story. I was thinking of Hellboy as a better example of artistic synthesis and allusion to many different kinds of comic book history. You may disagree, but I think it is a good thing to consider as a contrast.

I also should say that I am not that familiar with how John Byrne fits into all this. I call the character Mignola's because the character is so closely associated with him, but I know it is more complicated than that. Unfortunately, I am not the guy to take this on -- anyone want to give it a shot?

Mike Mignola's Hellboy: Seed of Destruction 1 (1 of 2)

[Just for fun today I though I would write about Hellboy: Seed of Destruction #1. We hit a good stopping point with the Whedon posts. Nothing says I can't have more than one issue-by-issue analysis going, or that I can't try one issue and just drop it.]

The second page of the first issue of Hellboy shows a superhero -- in a army trench-coat, with a bright red shirt, covered in mud splatter and drinking something out of a tin cup. The Torch of Liberty. He looks none-too-heroic. Mignola acknowledges the superhero genre that dominates comics -- and that has such a huge influence on what he will be writing -- but is careful to indicate that it is only a small part of the background of his horror story. In the image he just looks like one of the soldiers, but with a bright shirt and a kato-mask.

With the Nazis Mignola does an amazing job bringing together disparate elements into a new whole. We see regular Nazi soldiers early on in the issue, but in the foreground are "weird" Nazi villains -- stylized and uber-creepy. One has a kind of gas-mask on his face. The other has a swastika prominently displayed on one of the lenses of his goggle-glasses. These are the kind of bad guys you figure could be for the superhero on page two, except they look like they could eat him for breakfast. Mignola is creating a space where Hellboy will be needed for these threats -- Superheroes won’t do the job, he implies. Hellboy will appear at the broken church in front of the statue of Christ. He is born in fire – a bigger fire than implied by the superhero’s torch.

The good guys adopt him as their own, and this flashback ends with a photograph of everyone who was there. Here, again, Mignola handles his influences deftly – in the front and centre of the photograph is Hellboy, of course, and over him are the mystics. At the back and to the right is the superhero. His emblem is still clear on his chest, but the black and white of the photo has robbed him of his bright colors, and the shadows have effectively taken away his mask – his eyes look much like the shadowed eyes of the solders around him. He used to have a bright red shirt; Hellboy, in a nice detail, has the faintest hint of red, even in a black and white photo.

The first appearance of the adult Hellboy picks up the superhero image again. He is in a trench coat and has military packs on his belt – just like the superhero. And just like the superhero the trench coat frames bright red, here Hellboy’s chest. Mignola could not be more clear – Hellboy is here as a replacement to the superhero, as someone to handle what the superhero cannot. That is why mythological creatures stand behind him for his first appearance – this is what he is here to face.

The professor is attacked, and Hellboy responds. This is what he narrates: “I’d be the first to admit that I have not shortage of faults. But if I had to pick one, the one that’s gotten me into the most trouble over the years … it would be that I sometimes get angry. And when I get angry I sometimes do stupid things. Things like charging headlong into a pitch black room. I’m tougher and stronger than any human. But I can’t see any better in the dark. I wish I could.” Hellboy is clearly linked to the Hulk here – it is the addition to a wry sense of self that marks the difference. It is also one of the things that makes Hellboy the book stand out. The hero is kind of a lug-head and knows it and is not above being sarcastic. And, it turns out, he is firing the gun that the superhero in the prologue carried. It was given to him from a superhero called the Torch of Liberty. The torch – get it? – has been passed from the superhero genre to Hellboy, and he must carry it forward.