Heaven and Hellboy

 

Hellboy: Darkness Calls #6

In the conclusion to the epic, Hellboy is still locked in combat with the immortal Koshchei the Deathless, lost in the world of Russian myth. Baba Yaga has Koshchei’s soul, and she’s powering him up by feeding him all the souls she’s stolen over the centuries. Will Hellboy be able to get away? And what are the faerie hordes planning on earth?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’m not going to spoil this, but Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo have done a great job here. If you don’t have the previous issues, it’s likely that you’ll have a tough time finding them, so you might want to consider picking up the trade paperback that will eventually collect this whole story.

 

Lobster Johnson #3

More pulp goodness from Mike Mignola, this time with Jason Armstrong providing the artwork. Jim Sacks, the man in the iron supersuit, awakens to discover that his mentor and employer has been reduced to a talking brain in a tank — that Jim himself may actually be dead! And the evil Fu Manchu-esque villain has stolen the device that will allow him to harness vril, a naturally-occuring pseudo-mystical power source. Lobster Johnson busts in and starts wasting the evil doctor’s minions. And the doctor’s vril-powered servant, while fighting Mr. Sacks, transforms into a dragon-like monster!

Verdict: Thumbs up. I loves me some good weird pulp crime fiction.

 

Supergirl #23

It starts out interestingly enough, with Supergirl receiving a mysterious lead-lined package. When she opens it, she gets a phone call from Batman, who berates her for opening a package that might’ve included something deadly like Kryptonite. Then she gets a call from Superman to help the Green Lanterns track an enemy spaceship — to do so she has to fly about ten feet away from it, through space, and she has to hold her breath for two hours, but she has a teleporter that will take her back home, and she has to — well, way before this, it became almost complete gibberish. Why did they need Supergirl for this when they had Superman? Or some Green Lanterns?

Verdict: Thumbs down. Other than the dialogue between Supergirl and Batman at the beginning of the story, which was really amusing, this issue was an absolute pile of donkey dung.