Hellboy Volume 6: Strange Places

by Mike Mignola

[empressbrooke]

I've been making my way through the Hellboy trade paperbacks this week, and while I've really been enjoying them, this is the first one that I've felt the need to write a review for. I'm such a Negative Nelly that I'm speaking up because this is the first volume I've been disappointed in.

In the intro to one of the two 2-parters that are in this volume, Mike Mignola promises that he's going to provide some origin stories for the Hellboy universe. I was looking forward to this, but the execution left much to be desired. This volume had Hellboy off on his own, having left the BPRD to do some investigation into himself. The downside of this is that it's left him without anyone to really talk to, and therefore all of the information is learned through a monologue of exposition. I would have preferred to have Abe or Liz or Kate or someone else there that Hellboy has emotional attachment to. The way that it was done, it just feels empty. The volume ends with him headed back to London, so hopefully that's the end of this complaint.

I'm also a little fatigued from the many scenes where Hellboy is being knocked through the air and through walls and floors, but that's a minor complaint. I often want to offer him an aspirin, though.