4 out of 5

And so it comes to an end.  …Right?  I’m not very smart at reading Hellboy, and I can’t say for sure if I’d know this was an ending if I wasn’t told so, but, as usual, I enjoyed reading it all the same.

HBinH has been an odd title since the start.  As the Mignolaverse ballooned out to, by my opinion, too many ongoing titles and dipped a bit in quality, there came the announcement that Mike was finally returning to art a  book, and that it would focus on none other than his main attraction.  This was undoubtedly exciting news, but also seemed suggestive to me of a creator wanting to correctively steer his ship.  And I was right, and I was wrong.  As the reported intentions of the title were to be a series of boppin’-about-Hell adventures, the initial arc was a bit oblique, but absolutely showed that Mike knew, intuitively, how to handle Hellboy better than anyone; not to discredit the amazing work that all have done on the title over the years, but just to state that the man who set the tone and pace from the get-go  showed he was still very much grounded in the reality of his -verse.  In other words: that co-scripting / story tag he gets on all the titles ain’t for naught, and Hellboy was obviously still very central to Mike’s sensibilities.  It’s his character, his world, and other people have been adding to it.

But with issue 5’s Three Golden Whips, something changed.  A sorta non-canon story was referenced, and the title became limited: we were now building toward an ending.  Longtime readers have stated they knew that that ending would be The end, but I didn’t know.  As I said, I’m dumb at reading Hellboy.

And so it went for the remaining chapters.   Mike, in his usual understated grandioseness (moments that would be book-filling  splashes are compressed down to one-panel nods or even a sequence of cutaways during a conversation, all executed without losing the implication that These Events Matter), started slowly closing doors, narrowing the path down which Hellboy could walk.

Until we end up here, book ten.  Where 20 years of doomy prophesies lead; where Hellboy reigns in Hell, much to the puzzled alarm of a demon who relates the tale of our now winged, horned lead taking down the final big baddies in his way.  HB does not speak.  There is no final explanation.  Mike’s mind is made up, and he lets us down slowly to the concluding pages, which are both sad and hopeful, and, perhaps, a meta-summary of a creator at peace with the work he’s done.

Viewed from afar, this has certainly been an amazing journey.  Zeroing in on this episode, though,  while I realize Mike’s skills  are suited to story compression, there have been too many HB / B.P.R.D. books that have ended on a similar open note to make this resonate as loudly as I think it could’ve.  Hellboy’s silent journey of the last few pages could have been spread out a bit, just a longer pause to really sell the book’s last sentence.  But that being said, I’d still agree that this is a wonderful way to end the title, and perhaps one of comicdom’s overall most relevant and satisfying endings, which is insane given how much world-building the Mignolaverse has grown to accommodate.

What do I know, though?  I’ve been reading Hellboy for years and I still get confused who’s who and where what came from.  I’m dumb at reading it.  I enjoy it.  I’m sad this incarnation is gone.  But I’m happy that Mike got to express what he needed to, and besides some pacing wishes to satisfy my melodrama needs, I can’t imagine a better way to have gone about it.