5 out of 5

The worst part about this – beyond arcudi leaving the Mignolaverse, although depending on how Chris Roberson plays out maybe that will make my wallet happy – is that reaching this conclusion, which was many, many years in the making, is that it makes me want to go back and read the series from the start.  Desperately.  And that’s a lot of reading: In my collection, that’s at least twenty trades, some one-off graphic novels, and then single issues dating back about ten years or so at this point.  Will it hold up?  Maybe, maybe not; the Hellboy experience has been one of ups and downs, lots of confusion for those of us who jumped in partyway, and several side series of questionable comic-budget value that, as a reader, you had to decide whether or not were important to your overall investment in the HB universe.  But whether or not re-experiencing those bumps in the road  (bumps between great stretches of scenic, spacious travels) will lead me to a final ambivalent  opinion, I think its undeniable that all of the Mignola-world architects have accomplished something unique, and worthwhile simply as an experience: A unified network of heroes and villains, with plotlines synced up and told with continuity-respectful consistency for 20+ years.  This is why people follow Marvel and DC but its what can never really be achieves via those larger machines: Plot point A has a lasting impact and truly relates, directly or indirectly to plot point B.  Of course it hasn’t always been planned from the start, but it has been a small-ish group of people responsible for the planning, and most importantly, overseen or at least given the nod of approval from overlord Mignola.  There’s no need for a revival or rebranding; Hellboy has always read / sounded like Hellboy, and whether dealing with the more isolated stories of yore or the modern sprawling narrative, everything has felt like it belongs.  It’s the gothic equivalent of Judge Dredd, but with a Cerberus-like focus of working toward a conclusion.

As Hell on Earth ticked on and the ending was announced, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one wondering what, exactly, that would mean.  While the retitling of BPRD had felt brash at first, it certainly became incredibly fitting: The world was stocked with omnipresent monsters.  Humanity was screwed.  And this carried on – again, so unlike Marvel or DCs twice-a-year cataclysms – for literal years.  Even once one particular big bad (The Black Flame) was taken out, it wasn’t automatically rainbows and sunshine.  Hellboy was dead and gone; gigantic horrors just wreaked havoc everywhere.  And at times, this became a little staid, a rinse and repeat of unending battles.  But Arcudi kept a sense of humanity and scope behind the whole thing, and designed a world that adjusted and survived as best it could.  The title soldiered on, surprisingly engaging even when fighting this losing battle.

So given that we’d seen every demon under the sun for many an issue, what would be an apt conclusion?  And amazingly, this many-years-of-history concludes (for now) gracefully.  That it’s not underwhelming is an achievement all on its own; that it maintains the slightly poetic, sad, slightly humorous tone of the series throughout these final five issues is a further achievement, and that Arcudi manages to milk out one final rockin’ boss battle is icing on the cake.

Going into more detail than that either feels pointless – if you’re reading the series than you’ve already read these – or pointless: This isn’t so much a wrap-up of surprises as it is the appropriate culmination of things Arcudi had been working toward.  The title stalled at points to make the journey more worthwhile.  In the trenches this was hard to see, but looking back, it was absolutely the right move.

I do have to add one criticism, which I guess is more of a realization at this point than a problem with these specific issues: I don’t like Laurence Campbell, BPRD’s latter-day house artist.  I’d picked out specifics with the way he would apply his shadowy style in previous reviews, and sometimes it worked, but on the whole his paneling I’d woefully empty – never adding the type of calamity I feel like the panels were written to encompass, or perhaps if emptiness was the direction, never quite visually detailing the toll the war had taken.  I unfortunately never got a sense of place from his art, and his character models tended to feel inconsistent, bounding between overly expressioned renditions and vague, shadow-blocked phantoms.  The open air and heavy blacks seemed to encourage Stewart to use flatter colors, which unfortunately just created this inorganic block between color and art; very digital.  But: He has been consistent within his applications, so these issues look no better or worse than what preceded.

As others have echoed, John will be missed.  His Mignolaverse books absolutely had their own voice, and were certainly responsible for shaping my perception of this particular comic universe.  But we really couldn’t have asked for a more fully realized ending, and though my brain boggles at the amount of back issues it makes me want to read, the motivation to do so is another positive indication of what an accomplishment this series has been.