3 out of 5

I generally rag on Scott Allie’s Mignolaverse contributions, but this pause in the Hell On Earth cycle to flash back to a teenaged Liz story is actually pretty good, with some really well done character beats that are, unfortunately, undermined by a poorly aligned flashback within a flashback to a potential witch haunting the location Liz and Prof. Broom are checkity-checkin’ out.  Whether this is due to artist Karl Moline not creating the visuals effectively, or due to a lack of guidance in the script, I of course cannot say, but this renders the big ol’ ghost-huntin’ conclusion here a mess.

It’s the mid-70s, and Bruttenholm has invited Hellboy out to an old friend’s – a priest – home to investigate and, if needed, resolve a haunting.  HB instead encourages Broom to take along a young Liz, who is, at that point (…as she is now…) rather a pip to deal with, but HB feels like she needs to get out and get exposed to regular-ish people.  Broom agrees to take her along, and while he does his best to be hands off and mindful of Liz’s individuality, she bristles at the slightest provocation, and proves to be much like any growing-pains teen.

But something does click once they arrive and she meets Teddy, the same-aged youngster helping out his dad with repairs to the priest’s house.  Their give-and-take, as the kid comes to know more about her, is really well effected by Allie.  Moline’s big-eyed, cartoonish style doesn’t always offer up the needed subtleties in the acting, but the mood captured via the surrounding forest and Stewart’s colors during the never-ending rain helps to balance that out.  Liz thinks about her past; we get some background (via the aforementioned flashbacks) to what happened at the house that may have caused its haunting.

Issue three is when it starts to slip downhill, though, pairing the present time of the story against the flashbacks in back-to-back panels, trying to make the action line up.  And… it doesn’t.  Crossover sound effects and a very confusing interaction between Liz and the supernatural have people bouncing all over the place, theoretically in response to one another, but never seeming like they’re really in the same space.  It’s baffling to the point that it’s not even clear who the adversary is, and how or why the situation is resolved.

As the tail end to an otherwise pretty solid character-focused story, it’s frustrating.