3 out of 5

Well, here we finally are, at the end of the initial Baltimore tale proposed by the novel: the final confrontation between Balty and vampire Haigus.  And, interestingly, this short two-issue wrap-up highlights the highs and lows of what’s led us here.  At a high level, though, it should be praised that the team did keep this telling so short.  While the Mignolaverse has excelled at compression, especially under Arcudi’s hand in B.P.R.D., at the time this comic was released Mike and crew were working toward bloating things – more series, more ‘ongoings.’  It’s never felt like the money grab of DC or Marvel, more like a team of creatives saying “Why not?” and giving themselves the extra issues to play around in.  So it’s nice that Baltimore held onto its scope and it was understood that we know how this ends, so it really doesn’t take all that much to show it to us.

Which is why issue #1 is so strong.  Three of Baltimore’s friends gather in a pub at Bolt’s written request, exchanging conversation before a tenant staying above the bar invites them upstairs to his studio, wherein they all glance upon a picture which they’re told shows them their inner demons (…and subsequently tries to establish how Baltimore’s stories will continue beyond this point…).  Then, whoops, they’ve wandered into a zombie haven and here’s Haigus, also waiting for Mr. B.  The balance between relative calm and horror gives artist Stenbeck an opportunity to show off his strong ability to set mood, and colorist Dave Stewart works his usual magic, having especial fun juxtaposing the series’ typical gray palette with some hot reds and yellows in the conclusion.  And then Baltimore makes his first appearance in the last panel.  The human to chaos transition is what’s worked best in the series, as well as its treatment of Baltimore as a stoic, which is achieved by having him only spoken about via proxy until that last panel.  It’s a great setup.

…That gives way to some disappointment, as issue #2 highlights Stenbeck’s fairly weak – lacking power, repetitive – action scenes since it’s almost literally twenty pages of the same shot of people stabbing skeletons, occasionally pontificating.  A more dynamic artist or scripter can sell the all-battle issue, but Ben suffers from the aforementioned and Mignola’s always been better at the grand sweeps of storytelling versus the granular panel by panel stuff.  So this gives us a big climactic issue that doesn’t feel or read very big, making us fall back on the story elements, which are rather scare, and feel like a bit of a dodge in order to wink at us and say ‘to be continued’ instead of ‘the end.’  This is that bloat that crept into the latter half of the 20 issues comprising the Balty / Haigus era, and what kept a lot of those issues from offering the same purposeful momentum as those in the first half.