3 out of 5

If smacking around electro-gun carrying Hollow-Earth nazis doesn’t sound like classic Hellboy to you, well, maybe go re-read your early trades.  Alas, Roberson is still getting his footing here and lacks the earned character voice Arcudi had developed, so his Hellboy reads a little stiff.  I’d also say he lacks Arcudi’s overall polish with handling this Big Idea stuff in short spans, but that’s also something that can come with time.  For right now, though, it equals a several page dump of plot explain.

But the story’s heart is certainly in the right place, given the scenario I opened with.  It’s 1954, and HB and a cryptozoologist investigate a yeti sighting in the Antarctic, which, of course, I’ve maybe already spoiled for you as being more than a yeti.  The two-parter has a couple of odd details tossed in – the extra crewmen we meet; the cryptozoogist’s race prompting a comment – that don’t seem to amount to much, and if you excise the talking heads and splash-page punching, hardly anything really happens in the issues.  Still, this series is a nice return to simplicity.

New artist Stephen Green has a nice, loose style with notes of Colin Wilson and even Guy Davis with his loopy Nazi tech designs, but when there’re multiple focuses in his panels they tend to fall flat, and he rarely does much with his backgrounds, so its not the most exciting visually.  Dave Stewart also makes the choice to color it pretty flat, which doesn’t hide the emptiness in the panels.  But we can praise the Mignolaverse for giving such artists a chance, and plenty have acclimated to the style along the way.