4 out of 5

I recognize, now, my tastes in Hellboy material: I’m not one to obsess over details, and I don’t like being required to connect editor’s note A and B and C to three separate issues’ single panel mentions; some letter writers in the floppies toss around the term ‘fantasy’ and there’s an appreciation for history, and, yeah, not my genre, and not a topic I generally dig.

But I like pulp, and I adore some of the mini, moderately contained universes of non-DC / Marvel comics, so one-shot issues where Mike indulges in a bit of cheekiness, or the way Arcudi sort of spun up his own forward-leaning lore on top of Mike’s obsessive myth referencing were right up my alley.  And somewhere in the middle of that was some great character or genre work – downbeats where I really felt like we could get in to Abe, or Johann, or actually get a sense of the horror or awe of the unknown that the HB Universe, to me, assumes but doesn’t always portray.

Witchfinder exists far enough away from the main Hellboy threads – while still being connected to it – that it allows Mike to sort of restart on his complex world-building; Sir Edward Grey, our lead, has enough personality and grit that he can hold his own in a conversation and a fight, with dashes of bleak humor still feeling at home.  You get a sense of other puzzle pieces out there… but not so many that you can’t see the image being constructed.  And with that focus comes a smooth sense of pacing and mood.  Matched with Ben Stenbeck’s confident art style – weightier, slightly more detailed than Mike’s, but with a wonderful fluidity – In the Service of Angels ranks with the best of the HB arcs, giving us character and creeps and just the right amount of lore to intrigue and not befuddle…

The arc is somewhat lacking in a convincing baddie: there’s a vague vampire that’s plaguing the streets of London, but because these issues are half-split between that and hinting to us as to how Mr. Grey got linked to eventual B.P.R.D. / Hellboy shenanigans, as well as introducing the character, this vamp feels more like a distraction than a foe.  (Not preventing some wonderfully bloody scuffles from occurring, thanks to Mr. Stenbeck’s / Dave Stewart’s awesome visuals.)  The book is also a bit more wordy and emotive than a lot of Mignola-penned HB – and Stenbeck employs a more tightly cropped camera – but I think letterer Clem Robins was still lettering very much in Hellboy-mode, leading to the balloons and bold font feeling like they took up too much of the page.  These bits aside, though, Mike and crew successfully expanded the Mignolaverse by yet another intriguing title.