4 out of 5

It’s an effective little ghost story.

A blackout hits the B.P.R.D. facilities while Liz and crew are returning from their last mission.  They find Panya; they don’t find Kate.  Kate is elsewhere… stumbles across an odd pin… then smiles an evil smile after putting it on.  Wouldn’t ya’ know the damned thing was possessed.

Meanwhile, kooky o’ Professor O’Donnell is reading his physical files into a voice recorder, reviewing a tale from Buttenholm’s and young HB’s life that provides us with our backstory and setup for most of issue 1, as the spell-slingin’ crazy the Prof interacts with is the spirit that’s damning that pin.

Later, in issue 2, things explode.

O’Donnell’s file digitization was an ingenious method for giving us a logical reason to step into the past, and I always love stories where character A tells a tale that reflects / ties into what’s happening to character B.  The flashback  puts a little too much focus on Hellboy, when you can tell this wanted to be a Kate tale, and the resolution is of the wonderfully compact Mignolaverse variety but is almost too breezily explained to justify the things that exploded… like the story could’ve been equally effective kept more low-key and creepy.  But that aside, at two issues, B.P.R.D. shows the comic world how to knock out a fun story arc that makes you feel like you’re getting your bang for your buck for each part.

And artist Laurence Campbell has really evolved into his own beast, coming closer to Sean Phillips’ work with Brubaker than the Mignola house style; some of these pages (combined with the tone) look / feel like what Fatale …could’ve… been.

I love that even during ‘Hell on Earth,’ the Hellboy world is flexible enough to allow for these fun little shorts.  ‘Devil’s Wings’ maintains the impossible blend of horror and humor that’s always been a cornerstone of the series, and provides a pretty complete 2-book arc that doesn’t require investment in the HB world-at-large to appreciate.