All right, so Mignola and Byrne conceive Hellboy as sort of a hard boiled detective. Not in the content so much, but in the first person narration Byrne writes for him. It also doesn’t really match the way Hellboy talks in dialogue either.
But the big problem is the way the story’s split. It opens with a mostly text (though illustrated) telling of Hellboy’s origin. Then it switches to a regular narrative (where presumably main characters is instead killed off before he can resonate). The modern day stuff is all action too—except the end reveal—and the issue wouldn’t feel like it had any weight if it weren’t for that prologue.
The art’s okay—the worst thing is Mignola’s Hellboy, who seems inconsistent-.
Inexplicably, there’s a Monkeyman & O’Brien backup. Adams’s art is lame and the writing is awful. It does have a couple King Kong references, but so what.
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