A spoiler alert is hardly needed here, right? You know what’s happened. It’s happened to the best of ’em. Batman. Superman. Captain America. And now…Hellboy. He’s died, well sort of, at the end of this month’s story arc, “The Fury.” But it was a beautiful ending to a beautiful story. Like any Mike Mignola creation that I’ve come across, this one is wonderfully deadpan, fanciful and curious. Will it be significant that Hellboy is a descendant of King Arthur? It is only mentioned in passing. For a story that sends Hellboy back to Hell, it is understanding that some things can only be touched upon.
Duncan Fegredo does such a great job of bringing out the earthy quality to this story. Thankfully, Hellboy has a girlfriend in this one, Alice, who he met in typically obscure fashion, by saving her from a band of malicious fairies in 1959. What does that even mean? Are marauding elves next? Well, like any challenging poem, you just run with it and wait for things to come into focus. But getting back to Alice, Fegredo breathes such life into her that she is a powerful presence on whichever page she graces. And that’s saying a lot considering all the ghoulies Hellboy contends with, including a dragon bad enough for a Ragna Rok throwdown, when dragon battles man.
Such an impressive three story tale that sets up the action for the main event: Hellboy in Hell! This is something of an event which Dark Horse is happy to point out. It is impeccably timed in the last issue of “The Fury” with some final comments by Dark Horse’s managing editor, Scott Allie: “I think we ended this one well. In the fall, be sure to check out the hardcover graphic novel House of the Living Dead. Because after that it’ll be a bit of a wait. And then…,” which is followed on the next and last page by:
