So after my previous posts on Hellboy and related works, I thought that things were winding down. Hellboy was dead, the BPRD storyline was done. It didn’t seem we would get more in the Hellboy and BPRD series.
Then in 2021, things started to heat back up. We got more in the Hellboy and BPRD series, even getting several dated 1957. In fact am surprised by how many have not been collected yet. We’ve also gotten more Hellboy works and more works in the “Hellboy Universe”, so this one will focus on some of those, but as more are still coming, I’ll review those later.
Now, one change I don’t like is that in the past Dark Horse would quickly collect these mini-series in trade paperback soon after they ended, and even if I had the comics, I would get them because they always included a sketchbook section at the end, which was great.
But recently they have been collecting these as hardback volumes, which I don’t like because the hardbacks are more expensive and they take up more room on my book shelves. So in several cases, I have avoided getting them. I guess I’ll have to wait longer for either trade paperbacks or a paperback omnibus collection.
Sword of Hyperborea
Toward the end of the BPRD series, Agent Ted Howards discovers a sword of lost Hyperborea in a hidden temple of the Helioptic Brotherhood of Ra in Chicago. He would weld that sword through the end of the series and was shown to have a connection with a neolithic warrior Gall Dennar.
We know this sword also appeared in the first Witchfinder series. So what is the story of this sword between the time when Gall Dennar had it to its appearance in Chicago? This was answered in the Sword of Hyperborea mini-series.
The first issue focuses on Gall Dennar and how he took the sword to the lost Hyperborean city of Urrasan where it will be found by a Victorian explorer who takes it and a vril crystal to London (as told in the first Witchfinder series). The next issue it’s WWI and the Brotherhood has possession of the sword and crystal. An interesting person, Graf Ling de Gotha, is working for Germany, but is betrayed. There is also a volskak, a vampire-werewolf hybrid. In the end, the sword and crystal are taken by zeppelin but crash into the English Channel.
The third issue is set during WWII, and a deep-sea diver, working for the Brotherhood, is diving on the wreck to retrieve the sword and crystal. But things go awry, and he winds up defending Atlantis at the request of a warrior mermaid, fighting lizard-like Nag-Unra. He washes ashore years later on a tropical island. Later the sword and crystal are stolen from the bar he runs.
The fourth issue has a young blues musician arriving in Chicago, helped by a strange voice. He winds up getting dragged into a strange, hidden temple where he uses the sword, but leaves it.
There are several questions and comments on the whole series. Who or what was the mystic wolf in the early issues? Who was the warrior mermaid? Is she connected to Oannes? And the voice in the last issue seems to have been a demon, but I’m not sure. They all worked to ensure the sword would be there for Howards to find. And Graf Ling de Gotha was an interesting character, a Chinese woman adopted at a young age by a German nobleman. I would like to have seen earlier stories of her.
Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club
While labeled a Hellboy series, he really doesn’t play much of a part. This series of five issues instead tells stories involving the Silver Lantern Club, a gathering of occult fighters in the late Victorian period. We are never given any dates, but I suspect the 1890s. Each issue is a flash-back story, told by Professor Bruttenholm‘s uncle Simon in 1953 to Hellboy and the Professor as they are visiting him.
Several of the members of this group were introduced in the Witchfinder series. There is Sir Edward Gray, no longer “Witchfinder,” Sarah Jewell, Simon Bruttenholm and Honora Grant of the British Paranormal Society, and Major Singh of the Forge. New characters are introduced as well, such as Lady Bai Lian, Amelia Cartwright Jones, and Russian werewolf hunter Yad, though the later two were never formally part of the group. Each character doesn’t appear in each story. While the group met for over a decade, at some point later, Gray would leave England to carry on his fight against the Helioptic Brotherhood of Ra, and Sarah Jewell would also leave, to appear in the Black Flame series.
So we get stories of a demon-possessed radio, something monsterous killing horses and carrying away people, a demon haunting an alleyway, a pair of sort-of werewolves in London, and stopping the Helioptic Brotherhood of Ra’s dangerous experiments in opening a rift to another world.
British Paranormal Society: Time Out of Mind
Set in 1910, this finds Simon Bruttenholm and Honora Grant of the British Paranormal Society traveling to a remote English village that has a stone circle. Simon is looking for his missing assistant, and Honora is gathering info on local folklore. Many villages have some kind of spring festival, as does this one. But there are some differences. Theirs refers to a “grey man” instead of a Green Man. And there seems a sinister undercurrent.
This harks to Hammer horror films and stuff like The Wicker Man and the like. This one involves an alien race we’ve seen before in the Hellboy universe. We learn a little more about their past. My only complaint is I thought they ended the ritual a little too easily.
The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery
Set in 1926, this story finds Sarah Jewell and her companion Marie-Therese LaFleur after the events of the Black Flame series. Sarah has been invited to the island home of her long-time friend. Her husband had died, and she is auctioning off his collection of occult items, and there are several bidders on the island as well.
But due to a storm, they are cut off from the mainland and her attorney has been mysteriously killed. They try to figure out what is going on, and it seems not everyone is there to bid on items. So you have an almost classic “locked room” mystery, especially when one of the guests is found bludgeoned to death. Will they be able to solve the mystery before more die?
I did like another call back as we again hear of the Chinese secret society the Golden Crane Society, which was introduced in the Hellboy and BPRD series. Tho I did think that Sarah Jewell seemed more “frumpy” then in past stories.
As noted, there are a few more series being wrapped up, and two more are coming at the time of this posting. Another has also been wrapped up, but I’d rather cover it with the others. In reading these, I would love to see more of the Silver Lantern Club members, and more with Sarah Jewell and the BPS. And learn more about the alien race. Time will tell if we do.
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