Creative Staff
Story: Mike Mignola and John Arcudi
Art: Max Fiumara
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Clem Robins
Chapter Break Art: Dave Johnson
What They Say
Atomic-bred monsters are killing civilians in the Utah desert, pitting Professor Bruttenholm, guardian of the child Hellboy, and Anders, the agent possessed by vampires, to investigate. All signs point to a mysterious glass element discovered in the desert as the origin of these dangerous creatures entering our world. Collects the five-issue miniseries.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
In 1948 Professor Bruttenholm is called to Utah to investigate sightings of bizarre creatures near a nuclear testing site. The government has been testing using nuclear explosions as a propulsion method to take manned space vehicles out of orbit. One member of the team, Dr. Anna Rieu, believes that the energy of nuclear explosions is weakening the barriers between parallel worlds, while Professor Bruttenholm theorizes that it is the combination of the explosion and the particular mystical properties of the blast site’s location that is causing this rift. Complicating matters is the BPRD agent Anders, who was possessed by vampires and is acting more and more erratically, endangering the team.
As I’ve mentioned in other Hellboy-related reviews, I think that the universe Mignola has created is one of the most fascinating in comics—easily the equal of the respective shared universes of Marvel and DC. If this were not the case then there would not be so many excellent stories centering on peripheral characters, such as Professor Bruttenholm and Anders. Hellboy only shows up three or four times, and even then only as a child.
The main story concentrates on the attraction and eventual falling out between Professor Bruttenholm and Dr. Rieu. The attraction between the two is immediate, but their respective views on extra-dimensional creatures, the validity of Bruttenholm’s “science” in Dr. Rieu’s opinion, and their ideas on what is causing the incursion of these creatures drive a wedge between them. Compounding this are the gender politics of 1948 and the near-constant, almost unconscious belittling Dr. Rieu experiences at the hands of her colleagues and the military brass. Time and again she and her ideas are marginalized and discredited because they come from a woman and because they threaten the future of nuclear testing. To his credit, Professor Bruttenholm treats her with respect, and in some ways this is unfortunate because Dr. Rieu comes off as mean and overly hostile to a person undeserving of such treatment, making it difficult to like her.
Professor Bruttenholm’s attraction to Dr. Rieu also undermines his effectiveness as a leader. Anders, who was possessed by vampires and is now dealing with severe PTSD, endangers the team and actually indirectly causes the deaths of two agents. This tragedy could have been averted had the Professor paid more attention—a fact that weighs on him at the story’s end.
Overall the story is very well told, as one would expect from Mignola and Arcudi. The mixing of atomic fears with Lovecraftian horror works very well, and it’s nice to see a young Professor Bruttenholm in action. The burgeoning love story between him and Dr. Rieu is also quite effective and reached me on an emotional level. While I understand her frustrations and can empathize with how they had reached a critical point, I found that I couldn’t quite like her because of her treatment of him at the end. This is not to say that she is a bad character—far from it, in fact. It just means that she rubbed me the wrong way. The story ends rather melancholically with no one quite getting what he or she wanted, and I ended up feeling rather sorry for all involved.
Moving on to the other side of the storytelling, Max Fiumara’s art is excellent. It matches Mignola’s style very well without coming off as a parody or an imitation. One of Fiumara’s strengths lies in panel size and placement. He does a great job of creating a sense of rhythm—especially with wide, thin panels. Two instances of the effectiveness of Fiumara’s art in particular stood out to me. The first occurs when young Hellboy is talking with his caretaker, Archie, about an upcoming visit with President Truman. Hellboy wants to dress up for the visit and because he’s “Air Force through and through” he wants to wear an Air Force uniform. He puts on Archie’s Air Force cap, but it can’t rest on his head and instead it gets wedged between his horns. The panel where we see him wearing the hat is a great mix of cute and funny. He looks so happy wearing it, but at the same time he can’t help but look ridiculous, and like Archie, we can’t help but laugh. This scene turns sad as Hellboy runs away and locks himself in his room. As it’s pointed out later, like all boys, Hellboy just wants to fit in and be like everyone else.
The second example occurs later in the series after Anders has escaped the Brig and run off to the desert. There he encounters a wolf-like creature that charges. Fiumara shows the confrontation in a series of six panels over two pages. The panels are long and thin, running from the left gutter to the right and they manage to highlight the creature’s speed and ferocity and Ander’s complete disregard for his own safety.
Really, I could go on about the quality of Fiumara’s art and how well it tells the story, but I would be remiss if I also didn’t mention Dave Stewart’s colors. Stewart uses a rather dark palette and even the scenes in the desert where the overall color scheme is dominated by yellows and oranges feels dark and heavy. The color choices goes a long way to help create the mood of the various scenes and works very well with Fiumara’s art and Mignola and Arcudi’s words.
In Summary
BPRD 1948 is a tale of love lost and found in the desert, gender politics, and the dangers of being too rigid in one’s view of the world. It adds another layer of detail to an already rich comic universe and is wonderfully told by the writers, penciler, and colorist. This is one of those comics where you can feel that the entire creative team is in sync with each other. Highly recommended.
Content Grade: A+
Art Grade: A+
Packaging Grade: A
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: September 11, 2013
MSRP: $17.99
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