All sorts of tension rising.
Creative Staff:
Story: Christopher Golden
Art: Matt Smith
Colors: Chris O’Halloran
Letterer: Clem Robins
What They Say:
Sparks fly when Hellboy and Anastasia take a surprise trip to Turkey. Anastasia’s former professor has unearthed the birthplace of Turkish shadow puppetry, but it seems there is more lurking in the shadows than he bargained for. Facing demonic presences is nothing new to Hellboy, but doing it alongside Anastasia is a new challenge!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
It’s definitely been interesting getting into a couple of different Hellboy releases over the past year after being away from the property for so long. I’ve definitely found that I prefer the stuff from the 50s era the most and some of the 60s stuff but this late 70s era material is definitely holding its own really well. This series comes from a familiar Hellboy writer as Christopher Golden definitely has delivered once again and their pairing with Matt Smith on the art just hits a sweet spot. There’s certainly a common design that we get across all the main books but Smith definitely has some great layouts here and the new original characters stand out very quickly, especially with Chris O’Halloran’s strong color design.
With the first storyline wrapping up in just two issues, that’s worked out well for a tight story but one that makes it clear(er) that the main story is about Anastasia. With her and Hellboy back in London as the job finished up, she’s enjoying bringing him to a museum party and just being around him. She’s incredibly flirty and playful with him, which he isn’t sure how to handle, but his presence is disliked to say the least when it comes to her boss, the museum director. So much so that he puts in a call to the BPRD to get him brought back. But Hellboy is intent on spending some time away from that all as he tries to figure out the connection he’s feeling here and basically puts in for an unexpected sabbatical. Watching as he and Anastasia don’t actually do anything but engage in a dance of words and flirtation, mostly from her side of things, provides for some really fun material as you wonder how far it’ll really go.
With this in mind, Anastasia takes advantage of it to spend more time with him by heading to Turkey as she got a request related to shadow puppets from a former professor of hers at a dig there. We get some decent history on this on the trip side of it and through the locals as there’s something supernatural going on. Which, we discover, involves murders as they get to the actual dig itself and learn how badly things are going. It’s an interesting setup and one that has Hellboy wondering what it is he can even do since none of this is in his usual wheelhouse, but the intrigue is there and he’s pretty content to working alongside Anastasia. Of course, chasing down the shadow puppets in the dig after seeing them attack people in person the first night there leads to what looks to be either a pretty big hallucination or some form of time travel to the past…
In Summary:
With the shorter stories overall but a focus on the dynamic between Hellboy and Anastasia, this series hits a really good sweet spot for me with that. Anastasia is certainly fun and while I have that suspicion that there’s more than meets the eye to her, it’s enjoyable watching her flirt with Hellboy while also getting in a little adventure-tripping around the world with a couple of jobs. The Turkey storyline is certainly interesting and the exploration of the past adds some good elements to take in with it that’ll launch me to some additional reading, but mostly what we get is a solid start to a story here that reads very well and once again looks utterly fantastic. It just captures an interesting look and period that we don’t get often, especially in comics.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 22nd, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
