Reviews
Conquerer Worm was alright, but mostly just fun. Whereas the second and third stories were excellent. Clearly I like Hellboy to be embroiled in wild occult and mythological shit. The Nazi stuff is still good, but does feel a bit played out, as much as I like Roger. It all felt a bit like it was going through the motions. Maybe because Roger constantly looks for peaks to jump from? Art wise, it’s a bit uneven. I wonder if it’s because it compiles a bunch of different stuff and arranges it chronologically and from different sources? The second one sure did—to great effect. It would make sense if this was the case here because the second story was really light on detailing and seemed very hurried. But again: It ends on a high note.
The last story is a 5 star read and the first, though not bad by any means, lacks cohesion even as it’s trying to tie together some of the more disparate threads from other volumes. There really does feel like a lack of through line and overall arc due to how the content was generated. It shines as the last volume threads together the stories and presents a coherent and interesting arc that continues to the next volume. It may feel more traditional compared to the disjointed stories, where the reader just finds Hellboy in medias res and goes with it in a short story manner, but the change by this volume is a very welcome one—at least for me.
