Writer: Brian Augustyn
Artist: Guy Davis (P/I)
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Brian Augustyn provides readers with a new take on the early American witch hunts in this issue, and while there are a few new wrinkles present in this rather trite story I came away from this issue feeling like I’d been there and done that before. It also didn’t help me enjoy the story when 1) I only recognized one character (Abe Sapien) and 2) the whole thing just felt light, like nothing was at stake. While I was interested in what happened, I knew that no harm would befall the main characters, and therefore any kind of narrative tension was drained out before the book’s halfway point.
While the plot is pretty straightforward, I found myself a little confused at times as to what exactly was going on with our antagonist. Three un-decomposed bodies are found at the bottom of a pond in Shiloh, Massachusetts and it’s soon discovered the trio drowned while being tested for witchcraft. The B.P.R.D. is called in to investigate, the local preacher gets his panties in a bunch, and the mud around the girls’ bodies takes on a life of its own. So far so good, but when said preacher visits the bodies in the morgue (why he does this is never explained) the corpses turn into sludge and attack him. OK, I’m still with it so far given that people like the preacher killed the girls but what I don’t get is why he decides to cast them in the ocean after the mud-girls have apparently possessed him. Can anyone explain this to me?
Abe and the rest of his gang feel like only peripheral characters in this issue even though they are a presence throughout. They fight the sludge monsters created by the preacher and try to stop him from doing whatever it is he’s doing, but I was never sure if the preacher’s intentions were evil. This lack of clarity does nothing to arouse my interest in the rest of the B.P.R.D.’s adventures even though I’ve enjoyed other stories set in this world.
The high point of this issue is easily Guy Davis’ art as it feels like a treat to see him working. His work reminds me of Mike (X-Statix) Allred in its simplicity of design and in the clear, precise way any action is portrayed. There’s no drop off in quality from Mike Mignola’s portrayal of the characters in this issue, and that’s as high a compliment as there is when dealing with the Hellboy universe. The faces on some of the minor characters change from panel to panel, and that’s obviously not good, but the stars of the book always look great. This inconsistency hurts the overall look and feel of the book even though it doesn’t occur that often.
I’m not sure this issue would even appeal to Hellboy fans, and given that it’s a spin-off of that character’s adventures this book seems to be a failure. When I understood what was happening I liked reading this issue, but it degenerated too quickly into an unreadable mess for me to recommend this issue.
What did you think of this book?
Have your say at the Line of Fire Forum!