Editor's Note: BPRD 1946 #4 will be in stores on April 9th.

Steven Bari: 4.5 Bullets
Michael Colbert: 4 Bullets
Bruce Logan: 4.5 Bullets

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Steven Bari 4.5 Bullets

Plot: The Nazi Project "Vampir Sturm" injected the mentally ill with the blood of a vampire. Left to thaw out at the end of World War II, Professor Bruttenholm races to stop the operation from wreaking havoc upon the world. But as the Professor steps into the basement of the gloomy asylum where these injected were housed, he discovers one hundred of the mentally unstable vampires missing.

Commentary: Moody. Suspenseful. High-Octane adventure. B.P.R.D. 1946 #4 is a thrilling roller coaster ride of tension and excitement. For those who haven't read the series up to this point, you may want to pick up the previous issues to really get the gusto of this amazing story.

Here are the essentials: Professor Bruttenholm tries to uncover a mysterious Nazi plot after the conclusion of World War II. As he and his American military envoy follow a lead to an old German barn, a bizarre little girl escorted by the Russian army greets the Professor. The girl, Varvara, is more than meets the eye, and together they discover Project Vampir Sturm and its one hundred missing test subjects.

Mignola and Dysart's writing expertly works with material of the period as well as the plot, mixing well-paced exposition with existential supposition. As the Professor interrogates a Nazi general about the repulsive vampire factory, the man tells his story and the moral choice before him: To follow the will of the Fuhrer or his own humanity. The character is brilliantly colored and three-dimensional.

But the writing also understands the need for brevity and lets the artwork carry the narrative. As an owl lands on the perch of the prison window, the writers allow the artists to relay the fear and apprehension of the Nazi general. In doing so, the story's pace and suspense increases toward the climax, leaving the reader in the cliché of breathlessness.

Moreover, Filardi's colors copulate with Azaceta's dark landscapes, giving birth to a spine chilling noir world that is eerily vibrant and sinister beneath the shadows. The bright spheres of white set against the scratchy solid black skillfully actualize the ability of darkness to reveal so little when illuminated by a flashlight. What lurks beneath the cover of these shadows? Vampires? Monsters? Goose-stepping, Nazi maniacs?

Try, try to expect what's coming next but each time you'll be surprised. The most fulfilling part about this book is the unprecedented events and characters within it. The exceptional narrative has already taken many twists and turns, but issue #4 brings many of these plotlines and characters to a "head."

Everything about B.P.R.D. 1946 # 4 is exceptional, from its text and narrative to its impressive artwork. This isn't just for Hellboy fans. Get on board this roller coaster, but you may want to bring the previous issues along. And maybe a paper bag if you're queasy.

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Michael Colbert 4 Bullets

Plot: Nazis and Vampires and Cyborgs, oh my!

It's 1946, and the war has reached its conclusion. The order of the world was shaken to its very core. The world was a wreck, and the clean-up had barely started. There was an open hole in the mind and heart of the world, and the direction it would take seemed up for grabs. The real question was what would be the dominant mindset: American capitalism or the political philosophy of communism. Both sides, though they had been united against a common enemy, knew that the line would be drawn soon, and whoever had the advantage would get the world as a prize. It's no secret that we were in a race with the Russians to grab as many German rocket scientists and intelligence officers as we could. The Nazis may have been evil, but their scientific advancements would determine the course our world would take in the future. The BPRD 1946 story rests on that concept applied to occult research.

Issue #4 begins with Bruttenholm and his Russian counterpart, the creepy little girl Varvara, interrogating German general Friedrich Manstein. The tensions between the two groups in both methods and philosophy are apparent. Everyone around Bruttenholm and Varvara is edgy, sensing the possibilities that everything they have fought and died for could be washed away, lost to the "other side." Bruttenholm and Varvara translate into excellent symbols for their respective worlds: Bruttenholm the older, weathered and now reserved western world and Varvara the impetuous child, shot through with a sense of entitlement, unaware or uncaring of her terrifying destructive capacity, Communism just settling into power. Not only does BPRD 1946 apply the big grab idea but also taps into the folly of the mentality that drove it. You see, what's less known about the big grab was that those Nazi spies, either through a plan or a simple need to justify their existence to their new masters, pretty much created the atmosphere that resulted in the Cold War. The real point of this story is that regardless of the mistrust, infighting, and showboating, the real enemy is still out there and Russians die the same as Americans. Only our bickering blinds us to the real threat. That real threat takes the form of a hundred cylinders containing man made vampires that Hitler intended to unleash upon the world in a final act of spite.

But enough of the metaphor stuff, this is a comic and there is fun to be had along with making you think. The combined Allied and Soviet forces venture to where the vampires are being held and come up against an even more bizarre mad science experiment. The character, Von Klempt, is a fantastic retro-futuristic creation. If you want a metaphor, I guess you could say Von Klempt represents the inhumanity of the Nazi regime…or something…but man it is freaky! This is nothing less than pure comic book nuttiness! It's this exact weirdness that you can only get in comics and brings the fun element into the read.

Mignola and Dysart deliver with excitement, atmosphere and a hefty amount of smarts in the writing. Paul Azaceta's art emulates Mignola's in the best ways and still retains a bit of its own identity. There is a beautiful splash page of the secret bunker where you have a million strange items. It's a moment that relishes the weird beauty a twisted imagination can create. Nick Filardi's colors are well done, though the pallet is a bit subdued for my taste considering the wildness of the story. At least when the soldiers enter the bunker, it could have popped color wise, but it's just a personal preference.

Final Word: I'm sorry I've come into this story with only one issue left. It seems a must for me now to go back and get the other issues. It's a great concept masterfully executed and, as I stated above, a beautiful reminder of how much fun and smarts you can get out of this medium when it's done right.

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Bruce Logan: 4.5 Bullets

Exclamation: "Look Ma, no legs!!"

Examination (Story): 2nd April 2004, the day Hellboy (the movie) saw its Canadian release. Along with being a kickass action movie it was also my first proper exposure to the Hellboy universe. Before that, although I had come across the odd mini or two, I never quite got into the BPRD-verse.

Well, four years down the line I have read quite a few Hellboy/BPRD/Abe Sapien stories and know a little more than what I knew of these characters than I did in April 2004. Nevertheless, there is one character that I want to see more of. He's one of my favorites from the franchise, and he's also the guy I attribute as having started it all, and whom Hellboy regards as his father. He's none other than Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, a.k.a "Broom," the star of this series.

About the issue itself, rather than (further) spoil its story, I'd like to touch upon the thing from it that struck me the most, something a character said. To paraphrase, the Nazi movement was a middle-class, workers' revolution.

Now why did this particular line stand out for me? Well, definitely not because I have any leanings towards the Nazi movement, neither the original one nor its bastard "Neo" progeny. I, as much as the next guy, wish the worst possible fate to those who commit such heinous unspeakable atrocities (as the Nazis did) on their fellow human beings, especially innocent children. It was the "middle-class" component that got me to pause and think about how close other "movements" have come to gaining the same reputation as the Nazis. One of them is Communism, a philosophy about which I don't know much about and which isn't looked upon favorably in the western world. The other, and this one I have seen in action since my birth/childhood, is Democracy. Though a nice prospect has its own, Democracy has (for lack of a better word) problems. Having always lived in a democratic system, I find it hard to imagine how hard would it have been for my grandparents and their ancestors to live in a country under the rule of another nation. Similarly, it's near impossible for me to fathom the concept of forced democracy. From what I learned in grade school social sciences and my personal experiences, democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Forcing democracy on another sovereign nation defeats one-third (if not more) of those three basic pillars. And I may be wrong, but I don’t think there is any such thing as Democracy-Lite.

There is also Anarchy, utter and total chaos, a threat that every political philosophy/movement faces, be it Democracy, Communism, Monarchy, Socialism or any other movement. Heck, democracy even has word "people/mob" at its core.

Reading that "middle class" line in this BPRD issue got me thinking of whether there could come a time when Democracy could go the way of the National Socalism (i.e. Nazism). Sure, in a democratic situation any such bastardization would be stopped before things got so bad, or rather "should" be stopped. But what if they aren’t?

All this thought from one single line of dialogue. The power of the written word!

Compliments to the writers for giving a human face to the Nazis, rather than slapping them with a one-dimensional "Evil" (with a capital E) mask and being done with it. Although it could be termed as a case of "too little too late," "crocodile's tears" and/or "hindsight is 20-20," the repentance of the German officer brings up the question of what would have become of the National Socialism movement had it not fallen into the grubby racist-fascist hands of Hitler and his cronies. How would have it worked towards bettering the lives of the underprivileged, the downtrodden?

That is a "What if?" situation if any.

As for the rest of the issue, Varvara was as enjoyable as ever, especially in her interaction with Bruttenholm. I absolutely loved it when she stuck her tongue out at him. Her character's mix of innocence and menace is just brilliant.

Examination (Art): Not only do the duo of Paul Azaceta and Nick Filardi illustrate BPRD 1946 in a style familiar to veteran BPRD-verse readers, they do it in a way that will even set newbies at ease. There is no over-the-top flashiness here, not even in the panels where the bullets start flying. However, thanks to the mood they create, the ominous danger never gets watered down. As per my comic reading tastes good comic art (1) seems to come to life and leap right off the pages, and/or, (2) pulls the reader into the story depicted in its pages. I'd list the art of BPRD 1946 under the second category. It pulls the reader into the story so much so that one can even hear and feel the reverberations of the gorillas' roars.

Proclamation: To describe BRPD 1946 in one phrase: "Mind-blowing."

You can find more reviews by Bruce Logan at www.xcave.net

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