HELLBOY AND THE BPRD: 1954 is the latest in the retcon series of Hellboy’s early days with the Bureau. While my favorite is probably “Black Sun” (mutants! UFOs! Nazi occultists!), the only weak story in the volume is the final one, “The Mirror” — it’s just filler that serves to showcase Richard Corben’s art. I’ve already included the stories in my Hellboy chronology; as there are a couple of stories already set in 1954 (“Nature of the Beast” and the corresponding scene in The Visitor) I’ve had to guess where they fit in. My assumption is that as Hellboy mentions being in England in 1953 in “Unreasoning Beast” and doesn’t make any reference to visiting England in “Ghost Moon” (which has a lot of English elements — and clearly seeds them for a future story), “Nature of the Beast” comes after them. I could be wrong.
Rereading PAPER GIRLS 3by Brian Vaughn and Cliff Chiang I found I liked it much better than the first time. KJ, Tiffany, Erin and Mac get dumped down in prehistory where they encounter a time-traveler from the future, a teenage cavewoman mother, three belligerent cavemen and lots of weird future technology. While I was turned off on first reading by the prehistoric setting (pretty stock), the characters held my interest this time around (as this was my copy instead of the library’s I didn’t have to rush so much).
#SFWApro. Cover by Stephen Green, all rights remain with current holder.
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