B.P.R.D.: HOLLOW EARTH #1 (of 3)

By Tony Whitt     February 05, 2002

Liz has left the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense to find the legendary monastery of Agartha. Hellboy has gone on a leave of absence after some disturbing revelations about the Bureau, and now Abe and Roger are considering leaving. But before that happens, Kate, Abe, Roger, and a new recruit?a medium without a body named Johann?must answer a psychic "distress call" from Liz. Something's wrong at the monastery, something that may have to do with the pre-human super race the monks believe themselves to be descended from.

I haven't been much exposed to Mike Mignola's HELLBOY work, but if the quality of the first issue of this miniseries is anything to go by, it may be time to go make some purchases. Even without the character who may be coming soon to a theater near you, and even without Mignola's artwork, this story is immediately captivating. The premise of a government agency working specifically to combat the eldritch horrors unleashed by the Third Reich and by the Soviet Regime is interesting enough?it's X-FILES without the endless mythologizing, without Fox Mulder's endless search for the truth, and without Dana Scully's endlessly open mouth?but the idea that such an agency suffers from the same amount of bureaucratic BS as any other government agency is what really makes the idea work. Abe and Kate are immediately realistic characters, working at a job that most of us would never imagine possible as calmly and with as many job-related problems as we do. When Kate returns a book that she can't get into to Abe, explaining that it's too implausible for her, he replies, "Implausible? That's almost funny." That's exactly the reaction we have to this series?nothing is too far out, and Mignola's quirkily serious tone gives it all the verisimilitude it needs.

Ryan Sook's artwork does the rest. When reviewing THE SPECTRE a little while back, I called him "one of the best artists out there," and his work here only justifies the hyperbole. Sook's dark, no-nonsense approach to even the most outré sequences in this issue gives it exactly the Golden Age look a book set in the 1940s should have at the same time as it lends the book a forcefully realistic style. Dave Stewart's colors, a beautifully rendered mixture of earth tones and subtle shadings, only enhance that photorealistic feel. Even the appearance of Abe, a "fishman" as Kate describes him, doesn't detract from the illusion that we're looking back at real events from the past and that these people truly existed. Which, of course, makes the plot itself that much creepier. No offense to Mignola, but Sook is every bit his equal in making these characters come alive, and he's probably the only artist Mignola should ever trust to do them. When the inevitable comic adaptation of the equally inevitable HELLBOY movie finally arrives, we can only hope this same creative team gets to do it. Whatever the movie manages to do to kill the property, these guys can bring it back from the dead. No pun intended.

B.P.R.D.: HOLLOW EARTH

Grade: A

Issue: No. 1 (of 3)

Author(s): Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Tom Sniegoski, Ryan Sook

Publisher: Dark Horse

Price: $2.99