HELLBOY: THE CORPSE

Hellboy's on a mission to bury a corpse - typical day, really

By Tony Whitt     March 30, 2004

Hellboy's on a mission to rescue a human baby from the Daoine Sidh, the fabled "Good People" of Ireland whose own race is slowly dying. But to rescue the child, he must first find a burial spot for the very dead yet very vocal Tam O'Clannie formerly of Killarney, and there aren't many burial spots around that will take another tenant. Add into the equation the Daoine Sidh who had taken the baby's place and who now wants revenge on Hellboy, and it's an all-around typical night's work for Big Red.

It's not hard to see why "The Corpse," which originally appeared in 1996, is Mike Mignola's favorite HELLBOY story. Nor is it hard to see why it's such a fan favorite that Guillermo Del Toro has made the corpse in question a featured player in the movie version. If you had to introduce a newcomer to the HELLBOY universe using only one stand-alone story, this is the one - which is probably why Dark Horse has released it as a sensibly priced one-shot. There's not a lot of continuity to catch up with, nor is there some huge cast of characters to memorize. Instead, it all comes down to a baby, a corpse, and a bunch whom even Hellboy calls "a very weird little people."

One of the greatest appeals of Mignola's work is the marriage between his straightforward and often hilarious scripting, with humor that verges on the anarchic, and his dark and moody artwork which suggests a script far more serious than this one truly is. It's the sort of mixture that other creative teams often try to emulate, but never with the amount of success Mignola has consistently had. And speaking of consistency, anyone who has seen more recent work of Mignola's will be surprised that there's very little change between this early story and the current work - after hitting that level of excellence early on, he's stuck with it ever since. It's quality work, no doubt about it.

It's also simply an entertaining story, told with a minimum of fuss. Most of the story is made up of moments such as Hellboy's attempt to lay O'Clannie to rest Imolgue-Fada. At all the other burial spots, the dead have risen up in quite spectacular fashion to proclaim the lack of vacancy in their resting places. Here, there's an invisible barrier - and the sound of someone whistling inside. Even the arrival of the 50s-style-Marvel-style monster doesn't break the easy stride of the story, and when it ends, you'll want to spend a lot more than a quarter getting to know more about this character and his adventures - which, I suspect, was the whole idea.

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