BPRD: A most sudden inevitability

After reading all the Hellboy comics that needed reading, I had to go back and go through all the BPRD booksg - and brother, that is a lot of comics.

Fortunately they are also an excellent branch of comics, with some frequently breathtaking art - there are primary stories where literally everything goes to hell with the dense, slimy and deeply human work of Guy Davis, or the moody and thick hues of Laurence Campbell, with an incredible array of guest artists filling in the gaps.

Reading the whole saga again, free from the monthly schedule and knowing our it all works out, it is vaguely depressing - all these battles against the frogs and gods, and it's all for nothing, because the end that was promised still comes, and the world of men is swept away.

Humanity does survive, in a vast underground kingdom that is more in tune with the world around it, but all those natural glory of the world, all the mighty cities, all that great art, all the animals, all those wonderful people, they all finally fall beneath the claws of the Ogdru Jahad.

It was an ending long foretold and often shown in the Hellboy comics over the years, so it's not like it's actually a surprise, but the suddenness of the end still jars, with no real resolution for a lot of characters. Poor Abe Saipan is slapped aside by the apocalyptic Rasputin - and does give birth to the new race of people, as he was always going to - but it still feels harsh for old Abe, who we've followed in so many comics, with nobody even left to mourn him. Liz survives as an unknowable godhead trapped in amber in the new world, which feels about right.

Because most of the cast do not survive to see that new world. There are literally a handful of characters who go down into the deep - to be welcomed by Frankenstein! - but there had been so many stories that have got inside their heads, there is something of a void at the very end, a missing emotional beat - how does Fenix really feel about how it all went down?

But as weird as it was to see Hellboy back in action after his destruction of Hell, there is one final resolution for Big Red - back in the world for one last great deed, before joining with Hecate as promised, in inevitable end and beginning. Anung Un Rama, Urush Un Rama.

Abe would have been proud of his pal.

I know this isn't really the end, with several series featuring that man Frankenstein again already set after the last BPRD issue, and from what I've seen from browsing at the local store, it looks like Liz's story is far from over. And there have been a lot of comics set in the earlier years of Hellboy and the BPRD's adventures, which are all as pretty and dense as ever.

But that regular hit of modern horror action that was BPRD came to a sudden end, and that abruptness feels at odd with the slow burn of the earlier issues.