The quiet hell of Hellboy

Hellboy in Hell is literally an astonishing comic - the capstone to years of Mike Mignola's epic series that still finds new things to say at the End of All Things, and looks bloody gorgeous.

Mignola's art has always had a place in my heart since he did that interlude scene in the middle of an early X-Force comic, but his work on Hellboy in Hell is incredible. Free from having to draw cars and power lines, Mignola goes deep into his imaginations, and brings up demonic nightmares and truly grotesque monsters from the abyss. All running hard against Hellboy's brilliantly deadpan incredulity, and his willingness to beat the crap out of anything that messes with him.

And this Hell, it's something new, even as its legions of the damned have been seething underneath all of the big red guy's previous adventures. By the time Hellboy gets there, it's silent, and quiet, and dead. There are no grand dukes of the infernal, no lakes of fire. It's all dark and rundown, the rulers are torn apart by their own armies, which are in turn consumed, and there are no politics there anymore.

There are still some talkative ghosts and vengeful vampires, and far more puppet shows than are really necessary, but Hellboy was brought into existence to end the world, and that's what he does to the place he was named for. The city Pandemonium falls, and falls again, until the dark lake at the center is still and dead.

And then you have a massive Hellboy striding through the quiet darkness, the pure creature of Apocalypse he was always going to be, the Armageddon that was promised, finally delivered to the infernal realms. 

But in all this darkness, there is something new, glimpses of something Hell could become, not beholden to millennia of dark tradition. No pacts, no wars, no empires. No courts of diabolical intrigue, just a taste of hope, as the world turns anew. There will still be snakes, but they will be a new kind of nemesis.

Hellboy in Hell might be my single favourite comic of the 21st century so far, because it's deep and dark and beautiful, in ways only the best comics can be.