Hellboy and the inevitable end of all things

While there is a general consensus that the BPRD series by Mike Mignola and pals went on for too long, and never really recovered from the loss of Guy Davis' art, the slow apocalypse that truly breaks the world of men in this story is a hell of a ride.

And I remain a little haunted by the final issue of the series, as a metaphor for my own mortality, and the inescapable fate we all must face, sooner or later.

Mignola's art makes a welcome return in those final pages, delivering on the grim promise the entire series has been dealing with. The end that was always spoken of is finally there, and it really is Hellboy standing there with Hecate at the end of all things. The world is destroyed, and he takes his final steps into an iron coffin.

Every Hellboy story has been telling us this will happen, but after reading about the endlessly noble efforts to stave it off, it can't be avoided. And Hellboy has reached the final moments of his story along with the end of the world, and it haunts me because I know we all get there in the end, 

At some point we all face that same moment, despite our own efforts to delay it. We can fight the bug-eyed monsters coming up from the earth, but it will be overrun by dragons, before burning in a  cleansing flame. And one day, no matter how much we don't like to think about it, we will all face our own demise.

We will all be there.

Of course, there have been loads of Hellboy-related content ever since, with the adventures of Big Red as a young monster hunter, or Frankenstein going out into the truly post-apocalyptic world for his own adventures. But this is the inevitable end of all things.

None of us know when that last moment will come, or even if we will face it with fear, or dignity, or something unexpected. Hellboy just gets on with it, and it's something we all have to do as well.