Hellboy: The Ice Wolves [Paperback]

The Ice Wolves is a lame attempt at a haunted house mystery blended with Chadbourn's usual mystical end of the world mumbo jumbo. The addition of Hellboy might have made this second hand garbage palatable had the author managed to tap into any of the attributes that make the Big Red One great but he doesn't. As well as disrespecting the chronology of the graphic novels Chadbourn's characterization of Hellboy as sensitive, intelligent and somewhat talkitive are so against type that the reader is forced to the conclusion that this is not Hellboy at all but some cheap English knock-off.

The human characters in this book are Brad and Lisa. Brad (like seriously, Brad, in a haunted house, has this guy not seen Rocky Horror) and Lisa are both photojournalists fresh from Iraq (or central casting). When we first meet Brad he is refusing to leave his appartment on the ground that he saw some bad stuff over there. The thing is Brad's dad comes from working class Boston Irish stock and he doesn't approve of Brads cissified career as a war journalist and wishes his son had a more manly job like an engineer (seriously). This upsets Brad but it will upset the reader even more when they realise Brad's working class Boston Irish father is actually a multimillionaire recluse living in a haunted mansion. Lisa is a girl; she's tough, hot, asexual and she screams a lot. Try and imagine a barbie doll without the personality.

What allows this book to sink below the usual level attained by superhero tie-in novels is the poor quality of the writing. Chadbourn is overfound of the double adjective and nothing is ever "said" in the book if could be otherwise "noted", "whispered" or "added unconvincingly" etc.

If you want a good action adventure I reccommend Matthew Rielly's Ice Station Or if you must buy a Hellboy tie-in get Lobster Johnson: The Satan Factory (Lonster Johnson)

This is the latest of the Hellboy novels, and it does not disappoint. Hellboy is his usual gruff self, but is shown to display concern for the side characters on many occasions.

Much like the Golden Army movie, creatures of all sorts pop out of nowhere, making this an engaging and interesting read. The idea of being stuck in a house may seem like a plot that will go nowhere fast (at least in novel format), but the time travel spices things up a bit. Through this we learn not only the background of what's going on, but the main antagonists' origins and goals as well. The whole book is a struggle for survival, and it seems impossible for even Hellboy to survive.

The book's only weak point is the human characters; I found them just "eh" and seemed rather contrived to me. Plus when they try to give them a past, none of them are fully developed, and there is one plot point that is never resolved. Thankfully, it's really minor in the grand scheme of things, and you can get along with it.

I highly recommend this to Hellboy fans; it's creepy, action-packed, and has a crazy imagination going for it. So, pick it up!

Hellboy has waged war against diverse antagonists, including Nazis and the witch Baba Yaga, over the years. In Mark Chadbourn's turn at the intellectual property created by Mike Mignola in 1993, Hellboy is pitted against an army of werewolves on the snow-covered streets and hills of Boston.

Because of Guillermo del Toro, Hellboy is almost a household meme; everybody thinks they know Hellboy, although they actually usually know only del Toro's version, as embodied by Ron Perlman.

Chadbourn's Hellboy seems different to me and the novel's setting is pure Chadbourn: haunted houses, ancient races, archetypal creatures, running amok in the major cities of the world. In The Ice Wolves, the eponymous wolves are more the incarnation of the dark, primal instincts of man, released into the modern world through the operation of two occult devices created by a shaman to save his tribe from ravaging wolves in a pre-historical world of Eastern Europe. Through magic, the wolves are absorbed by man and their murderous instincts internalized to lie dormant until their release during the Time of the Black Sun.

The novel begins with Kate Corrigan at the folklore department of New York University, awaiting Hellboy. Through her research, she has determined that certain periods of history have witnessed epidemics of lycanthropy and that these occurrences involve a prophecy of the coming of the Time of the Black Sun. She and a colleague have discerned a pattern of movement and mayhem that indicates that there is a modern epidemic and that the wolves are converging upon the United States.

Hellboy's arrival coincides with the appearance of the wolves in the United States and the death of Kate's colleague, Daniel. Daniel's last act is to materialize to Kate and Hellboy and warn them that the wolves have activated the Heart of Winter and are headed to Boston to retrieve the second relic, the Kiss of Winter, in order to initiate the Time of the Black Sun. Daniel informs them that the Kiss of Winter is hidden in the Grant Mansion in Boston, a house rumored to be the most haunted house in New England.

With the introduction of the Grant House, Chadbourn leads us into H. P. Lovecraft territory. He also delves into several sub-plots: the story of Brad Lynch and his estranged father, now owner of the Grant Mansion; the story of the Grants and the origin story of the Kiss of Winter; the birth of the lycans and their involvement with and search for the two relics; a haunted house story; time shifting and time travel; and a pastiche of Gothic elements that align the novel with the works of Poe, H.P Lovecraft, and Henry James.

Chadbourn handles each narrative level competently; however, sadly, I did not find the parental tales particularly interesting, although they are integral to the plot and must be developed in order to resolve the conflict. Nevertheless, Chadbourn shines when dealing with mythic and archetypal elements and action.

Ultimately, the two stars of the novel are Hellboy and the haunted house and these two characters are worth the journey through the work. Chadbourn writes a smooth crystalline prose and he knows how to tell a story. The Gothic aspects of the novel are true to the genre and the pastiche of Lovecraftian elements is convincing.

I was particularly intrigued by Chadbourn's recreations of the past and the origin of the wolves and the two relics: the Kiss of Winter and the Heart of Winter.

The novel is a fast read, loyal to the genre and its hero--Hellboy.

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