Hellboy Library Edition Volume 2: The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and Others [Hardcover]

 

 

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When Hellboy isn't saving the world from imminent destruction, he's doing a lot of little odd jobs across the world.

And by "odd jobs," I mean brief paranormal cases involving fairies, flying hunters, homunculi, "pamcakes" and disembodied heads. "Hellboy Volume 2: The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom" collects two volumes' worth of the demon anti-hero's assorted adventures, ranging from a fairy changeling to a devilish plot to conquer the world. All in a day's work.

Assorted short stories take Hellboy all over the world, and confronting many different problems -- a baby kidnapped by the faery folk, underground fiends, the malevolent witch Baba Yaga, a werewolf trapped by a centuries-old curse, the Saint Leonard worm (a dragon), a spectral huntsman followed by berserkers, a Japanese house full of bouncing heads, a seance gone horribly wrong, and the supervampire Varcolac.

And Hellboy heads to the ruined church where he was found -- only to dream of a dying witch, her holy children and a devil that sought the witch's "chained coffin." Turns out it has something to do with Hellboy's own origins. Not to mention an ancient, mysterious drawing provided by a priest of the "right hand of doom" -- which looks suspiciously like Hellboy's own hand.

And two bigger jobs loom over Hellboy -- after losing her fire powers to a strange homunculus, Liz Sherman is slowly dying. To save her, Hellboy sets out to find the homunculus, only to find that his crazed megalomaniac "elder brother" is planning to use Kate to bring a new, vast homuculus body to life.

And a demon (which looks suspiciously like a housefly) sealed into a box is stolen from a secret compartment, and is soon "serving" a human master. Turns out they want to lure Hellboy to that place, in the hopes of stealing the evil, apocalyptic powers that he has already renounced.

Mike Mignola is awesome at full-length graphic novels, but his shorter works are even better -- these are lean, compact little action stories with nothing more or less than they need. And it's sort of nice to see Hellboy's more ordinary cases -- if you can call these ordinary -- with foes like a changeling, a werewolf, the fairies and even a dragon.

Mignola's writing doesn't suffer from the shorter format, especially since he happily adapts some folktales to fit his world (legends, fairy tales, saints). There's wonderfully sick dialogue ("I'VE LOST MY ARRRRRRMMM!" "I'm sorry. Really. But... do you really need it? I mean, you're already dead and we've gotta go...") and some poignant moments (Hellboy musing on his "destiny"). Naturally, also plenty of bloody, horrific moments including a a chapel haunted by werewolves, a vampire that can "eat the moon," and a man turning into a giant lizard.

Hellboy is basically your average investigator in most of these stories -- he goes in, gets the job done and fixes things (occasionally being mistaken for Father Christmas). He's a nice straightforward kind of guy with a gruff manner, but Mignola reminds us at times that he has some unhappier facets ("You know how I live? I never deal with what I am").

And Mignola gives us some glimpses into where the "favorite son" may have come from, and the destiny he is still determined to avoid forever. It's pretty ghastly at times. At the same time, we get the hilarious "Pancakes" story, in which Hellboy's reluctant first bite leads to, ahem, hell-raising results.

"Hellboy Volume 2: The Chained Coffin and The Right Hand of Doom" collects many of Mignola's brilliant briefer stories, with a full range of Hellboy's smaller-scale cases.

This is a beautiful over-sized edition that includes Mike Mignola's Hellboy: The Chained Coffin, The Right Hand of Doom, and a few extra suprises. Include some sketches and print on good quality paper and the result is another excellent collection that enhances Hellboy's modern gothic supernatural tales. My only complaint is the choice of cloth material for the cover (it's the same as the first volume which collects lint and stains easily).

The 3 stars is NOT for the story but rather the quality of the material -- the cover does collect lint and it was not sealed when I received it. Story wise, I give this book 5 stars. This collection of short stories is highly recommended to those who are just starting to read Hellboy.

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