Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic has, to me, always appeared to be a rather pulpy entertainment with more style than substance, at least from afar. Having (unfortunately) seen the Guillermo Del Toro's movie adaptations before I even glanced at a single page of the comic, I'm now forced to work backwards, and read the original material after the films have already made a nice impression on me. And so it was that I just finished reading Seed of Destruction only yesterday, some twenty plus years after it first hit the comic book shelves the world over. Needless to say, I had a mixed reaction to it.
Seed of Destruction is structured plotwise, more or less, the way the original 2004 Hellboy movie was. Nazis attempt to open the gate to hell way back in 1940s, and a small, devilishly red looking creature accidentally sneaks out, and is adopted by the good guys who are trying to foil the Nazis' plans. As Professor Trevor Bruttenholm raises Hellboy as one of his own, the latter becomes an agent of the BPRD, and some 50 years after arriving on Earth, he once again has to face the evil Rasputin, the villain who's still attempting to summon the forces from the dark underworld into our own. What exactly these evil demons mean to do on Earth after they enslave or destroy humanity, no one, I'm sure, can say (not even Rasputin).
If I have one problem with this first issue, it's that Mignola's artwork doesn't quite communicate the story that him and John Byrne have written. Artwork and script don't quite mesh, as if they are completely different entities, and out of sync with one another. The story itself is not very imaginative, nor original, and I ended up being more confused the more I read, as if the additional information from pages ahead only made everything I had read up to that point more unclear (Who the hell is Ogdru Jahad? And why is everyone always talking about waking up the demons from darkness, as if there's any benefit to anyone, even to the villains, from such an endeavor?).
Hellboy is surely a charismatic and likable character. His use of humor and innuendo is refreshing and entertaining, and I'm sure that with a story to match his charm, this edition could actually end up being quite good. Seed of Destruction is a mediocre start to this iconic comic book series, and left a lot to be desired, if I'm being honest. Here's hoping that the next issue will at least leave me looking forward to the next episode, because as it is, I'll need some serious motivation to keep reading.
C
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