Monday Musings: Review Roundup: Lockwood and Hellboy

I've got a couple more book reviews for you today: Hellboy Vol. 5: The Conqueror Worm and Lockwood and Co.: The Whispering Skull.

Hellboy Vol. 5: The Conqueror Worm

After two volumes of short stories and vignettes, Mignola returns to the larger story of Hellboy's personal journey. Hellboy and Roger (the homunculus from Vol. 2) are sent to investigate the astonishing results of a WWII Nazi experiment: a spacecraft launched in 1939 is returning to its place of origin. During their adventure, they confront a still-living Nazi scientist, Mr. Head-in-a-Jar himself, Herman von Klempt. Von Klempt intends to finish the experiment begun by his compatriots 60 years previous: to bring one of the ancient evil beings called the Ogdru Hem into this plane.

The story exhibits Mignola's pulpy action-adventure style to great effect and weaves in Hellboy's moral character in new ways. Departing from the previous emphasis on his choice not to embrace his "destiny" of bringing about the end of the world, this volume brings Hellboy's choices closer to home with the choice between killing a team member to stop the bad guys or find a better way.

I'm glad to get more of the main story again; while some of the celebrity introducers for the series have said the shorts are Mignola's best work, I'm too much of a long-form story lover to agree. If you've made it this far with the series, it's worth keeping on.

Lockwood and Co.: The Whispering Skull

After enjoying the first Lockwood and Co., I wanted to get on with the series. The first book ended with a revelation that served as a tease for the second book: the titular whispering skull. The second book begins with a couple of ongoing situations: the skull hasn't spoken since the end of book 1 and Lockwood and Co. are doing well as an agency. After a slightly bungled commission, Lockwood and Co. enter a wager with their nemeses: Quill Kipps and his junior agents. Whoever succeeds in solving the next case they're both on will get the satisfaction of the other's public apology in the paper.

Well, of course the very next case Lockwood and Co. take lands them working with Kipps and co. In their race to win, our heroes end up racing against time and murderous artifact collectors to save the city (and their reputations).

This book had everything I loved about the first: humor, worldbuilding, characterization, and plotting. The mystery was less surface-level this time, and the competition with Kipps added some extra tension to the story. I still got closer to the solution much sooner than narrator Lucy, but she's meant to be the Watson to Lockwood's Sherlock. (Which is not to say she's unintelligent; she's just not as quick at certain aspects of investigation as he is.) The characterization of Kipps and his followers was deeper this time around, appropriate for their elevated importance. There were several points in the story where I was frustrated with Lucy's opinions about other characters and the plot later vindicated me on at least two of them. As with the previous book, there are elements introduced here which are meant to carry on into the next book, most notably the cliffhanger of the last page. It's not a tease. It's a cliffhanger. Book 3 can't get here fast enough.