Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Leroy Douresseaux on HELLBOY: THE FURY #3

HELLBOY: THE FURY #3 OF 3 (SERIES #57)
DARK HORSE COMICS

STORY: Mike Mignola
ART: Duncan Fegredo
COLORS: Dave Stewart
LETTERS: Clem Robins
COVER: Mike Mignola with Dave Stewart
32pp, Color, $2.99

It’s a killer ending in a killer series that sees Hellboy’s killing! Say what?!

Hellboy: The Fury #3 is about endings. This issue sees an end to the collaboration of Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and artist Duncan Fegredo, which yielded the Hellboy story arcs Darkness Calls (2008), The Wild Hunt (2008-2009), and The Storm (2010). This issue brings an end to Hellboy’s battle with Nimue the Queen of Witches, which pitted the hoary hosts of monsters against the ghostly knights of England, led by a World War I vet who lived long enough to be King of England for a day.

The big ending in this third and final issue of Hellboy: The Fury is [SPOILER that many readers already know] that Hellboy is killed.

Imagine the battle between Hellboy and Ogdru Jahad in the last act of the 2004 Hellboy movie turned into page after page of beautiful comic book art and still capturing the fluid CGI movement and action of the film. That’s Hellboy: The Fury – Ragna Rok ‘n’ roll, y’all!

In The Fury, Fegredo draws giant battles that are as good as anything drawn for Marvel and DC Comics big event series, from Crisis on Infinite Earths to now. So much of this story’s power is told through the art. Mignola relies on Fegredo’s art (which recalls both Mignola and Jack Kirby) and graphics to convey the drama and setting, while using relatively little dialogue or even captions. In that way, this story is both quite and thunderous – the perfect balance for a visual epic fantasy. The masterful coloring of Dave Stewart makes it all even more beautiful.

A


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