Comic Book Reviews: Hellboy Unweds plus Twilight Zone 1 and 2

I finally got my hands on Dark Horse Presents #32, which has the second half of the Hellboy Gets Married story. Hellboy wakes up after drinking way too much to discover he married a demon the night before. He says he wants a divorce and winds up in a big fight with her and a bunch of zombie demon conquistador-type guys. This is definitely one of the lesser Hellboy stories but it makes for an interesting explanation of why he stopped his drinking binge in Mexico. At least, I assume this will stop him from drinking too much. If I was the B-Movie Catechism guy, I'd use this as a jumping off point to say if Hellboy was Catholic, he'd have great grounds for an annulment, which is not "Catholic divorce" like a lot of people claim it is. An annulment means that the marriage contract was not validly entered into and therefore no marriage took place. In Hellboy's case, he was drunk which falls under "mental incapacity," i.e. he was unable to choose freely to marry (cf. Canon 1095 of the Code of Canon Law). Also, the demon was under a human form at the time, presumably to trick him into marrying her, which is covered by Canon 1098: "A person contracts invalidly who enters into a marriage deceived by malice, perpetrated to obtain consent, concerning some quality of the other partner which by its very nature can gravely disturb the partnership of conjugal life." Being non-human is a grave quality to be sure. I guess it's more dramatic to have a big fight at the end rather than bring on the canon lawyers.

The Twilight Zone has a new version from publisher Dynamite and writer J. Michael Straczynski (of Babylon 5 fame).  The story follows a hotshot corporate financier who wants to disappear after he's embezzled a ton of money from a company. The feds are closing in and he wants to cash out. He gets in touch with an outfit that provides new identities including a whole new body. He buys in but then discovers they are putting up someone else as him who is trying to right the wrongs he did. But why? The story is pretty interesting but unfinished just yet. I'm looking forward to how it will play out.

Look for these at your nearest comic shop!