Book Review: Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Secret of Chesbro House & Others by M. Mignola et al.

Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: The Secret of Chesbro House & Others stories by Mike Mignola, Olivier Vatine, and Christopher Golden; art by Olivier Vatine, Shawn McManus, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and Mark Laszlo; colors by Dave Stewart

Another set of adventures from the history of Hellboy...

Night of the Cyclops: In 1962, Hellboy helps capture a minotaur in Greece, though that is just the first page of this story. He has a sense that something else is odd in the area, so he sticks around while the B.P.R.D. cart off the half-man, half-bull. A goat starts talking to Hellboy, telling him to follow her. She calls him by a different name and leads him down a waterfall. Of course the goat can navigate the cliffs easily but Hellboy falls and cracks his head. He wakes up in the land of people who are half-goat, half-human. His escort was once a very pretty (and only human) lady which displeased Aphrodite, who sent Eros to make her fall in love with a satyr. When Eros saw her, he fell for her and didn't do the deed. So Aphrodite cursed her people to live as goat/human hybrids. And to be attacked by a cyclops once a year to wipe out their harvest and any other gains they made over the year. Hellboy has been brought there just before the Cyclops attack, so the story ends with some action and reconciliation. The artist does a good job imitating Greek style for the flashbacks while having a more standard Hellboy look for the contemporary scenes. I like this a lot--usually Hellboy is mixed up in some mythology or folklore that is more obscure, having a more familiar setting is enjoyable.

The Secret of Chesbro House: A creepy haunted house story sees the great-great-grandson of a 19th-century industrialist visiting Chesbro House to break its curse (with the expectation of selling it for lots of money). The young man does not believe in superstitions but the rumors are many. Great-great-grandpappy got into the occult and had lots of secret rooms built into the house where they had lots of unsavory activities. Hellboy and a psychic join the young man and his fiancee for a seance to clear up the troubles. A lot of troubles ensue. The story feels a lot like Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher with some add-ons. I liked it but wasn't wowed by it.

Old Man Whittier: This much better haunted house story finds Hellboy visiting a dilapidated New England house that a young woman has just inherited. They wander around the house a bit when a local caretaker shows up and wants to talk to the woman. Hellboy checks out the family graveyard out back. He finds a crypt leading downstairs; the young woman finds a locked cellar door. Both paths lead to horror. The story is simple and works very well. It has the usual Hellboy humor, horror, and action. I liked it a lot.

The Miser's Gift: A man in Budapest slips into the past with a local professor and helps an old guy carry his sack home. The old guy gives the man a coin. The man and the professor return to modern day but the coin creeps him out, especially when the professor says the old guy was a famous miser. The man tries throwing away the coin (among other ways of getting rid of it) but he keeps finding it in his pocket. Hellboy joins the two for another visit to the past. The story is whimsical--both light-hearted and humorous. It has a nice resolution and makes a good Christmas story (which it was in 2019).

Time is a River: Well, the ending of The Miser's Gift had a little bit of tragedy that Hellboy goes to correct in this story. It's another fun and fanciful adventure.

This is another enjoyable volume of random Hellboy stories. The art in Night of the Cyclops is best, though the Old Man Whittier story might be my favorite. Oddly enough, the title story was my least favorite.

Recommended, highly for Hellboy fans.