Broken Frontier

With all the recent adventures, the B.P.R.D. agents finally get some time to think, reflect, heal their wounds, and mourn... Too bad their peace is about to be interrupted.

Fans of the Hellboy universe will find a number of Mike Mignola’s usual touches scattered throughout this comic. The scripting team-up with John Arcudi, however, yields something that is different and unique from the usual Hellboy stories.

The story opens on an incident in Langdon Caul’s life... a life that now, somehow, belongs to Abe Sapien. As Abe himself tries to sort through the recent revelations about his existence other members of the team attempt to process their own mysteries. The physical, mental, and emotional toll taken by recent events has left the team with visible cracks and this is not a good thing since a new set of mysteries are rising; starting with a large man, a strange machine, and the jungles of Indonesia.

Although the B.P.R.D. titles are being laid out in mini-series, the run reads more like an ongoing series at this point. Each mini has been building on the one before and this is actually both a good and a bad thing. The good is that this format is allowing writers Mignola and Arcudi to deepen the characters and provide them with real growth as well as creating a sense that all of these B.P.R.D. adventures are building to something big. The bad is that if you are a new reader or happen to have fallen behind on reading the last couple of minis then you are liable to find yourself a little lost. This story also has a definite sense of melancholy as well. There is a distinct lack of the lightening touches of Mignola’s trademark blue-collar humor.

Guy Davis’s art is a perfect compliment to the story. His figures are angular with a certain amount of rough edges that are well suited for this odd mix of characters that include both the human and the monstrous with a human heart. He is aided by the wonderful colors of Dave Stewart as well. Stewart chooses to use a sepia tone for the sequence set in the past and that then merges with the bright, yellow, sun drenched landscape of Indonesia.

If you are a fan of the collection of odd characters that have made themselves both a team and a family in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense then Garden of Souls will be a worthy addition to your collection. If you are, however, new to the solo adventures of Hellboy’s supporting cast then you would be better served seeking out the earlier B.P.R.D. stories and working your way up.