Beyond just being graphic, it seems to be an indicator of how banal, how commonplace, evil can be. And how mundane and ordinary some of his tools are. Very evocative, showing just how far William has gone. This one’s among the most disturbing panels in a Hellboy universe story. It leads to a nice visual clue that the ideology and practices of the people have changed even without stating it. There’s a sickly green in the initial betrayal of the light, then this change to something “darker” with the demons and such. The colour shift here to that blue is neat. 83 - And further as she shifts them to worshipping her as the Black Goddess. 82 - Hecate as the serpent is also interesting. I love the cycling back around through the Hyperborean history again, telling us some stuff that we already know, but also incorporating further elaboration to give context to more concepts that have developed since the initial cycle back in the early days of the Hellboy series proper. It’s interesting how this leads into story time. They apparently didn’t see the vision of Mary that Frankenstein did. 80 - The walking corpse people also seem confused. I also find it interesting that William’s daughter’s body seems to be in the same place where he said he initially laid it, but her corpse has a gunshot wound. 79 - If I were Frank, I’d probably be confused too. ( Note: Pagination is derived from the page numbers in the digital edition of the collection, Frankenstein Underground, December 2015.)

Originally published by Dark Horse in Frankenstein Underground #4 | June 2015 Story: Mike Mignola | Art: Ben Stenbeck | Colours: Dave Stewart | Letters: Clem Robins

Frankenstein underground