Tuesday, April 4, 2017

The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed #2


The latest Hellboy-adjacent mini-series continues here with a longer look at the alien visitor sent to destroy Hellboy as a child and instead chooses to watch from afar while the demonic creature destined to destroy the world develops into a hero. We get panels of Hellboy's heroics in various times here and there, but it's the Visitor who is the real focus of this issue.

Although he has mixed emotions about humanity, the Visitor decides to take a wife and build out a life for himself as he watches time pass and Hellboy grow into the type of man the alien hoped he could become. The subplot fleshes out the character more than I expected as it appears our watcher is spending equal time watching both Hellboy and humanity. While the later has disappointed him from time to time, with the mini-series now into the 1960s, our visitor hasn't seen any signs of the creature his people expect to destroy the world.

The episode ends on a foreboding note heading into the five-issue mini-series third issue. Despite the life that he's carved out for himself and Hellboy's success in forging his own path, it appears something ominous may be around the corner. Worth a look.

[Dark Horse, $3.99]

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