Christopher Mitten

Origin story for the Hellboy's archenemy Rasputin.

Story takes us to the very beginnings when Nazis search for Rasputin finally comes to an end. Rasputin decides to help the Nazis and assist them in the event that will eventually end up with the Hellboy materializing on Earth as harbinger of doom. This is a prequel story that explains how did Nazis obtain the occult knowledge to summon Hellboy and how did Bruttenholm (Hellboy's mentor, teacher and father figure) find himself in all of this show more mess.

I especially liked the character of Sandhu, British special agent from India who came across a lot of weird and strange things while fighting for the British. But when he sends his reports nobody believes him - be it for his origins or because things he reports are just hardly believable.

Highly recommended to all fans of adventure and of course Hellboy universe. show less

Not bad, not great.

Rasputin and the Nazis are pretty good villains, but are rendered rather shallowly here. Professor Bruttenholm is an interesting character and as a young man has a bit of room to be an adventurer, but that's not really his bag and machine gunning zombies is better left to others.

The art is ok, with one glaring exception. In a few panels Rasputin gets a faraway, communing with unspeakable evil look in his eyes that is rendered as "jaundiced kaleidoscope," and doesn't work show more (unless they want the reader to snicker and turn the page). show less

I haven't read Hellboy but I do enjoy Mike Mignola's work. This one is about Rasputin helping the Nazis with their occult mania, and a British Occult Intelligence operative who is out to stop them.

Above-average fantasy, with excellent art. It's not typically my kind of thing, but I like it.