Hellboy, Vol. 5: Conqueror Worm

At the end of World War II, American costumed-adventurer Lobster Johnson led an Allied attack on Hitler's space program, but not before the Nazis were able to launch the first man into space. Now, after sixty years, Hellboy is partnered with an artifical man - a Frankenstein's monster implanted by Bureau scientists with a bomb - to travel to the ruined castle in Norway to intercept the returning capsule, and its single passenger. . .the conqueror worm.

From Publishers Weekly

Winner of the 2002 Eisner Award for Best Limited Series, this story promotes Guillermo del Toro's upcoming film by reminding readers how fine Mignola is as a visual creator and how skilled he is at setting up outrageously melodramatic scenes to illustrate. Hellboy was a baby demon retrieved by psychic investigators who couldn't bring themselves to destroy the little imp. They brought him up to be a not-especially-secret agent of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. In this story, the massive, red-skinned hero is sent to investigate the ruins of a castle where Nazis conducted occult/scientific experiments, accompanied by his colleague Roger the Homunculus and supposedly aided by a blonde Austrian agent who isn't what she seems. They soon encounter undead Nazis, space aliens and the early 20th-century costumed crime fighter Lobster Johnson. Meanwhile, a space capsule launched from the castle in 1939 is about to land, containing an evil spirit from the stars. From here, the plot sails into even weirder territory. Readers who let themselves be carried along, however, can enjoy beautifully designed pages full of dark shadows and images of skulls and gargoyles. Hellboy might look silly on a midtown street corner at high noon, but it's hard to laugh at him as he fights monsters in dark gothic crypts draped with tattered swastika banners. Mignola counts on the power of the art to push his readers through thickets of absurdity until they come out the other side, into a state of delirious wonder. Sometimes he succeeds.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Mike Mignola's fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age; reading Dracula at age twelve introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore, from which he has never recovered. Starting in 1982 as a bad inker for Marvel Comics, he swiftly evolved into a not-so-bad artist. By the late 1980s, he had begun to develop his own unique graphic style, with mainstream projects like Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. In 1994, he published the first Hellboy series through Dark Horse. There are thirteen Hellboy graphic novels (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien, and Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder), prose books, animated films, and two live-action films starring Ron Perlman. Along the way he worked on Francis Ford Coppola's film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer for Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), and was the visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004), and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). Mike's books have earned numerous awards and are published in a great many countries. Mike lives in Southern California with his wife, daughter, and cat.

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