Written by Mike Mignola
and Thomas Sniegoski
Art by Craig Rousseau
Published by Dark Horse Comics
Young Hellboy: The Hidden Land continues by introducing new characters, good guys and bad guys.
Who is the jungle woman who has saved Hellboy from the quicksand?
Why, it’s Scarlett the Sky Devil!
But we didn’t know that last issue, and to move the story forward, this issue takes us backward in time.
In this flashback, a (younger) Young Hellboy reads a 10-cent issue of Thrilling Stories. He regales a BPRD facility handler with the I-swear-it’s-all-true story of a young girl on the run from New York mobsters who leans flying tricks at a carnival, and takes the law into her own hands.
The cutest part of Young Hellboy as a character is how his love of pulp comics and stories is turning into real adventures.
Furthermore, at this age, he doesn’t know that he’s a pulp story of his own.
In his mind, he’s just a boy, like any boy. The red skin, pointed horns, long tail, yellow eyes, cloven feet, and giant red hand of doom?
Those are just details. He’s in a T-shirt and short pants like any boy.
Yet here he is, on a hidden jungle island and meeting the Sky Devil, presumed lost and gone forever, as she introduces him to a race of evolved ape-men! And then a T-rex shows up out of nowhere and gets taken down by the return of a Kong-style giant ape!
And then there’s the ape-men’s village, and sacred rituals, and then a reunion with Professor Bruttenholm! And then a forbidden temple, and an ancient evil! And demons, and vampires, and zombies!
And then …
And then …
Dang. Got me talking like a boy reading pulp adventure comics.
