NorsePlay Reviews: Hellboy -- The Bones Of Giants! 🦴💀👤

Back in 2017 CE, NorsePlay posted about author Christopher Golden writing a Hellboy novel where Big Red gets Mjölnir fused to his oversized mitt and suddenly has to deal with the monsters of Norse Lore coming out of the woodwork. Later in 2021 CE, Dark Horse put out a graphic novel adaptation. The graphic's scripted by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, and with artist Matt Smith and colorist Chris O’Halloran doing Mignola's visual style to a chiaroscuro'd tee you can't really tell the difference.

Now while Hellboy as a comic is always good (though I argue BPRD's better and will get to why), the sequence leading to the page panels above gives us Mignola's it's-always-the-apocalypse feels and customizes that to it's-always-Ragnarök feels. So you might ask: Does the story attempt to reconcile Hellboy's antichrist-rejection religious context with polytheistic Norse Mythology? No, but it doesn't have to, and Hellboy deals with much cosmic/divine Lovecraftian constructs in its other pocket spheres anyhow. And as events take place in Norway, we're in that Nordic different sphere for the duration, and so is Hellboy as being stuck with the hammer includes being stuck with a certain Norse God, which feels really fitting.

[Nidavellim as a geographical-based name for the Dvergr is a great new alternative!]

As the four-issue arc progresses, Hellboy gets epic flashbacks from his spiritual guest that alone are worth the price & time of reading this, and it makes you wish Mignola would do even more NorsePlay, like he did for P. Craig Russell's co-ordinated adaptation of Gaiman's Norse Mythology, contributing the Mimir's Head and Odin's Eye chapter for Russell's first issue only the year before this in 2020 CE.

But it's not all just monsters when a quite grim chooser of the slain shows up:

It's exciting to see other Nordic allies & adversaries enter the picture too.

The one problem of Hellboy with the BPRD is the same as Superman with the Justice League: He's alpha-level OP, so unless you figure out a way to sideline him or do a separate title without (like just the BPRD spinoff), you know he's just going to clean clocks and win. I'm not saying that Abe Sapien's a better character match to wield Mjölnir (he's soooo not), but maybe instead in a BPRD story Abe could've gotten Rán's doomed-to-depths net, or fire-wielding Liz Sherman gets ahold of Surtr's sword, perhaps revealing she could be part Eldjötnar in the process, and/or wrestling with the fact that maybe she finds a sense of belonging for her Carrie/Firestarter ostracizing gifts in Muspelheimr (hey Dark Horse, if you want to commission a script I'm available for that right now).

As The Bones Of Giants is with all the above, NorsePlay loves it, especially seeing this comic's shadow-centric aesthetics get used in telling a story of otherworldly incursion. Go give it a read, and share what you think in the comments below, NorsePlayers!

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Guillermo Maytorena IV knew there was something special in the Norse Lore when he picked up a copy of the d'Aulaires' Norse Gods and Giants at age seven. Since then he's been fascinated by the truthful potency of Norse Mythology, passionately read & studied, embraced Ásatrú, launched the Map of Midgard project, and spearheaded the neologism/brand NorsePlay. If you have employment/opportunities in investigative mythology,  field research, or product development to offer, do contact him.