Comic Book Review: B.P.R.D.: Killing Ground story by Mike Mignola and John Arcudi, art by Guy Smith
In the alternate history of the Hellboy franchise, the United States government created a group called the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. The title demon who does not in fact want to bring about the end of the world was for many years their top agent, fighting against monsters, evil wizards and Things Man Was Not Meant to Know. But eventually he left to seek his destiny. This series is about the other members of the team after that.
This is the eighth collected volume of the series. The Bureau has recently moved its headquarters from Connecticut to a more isolated base in Colorado. The Canadian government sends a monster named Daryl, once a normal human before being possessed by a spirit of winter hunger, to be imprisoned there. Daryl is somehow released from its cage, and horrifically mangled bodies start piling up. Efforts to contain it are complicated when it’s learned there’s more than one monster in the base, and there are two apparently human visitors that aren’t in the logs.
Various characters have their own subplots.
Captain Ben Daimio, a soldier who returned from the dead for no apparent reason with only some hideous facial scarring, must face the reason he didn’t permanently die the first time. Surprisingly, it has nothing to do with his war criminal grandmother.
Abe Sapien, the mysterious amphibian man, struggles with the expectations of leadership.
Liz Sherman, powerful pyrokinetic, bonds with revivified mummy Panya, but is sleeping poorly as the obviously evil Memnan Saa keeps contacting her in her dreams to warn her about the future but won’t allow her to discuss this in the waking world.
Johann Kraus, a disembodied medium who normally possesses an empty pressure suit, has finally gotten a flesh body (and a particularly awesome one) after decades of isolation, is exploring its fleshy potential. This distracts him at a crucial moment.
While there are some lighter moments in the storyline, this is a horror comic, with gruesome deaths, twisted monsters, and an ambiguous ending. Guy Smith’s art works very well for the tone and the monsters are impressive.
Since this is an ongoing series rather than an isolated story, not all the subplots resolve, and hints for future storylines are scattered throughout. However, the quick recap at the beginning of the volume makes it fairly easy to read this story in isolation without becoming confused.
There’s a big lump of exposition towards the end to explain what’s actually been going on and the presence of otherwise inexplicable characters. It’s a bit annoying, but works reasonably well in context.
Content note: Gruesome violence and mangled corpses. Johann abuses alcohol and has extramarital sex (off-panel) as well as hitting on his female teammates, though he avoids pushing too hard on the latter. Male rear nudity. One of the B.P.R.D. grunts is speciesist, which gets him chided by his teammates.
While this volume is enjoyable on its own, it might be better read as part of the complete series. Recommended to fans of action horror stories.
