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B.P.R.D. Hell On Earth - The Pickens County Horror And Others (2013)

by Mike Mignola(Favorite Author)

3.78 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1616551402 (ISBN13: 9781616551407)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Dark Horse Comics

series

B.P.R.D. Hell on Earth

review 1: With this volume, BPRD is just treading water. Nothing important happens in any of the three stories included here. Just redshirts getting offed, and not in ways that further the overall story. The Pickens County Horror is something about vampires and mist, but never really developed the relationship between the two. The Abyss of Time is a caveman vs old ones story that really doesn't do much on its own, and the wraparound story for it is even worse. The Transformation of J.H. O'Donnell is a single issue and it's the strongest in the collection, but that's mostly because it's a flashback that includes Hellboy in it. O'Donnell comes through as a tragic figure, and the story around him is creative. But again, none of this pushes the story forward. And none of it is str... moreong enough to support the digressions. It's more of the same, in the least useful sense of the term.
review 2: BPRD is generally a great series and Hell On Earth, the current story arc, has been an interesting ride so far. Occasionally with these books (along with other books in the Hellboy universe) Mike Mignola and his team will put out a standalone book of short stories that can be really awesome to read like Hellboy: The Crooked Man which readers who haven't been following the main Hellboy story can just pick up and enjoy by itself. The Pickens County Horror and Others is just like that, where we get three standalone tales featuring vampires and Lovecraftian monsters except this one turns out to be one of the least interesting collections Mignola and co. have put out in a while.The first story, The Pickens County Horror, is by far the best. Some nondescript BPRD agents - most of the famous ones like Johann, Liz and Abe have disappeared for various reasons, so we get what are essentially a series of Star Trek red shirts - investigate a vampire family living in rural South Carolina and the source of a mysterious green fog. It's not the most original of setups but Southern Gothic as a genre and that kind of horror imagery of the woods at night and lurking monsters with glowing eyes, or even just a hut in the middle of nowhere being attacked by nightmarish figures, is just catnip to me so even when it turned out to be not even an average vampire story, I didn't mind all that much.The Transformation of JH O'Donnell goes back in time to when Hellboy was still around as he and the titular character investigate a haunted library containing old, rare forgotten volumes. Hellboy punches a monster, O'Donnell sees some scary spirits, that's about it. Very forgettable.The Abyss of Time is by far the least involving story here. Some more nondescript BPRD agents investigate an underground vault and one of them goes into a trance - his body remains in the present while his mind/spirit/soul goes back in time where he (or his ancestor) was a barbarian prince. He leads his barbarian horde to fight some evil monsters, the end. It reminded me a lot of Pat Mills' Slainé books where we also had a time-travelling barbarian but this version was a lot less interesting mostly because it's exactly as I've described with nothing surprising thrown in - great art from James Harren as ever though.BPRD is usually a great series but The Pickens County Horror is a blip in that it's not very good. Full of generic "horror" stories that are very forgettable and boring to read, don't judge the series on this uninteresting volume and pick up Volume 4: The Devil's Engine instead, skip this, and go straight on to Volume 6: The Return of the Master. less

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