Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite is the first professional comic book work of musician Gerard Way. For a debut it is incredibly good. Way has a clear voice as a writer and shows a good understanding of how to put a comic together. Everything from the story’s pacing to cutting between scenes is written as competently as any experienced professional.

Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite is also the first major comic book work of artist Gabriel Bá. His work is just as impressive. Clearly heavily inspired by Mike Mignola (Bá went on to work on a B.P.R.D. series in 2009) he enjoys heavy shadows and excels at drawing outlandish grotesques. He handles everything from quiet character moments to action sequences with equal aplomb.

Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite opens with a half issue explanation of the general premise and setup. Forty-three babies were spontaneously birthed at the exact same moment, each with special powers. Seven of them were adopted by noted Renaissance man Reginald Hargreeves, known in some circles as The Monocle. His reason for raising them is to train them to save the world.

… And now for a new paragraph that doesn’t begin with the comic’s name.

The plot of the other five and a half issues focuses on an impending End Of The World event triggered by a reunion of the group. It’s here where Way’s ideas become rather heavy, the general premise of an impending apocalypse almost, but not quite, being outweighed by a plague of floating robotic heads, a throwaway villain who’s more plot device than anything else, and a load of unexplained animosity between the adopted siblings. Fair enough not giving us all the answers to that last one helps to build some mystery but to give us nothing at all is ridiculous.

This is far from a perfect comic though. Way has an impressive number of ideas on display, but I can’t help thinking that the book would have been better had it featured one or two less. Nothing is dreadfully underdeveloped but it would have been nice for some things to be fleshed out just a little. This is probably down to the old problem of a first time author wanting to get all their ideas into something in case they never get anything published again. It’s understandable but does detract from some of the book’s better concepts.

It’s no surprise that Grant Morrison wrote a foreword to the collected volume and was quoted as saying it’s “an ultraviolent psychedelic sherbet bomb.” The excess on display is right out of his playbook. But at least Way has the excuse of this being his first piece of work. And for that reason I feel that I may be being a little unfair. It’s rare for someone to write something this good, with such an understanding of the medium, on their first try. Way clearly isn’t just a minor celebrity (he’s the lead singer of My Chemical Romance… which will probably mean something to those of you who take an interest in music) who lucked into getting published. He’s a fan who wants to contribute something to the comic book industry.

B.P.R.D.

The Bureau for Paranormal Research and a Development began life as the employer of and base of operations for Hellboy in the startlingly named Hellboy comic. After a few miniseries it became clear to writer-artist Mild Mignola that it was a strong enough concept to support a title of its own. Just as importantly Hellboy was deemed interesting enough to separate him from his supporting cast and move him off on his own, away from a supporting cast.

So Hellboy tendered his resignation and went off adventuring alone while the BPRD were siphoned off into their own new title. That the name of the comic was chosen as BPRD was a surprise to no one.

What's strange is that after the split both the original Hellboy book and the new BPRD feel slightly like spin offs while also feeling like the original thing. Hellboy obviously feels like the original because the title had existed for a while by the time the central character headed out on his own. But doing away with the BPRD staff changes the feel of the book. It's no longer about a team, it's about Hellboy and Hellboy alone.

BPRD begins life feeling familiar because readers are already aware of most of the cast. Where it begins to feel new is in its weird war on frogs storyline. Presumably in favour of keeping the folklore and fairy tales approach for Hellboy's title BPRD fights this war against frogs that live under the Earth for its first several volumes. They’d shown up in Hellboy before, but not to the extent they were used in early BPRD.

It's a bold and understandable change. The war on frogs idea is the sort of thing that could easily have been elaborated on in Hellboy. The trouble is that it goes on too long in BPRD. It's the central focus of too many early arcs and provides the series with a far less flexible style than it had enjoyed when a part of the original book. It becomes boring very quickly, largely because not enough effort is made to do new things with the idea. Basically each volume sees the man-sized frogs appear and the BPRD dispatched to best them. It's like a kids' TV show, the same bad guys turning up with a wacky new plan every week and being beaten handily by the end of the episode.

But to read all of this makes BPRD sound bad. And it's not. Nothing bad would have had the success and double figure volume count that BPRD had enjoyed. It’s an engaging book that keeps that, once it’s found its feet, presents new ideas without comprising the spirit of the title it originated from.

I think the reason the title’s enjoyed the success it had is its cast. A lot of time has clearly gone into fleshing out the characters we were familiar with and making the new ones layered and interesting. Amongst the BPRD’s numbers are a werecat, a ghost, a pyromancer, a mummy and a psychic. They all fit with the feel of the world they feature in but aren’t simple caricatures. They’re given distinct personalities, which makes reading all the more enjoyable.

Mignola stayed on writing duties for the first volume or two but has always left the art of the spin-off book to a trusted cabal of artists, originally led by Guy Davis. He seemed content to provide nothing more than a general overview of proposed storylines. Aside from bringing us the war on frogs the arrangement's worked well. BPRD is a consistently written book with engaging characters and a steady stream of nice ideas. You can’t go far wrong with it.

Hellboy

The first thing I'd like to say about the Hellboy comics is that I like the way they're published. Rather than keeping the title going as a monthly series with no end in sight, an approach that would inevitably bring about dips in quality, creator and lead writer Mike Mignola has instead taken the decision to publish each Hellboy arc as a series in its own right. While that can mean waiting a long time for a new issue to come out it generally ensures a pretty high level of quality.

Another chief reason for the approach is that Mignola started out to writing and drawing each issue himself. This is not a preference that lends itself to fast production, as Mignola would have to write five or six scripts before embarking on the artwork. Over time other artists and writers have contributed to the series, but Mignola has remained heavily involved.

Which is fine, because he's a very good artist with a very clear idea for how he wants to present his characters and world. By his own admission he has limitations (modern technology and cars for example) but what he does produce always has personality. Mignola is one of the best in the world when it comes to bringing a shadowy cavern or a mysterious forest or a dilapidated castle to life.

In the world that Hellboy inhabits these things are important. Hellboy (real name Anung un Rama, it’s decided early within the series that Hellboy is a more convenient name) is a demon summoned by Nazi occultists in 1944 is a part of a ritual designed to help turn the tide of the war. Everything goes a bit wrong (as such things tend to) and the Germans end up defeated.

Hellboy is taken in by the US military and Professor Bruttenholm. Quickly maturing to an adult size he's trained to be an agent for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development. The first few series focus on Hellboy's work for the BPRD with Mignola hunting out obscure old folk tales to rework into plots. There’s also a pretty Lovecraftian theme to much of his work with the character, not least his origin.

It's Mignola's talent at crafting a modern tale from something old that makes Hellboy books as enjoyable as they are. His love of the supernatural, occult and strange is clear in all of his scripts and artwork. He loves his source material and wants to do it proud in his adaptions. It helps that fairy tales, myths, legends, and fables are particularly well-suited to the visual short form of comics.

Eventually Hellboy leaves the BPRD and sets out on his own adventures. The title keeps the same themes and inspirations (in fact it becomes decidedly odder for a while) but loses its supporting cast. This is because the BPRD was deemed an interesting enough idea to support its own series (an idea that appears to have been correct considering the fact that the BPRD books are still on shelves). The in-universe reason is that Hellboy no longer wishes to work for the bureau. It’s basic but it suffices.

The Hellboy character is a likeable one. He's written to be kind and caring with a playfully gruff exterior. It's a cliche now but it probably wasn't so bad when the character first appeared in the mid-90s. He's basically very similar to Wolverine only more immediately likeable. And with a giant fist.