Hellboy: Wake the Devil
Hellboy: Wake the Devil | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Dark Horse Comics |
Schedule | Monthly |
Format | Mini-series |
Genre | |
Publication date | June - October 1996 |
No. of issues | 5 |
Creative team | |
Created by | Mike Mignola |
Written by | Mike Mignola |
Artist(s) | Mike Mignola |
Letterer(s) | Pat Brosseau |
Colorist(s) | James Sinclair |
Editor(s) | Scott Allie |
Collected editions | |
Hellboy: Wake the Devil | ISBN 1-59307-095-0 |
Hellboy: Wake the Devil is a five-issue comic book mini-series in the Hellboy franchise, conceived and illustrated by Mike Mignola and published by Dark Horse Comics. Various elements and section of plot were later used in the animated film Hellboy: Blood and Iron.[citation needed]
Plot
Part One
The comic opens on the northern coast of Norway, inside the Arctic Circle, where a Zinco helicopter is landing in front of the castle that was seen as the end of Seed of Destruction. The head of the company, Roderick Zinco, breaks into the castle and is confronted by Karl Kroenen, Ilsa Haupstein and Leopold Kurtz but Zinco explains that he saw Grigori Rasputin on his private beach and left behind the words Ragna Rock and disapeared, Zinco promises them that they can use anything he has.
One year later, in SoHo, New York City the Nazis kill the curator of a wax museum. At the B.P.R.D Headquaters in Fairfield, Connecticut, Tom Manning and Kate Corrigan brief the agents about the life of Vladmir Giurescu and the fact that he could never die because when the full moon shines down on him at Castle Giurescu he heals himself. In 1944, Heinrich Himmler proposed project Vampir Strum and a Nazi deleglation, led by Ilsa Haupstein was sent to recruit Giurescu, after meeting with Hitler, Hitler ordered the arrest and execution of the Giurescu family. They revealed that the museum curator, Howard Steinman, real name Hans Ubler, could of smuggled Giurescu's body out of Germany before his corpse was burnt and that someone could have the intention to take the corpse to Castle Giurescu to re-animate his corpse, but there are three possibilities as to where Castle Giurescu is, so Tom Manning splits them up into three groups. Hellboy on his own, Clark with Abe Sapien, and Bud Waller with Liz Sherman and Leach.
In Romania, Isla Haupstein opens the stolen box with Giurescu's corpse in it and orders the soldiers to take it to a specific room. Meanwile, in Norway, Kurtz and Kroenen watch Ilsa and it is revealed that they are maufacturing their own army. Back in Romania, The agents are all in a plane where Abe Sapien talks to Hellboy about the involvement of the Ragna Rok Project because he thinks it's worrying Hellboy. Hellboy jumps out the plane with a jetpack which explodes when he tries to click it and Hellboy lands in the same castle that Ilsa Haupstein is in.
Part Two
Ilsa orders Unmensch, a cyborg Nazi, to kill Hellboy and they fight until they both fall through the floor. A flashback to Tarmagant Island, 1944 shows Rasputin ordering Ilsa, Kroenen and Kurtz to go to Norway. In the present, Rasputin appears and tells her to leave the castle and that the next time she sees Giurescu that he will be young again. in the castle, Hellboy wakes up with the nazi gone, leaving behind only his metal arm.
In a near-by village, an old man tells his daughter to leave with her children and to never come back and that it is "too late" for him to leave.
Hellboy follows a trace of blood and finds a man eating the nazi's leg and reveals that he is Vladmir Giurescu's father and that the goddess Hectate, is the who brings Giurescu back to life because he is her son. When Hellboy asks where Giurescu is, the man refuses to tell him and hellboy burns him to death. When Hellboy leaves the room he remembers the old man said something about a moon door and sees a door with a moon shape on it, and inside is the box with his corpse in and the three soldier's heads in front of it. But he is sorrounded by ravens who turn into the Women of Thessaly and start attacking him.
Part Three
At Castle Giurescu, Hellboy is shooting the Women of Thessaly until Giurescu comes out of his box and when Hellboy tries to kill him, Giurescu turns into a raven and Hellboy stabs him. He falls into a stone coffin and ends up underground, when Hellboy gets there Giurescu is on the floor with the knife in his chest but then he turns into snakes and gets away, when Hellboy leaves the tomb, Hectate brings then Giurescu back to life. Rasputin tells Isla about his life and offers Ilsa Haupstein to be reborn, like he was.
In the Ruins of Czege Castle, Romania, Liz Sherman, Bud Waller and Leach find a door which Leach opens because he can detect the hinges as he is a human metal detector. They find a huge room witth a dead Homonculus inside. Liz touches a hole in his chest which she can't let go of and the homonculus comes to life because Liz is transfering her energy into him. Bud shoots her arm to get her to let go of him and the homonculus panics and snaps Bud Wallers neck then escapes.
In Norway, Roderick Zinco has a head in a jar, who is revealed to be Professor Herman Von Klempt, which Kroenen asked him to find because he thinks that he should be one of them. In Romania, at The Monastery of St. Bartholomew, Stephen, the old man from issue 2 tells his brother, a priest, that the town will go back to it's "old ways" because he can sense Giurescu but his brother doesn't believe him. Back at Castle Giurescu, hellboy finds a room full of explosives and sets a timer for them to go off in one hour.
Part Four
As Hellboy is leaving the castle, he thinks he hears Giurescu but it is revealed to be Hectate, in a snake form, who tries to get Hellboy to go back to his "old kind" and tells him that he lost himself in humanity. Hellboy and Hectate start fighting as she tells him that he has bring the end of the world and that he cannot escape his own destiny. Hellboy spears her and they both smash through the wall and her skin and flesh burn in the daylight just as the explosives go off and the Castle blows up with Hellboy just outside of it.
Abe Sapien and Clark report back to B.P.R.D. HQ, from the ruins of Szentes Castle, they tell them that they found nothing and they see a pillar of smoke from hellboy's location, they are told to go and find Hellboy.
In Romania, Baba Yaga's servant, Koku, brings Rasputin an Iron Maiden to initiate Ilsa Hapustein's rebirth, she goes into it and is immeadiately killed. Rasputin tells Koku that he will be back to see Baby Yaga.
Stephen and two other men find Hellboy's body outside the ruins of Castle Giurescu to drive him to the crossroads.
In Norway, Von Klempt is trying to tempt Kroenen to join him instead of going along with Rasputin's plans but Kurtz gets angry and tries to kill Von Klempt, Kroenen tries to stop him and ends up stabbing and killing him.
In Romania, Hellboy is chained to a thick wooden pole and Rasputin tells him that he is there to rot and he leaves him there with the iron maiden.
Part Five
Abe Sapien and Clark are landing in the Romanian village where everyone's house is boarded up with crosses painted on the doors and windoes. They enter a church where Stepehen's brother is standing at the end of the chruch with Hellboy's signal belt in his hand, he is unresponsive and when Cark touches his shoulder, the priest's head falls off and the pair fall through the floor. Underneath the floor boards are long metal spike which Clark lands on and it pierces him through the chest. Abe falls to the ground, where Rasputin confronts him and tells him that he will be speared through the chest aswell. The Priest's decapitated head and says "Abraham Sapien. Do you hear... sunken bells are tolling for thee. Out of caverns of num-yabisc, dark and terrible deep, the ocean is calling her children home."
At the crossroads, Hellboy is still chained to the thick wooden pole and is confronted by a fully re-animated Vladmir Giurescu on horseback. Hellboy cracks the wooden pole and hits the horse on the head with it, the horse and Giurescu instantly turn into skeletons. The Iron Maiden turns snake-like like Hectate and tells him thar he cannot escape his destiny and eats him, his horns fully re-grow and he sees the Ogdru-Jahad before he refuses to help end the world and snaps his horns. He appears back back at the crossroads where Kate Corrigan finds him and tells him what happened to the other teams.
In Norway, Rasputin confronts Von Klempt, Kroenen and Zinco and temporarily blinds Zinco who accidentally presses a button that blows up the whole castle. In a helicopter, above Romania, Hellboy is told that there was no sign of the iron maiden. At the end of the issue, it is revealed that the skeleton of Vladmir Giurescu was moved to BPRD HQ, where it was temporarily placed in storage where it disappeared and has never been recovered. It is also revealed that the head of Father Nicholas Budenz never spoke again buf continued to be the focus of poltergeist activities, including sudden temperature drops and the levitation of objects, for weeks.
Epilogue
At the World Tree, Yggdrasil, Baba Yaga tells Rasputin that he cannot be a god and that he has failed but tells him to stay with her but he says that he go on longer and still try and make himself a god.
Collected editions
It was collected as the second Hellboy trade paperback with a new epilogue:
- Wake the Devil (4-issue mini-series, 1997, Dark Horse Comics, tpb, 144 pages, 1997, ISBN 1-56971-226-3,[1] 2004, ISBN 1-59307-095-0}[2]
Awards
- 1997: Mignola won the "Best Writer/Artist: Drama" Eisner Award, for Wake the Devil
Notes
References
- Hellboy: Wake the Devil at the Grand Comics Database
- Hellboy: Wake the Devil at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)