Welcome to the table,

The last page of this issue had me actually screaming out loud at 9am. I’m going to keep telling you these things until they stop being true. The Hellboy Universe is easily one of the coolest works of folklore and mythos ever to be constructed. It is endlessly entertaining in its ability to seamlessly link events and entities from across decades, without relying on retcons and reboots.

Frankenstein – New World : The Sea of Forever #2 picks up with Frankenstein and his traveling companion Lilja landing on a beach. They immediately encounter some short stocky Cthulhu-like creatures. Unlike the undying master of madness that they share a striking resemblance to, these creatures living in an idyllic little island village where they can enjoy the bounty of both land and sea.

However, with all things, there are dangers close at hand. In the murky depths off the shore of this idyllic island, creatures sing a night song that lures the living into the ocean where they are eaten by hungry merfolk and something far more ancient.

The little squid folk play loud music on fun instruments to disrupt and dampen the sea song night after night in a way that feels like it comes straight out of a Dungeons & Dragons game I would run.

This, of course, is a temporary solution. Our flesh-crafted protagonist feels something more long term needs to be arranged.

We are treated to a really epic flashback of Frankenstein in the year 1818 AD. He is exploring a village that has fallen to the vampire plague. As is the nature of super strong animated corpses, he is a match for the hoards of vampires releases them from un-life with the skill and quickness of a seasoned monster hunter.

The parallels add up quickly as we gain some more insight to the new threat to the world, Murk, and his now growing army of vampiric monsters, all on the hunt and drawn to the magics that animate Frankenstein and flow from Lilja.

While we are leaning of Murk’s hunger as it and it’s flock hunt our protagonists, Lilja is going through some traumatic dreams where glimpses of her “true purpose” or destiny are seemingly pointing to her own destruction.

Then the story goes where I was expecting, no… hoping it would go.

I’m going to let lose some spoilers so I can talk about it here in a second. With that in mind I want to leave you with this thought if you don’t want to be spoiled.

Frankenstein New World Sea of Forever is a fantastic trip through a new strange world full of old strange ideas. It’s easily one of the best examples of Weird Fiction in modern literature. Much like the rest of the overgrowing lore of the Hellboy Universe, it’s destined to be a classic to those who love weird tails and strange stories.

**Spoilers Follow**

The cover of this book has Frankenstein fighting under water with two merfolk. The second I saw it in the solicitations my mind flashed back to reading Hellboy: The Third Wish, back around 2002. In that book there is a creature known as the Bog Roosh who is an ancient sea witch and one of the oldest of all merfolk.

The Bog Roosh sends three of her granddaughters to capture Hellboy so she can stick a nail in his horn and toss him in a hole at the bottom of the sea. This happens, then Hellboy eventually gets free after almost two years. The Bog Roosh dies and one of the granddaughters becomes the new Bog Roosh. The new Bog Roosh is way less evil, refusing to take the souls of the drowned and even trying to warn the Sea King to flee as the world is coming to an end. A 19th century German occultist and necromancer kills that Bog Roosh while looking for Abe Sapien.

Why am I talking about the Bog Roosh? Because the second I saw the cover my hope was we would get some more Bog Roosh lore. I was not disappointed! Frankenstein dives into the sea, gets into a fight with some merfolk, and gets visions of the creatures we saw in issue #1 and something far more ancient in the cave with them. It’s none other than the Bog Roosh!

Frankenstein uses his electric powers, drains himself of energy, and then gets captured by two of the merfolk and they haul him off towards the cave.

The issue ends there and I was screaming in my office “NO WAY! HOLY HELL! YES! THIS IS RAD!”

I’m so delighted by this development. I love the lore and world building of these books and bringing back such an iconic entity, even if by title alone, really speaks to the sprawling lore landscape of the Hellboy Universe.

I can’t wait for the next issue!

Until next time, there are only four issues in this series and I for one am grateful we are getting these four but seriously would love forty, or four hundred. I just want to wander this strange world for ages untold and see what happens. Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Thomas Sniegoski, Peter Bergting, and Michelle Madsen are delivering exactly what I want from my comic reading experience and I am loving every panel and page turn.