Review: ‘Captain Henry And The Graveyard Of Time #1’ Is An Exciting New Entry To Hellboy Canon

Welcome to the table,

A comic came across my desk bearing the iconic Curious Objects logo, indicating it was part of Mike Mignola‘s Dark Horse Comics imprint. That small root vegetable positioned above the antiquated text has become an early indication to me that whatever is going to be between the covers is going to be something I’m going to enjoy.

The title of the book, Captain Henry and The Graveyard of Time, also spoke volumes, though not having cracked the book open, I just had the delightfully unhinged cover with a mutton chopped man whose dress shirt was rolled up around his biceps and standing in a landscape of creepy clocks, where some of them seemed sentient as they were looming in the background.

Angry humanoid clock monsters, strange devices, and a vaguely European Victorian era man under a Mike Mignola banner and somehow connected to the Hellboy stories … well, of course, your old pal Anton was in! Now let’s get into it…

Written by Mignola and Bruce Zick with art by Zick, and lettered by Clem Robins, Captain Henry and the Graveyard of Time is set to be a four-issue mini-series set in England in the 1880s.

 Issue one has many of the trappings of the Hellboy stories it shares a world with, but the tone is different, brighter, a bit more Wells in tone than the haunted folklore tones that ring more akin to a Yeats poem I have come to expect from these tales. That is not at all a disparaging remark; I want to make that abundantly clear.

 I love occult poetry as much as I love stories of time machines and think Tarzan and Randolph Carter could and should exist in the same storied settings, so a story in the Hellboy landscape that touches more on the science fantasy feel 100% works for me, and that is exactly what this first issue does.

The story kicks off in the Whittier family’s house, where a wealthy adventurer has passed from the mortal coil and his widow, nephew, and titular Captain Henry are attempting to communicate with his spirit as it seems to have possessed a large taxidermied polar bear. Only in Mignola stories can I type a sentence like that and it not at all feel strange or out of place.

The way they plan to go about quelling the restless soul is by sending Captain Winston Henry of the 3rd Battalion, 95th Regimental Rifle Brigade into a transitional dimension where one can observe and interact with spirits. Again, one of those deliciously curious sentences that make you feel like you are in a shared world that holds the Witchfinder, Hellboy, and Miss Truesdale.

Captain Henry is going to get into this strange in-between dimension by using a suit designed by someone who had already crossed over and prod any restless spirits he encounters with a device known as a “Jamison Rod,” something that looks like it came right out of Jack Kirby’s 4th World.

 And off Captain Henry goes into the strange beyond. He finds the spirit, and as these stories tend to showcase a strange giant snake monster with three eyes that he fights using the Jamison Rod before getting cast from the suit into an even farther dimension, seemingly filled with strange clocks that stretch across the mechanical landscape as far as the eye can see.

Then a giant clock creature begins to harrow Captain Henry, and the issue ends with Captain Henry cornered by a giant clock monster.

More H.G. Wells than H.P. Lovecraft, Captain Henry and The Graveyard of Time showcases the ability of Mike Mignola and Bruce Zick to tell tales in the storied world that Hellboy inhabits that keep all the hallmarks we have come to love and expect from a Curious Objects production, while delivering fresh new tone and genre offerings that delight at every page turn.

Until next time, I have no idea where this one is going. It seems like Edward Gray is involved, and there could be some ties to other odd bits of lore, but honestly, this science fantasy dimension-hopping twist to the normal tone is really delighting me, and I’m just going to be excited to be along for the ride as the issues drop.