Review: ‘Captain Henry And The Graveyard Of Time’ #4 Concludes First Arc With Fun And Future Seeds

Welcome to the table,

As Captain Henry and the Graveyard of Time‘s first story arc ends, I’m here to review and reflect on the journey we have had up to this point.

Mike Mignola and Bruce Zick, along with the seemingly always lettering and wildly talented Clem Robins, have made this weird-fiction trek through time a really fun outing in the well-storied world Hellboy inhabits.

The Professor and Captain Henry engage in combat with the Time King, and it’s a fun display of crackling lines and dazzling dots that feels as much an homage to Jack “The King” Kirby as it does the dime store novels about space — long before man actually took its first rocket-powered steps to travel to touch the stars.

That is the beauty of where this series dwells. It’s a story and setting that feel timeless and packed with endless possibilities, with moments that have defined it. To say nothing of its very well-documented beginnings and endings.

What’s so beautiful about this book is how Zick and Mignola have been able to remove the protagonists from time and space, keeping the iconic tone and mood of a well-crafted world that contains such icons as Lobster Johnson and Sir Edward Grey. But it also sidesteps some of the larger lore elements that would box such a story in by literally sidestepping time and space itself.

I don’t want to give too much away about how this wraps up, as I will dig into that more when I get to reviewing the collected edition, but there are some masterstrokes of storytelling I did not see coming. Once experienced on the page, though, it makes total sense and opens countless doors for future exploration with these protagonists and their preferred method of travel.

There is a balance that has to be struck in this kind of story. And when you hold it alongside the other offerings in the Hellboy world, it becomes really apparent what was seeded in the first issue has way more reach than I originally assumed … and I love that.

In a world where we watch gods and monsters clash above and below, the conflict in Captain Henry seems to take a secondary role in the story, providing us with some very expansive and, frankly, fresh takes on what could be beyond the walls of space and time.

This book, at its core, is a classic adventure story that could sit on the shelf alongside my volumes of Tarzan and Gulliver’s Travels. As you turn each page, you become more and more aware that you are being taken on a strange journey. As you reach the last panel of this arc, it becomes abundantly clear that the possibilities are endless and the seeds have been planted for a forest of stories that will take us to all sorts of strange places. I, for one, really want to go there.

Until next time, this is the kind of book you can buy for long-time comic readers and those who may have never picked up a comic in their lives. It’s a book for readers and those who love adventure. For sure, give it a look if you have the chance.