The Softer Side Of Anung Un Rama — Reviewing ‘Hellboy In Love: Black Eyes’

Welcome to the table,

There is a concept that places have souls; that there is a spirit or an echo of a place that lingers long after those who inhabited that space have gone. Sometimes that spirit is someone who died in that place. Other times, it’s someone who just had a strong connection to that location. Whatever is left when their physical form stops functioning –an echo or cosmic stardust that lingers and defies known explanation– hangs on drifting around a familiar place.

It reminds those who come after that something, or in some cases even someone, was there before, and a bit of that entity remains.

In what may be the best jumping-on point, Hellboy In Love: Black Eyes tells a story about just that kind of space. It does so in a way that feels tonally cozy and remains oddly hopeful, even though the subject matter is a bit bleak.

Written by Mike Mignola and long-time collaborator Christopher Golden, with really solid art by Alex Nieto and, as always, letters by the powerhouse Clem Robins, Black Eyes starts with Hellboy and his girlfriend Anastasia visiting retired B.P.R.D. agents Archie and Margaret in Coventry, England, in the winter of 1979.

Archie and Margaret, once making sure Hellboy and Anastasia have a good home-cooked meal, tell the two active members of the B.P.R.D. about a ghost girl who has started to make more frequent appearances. the most notable comes in the form of strange wailing. The commotion has started to worry the locals, even though in that part of the world, a ghost story around Christmas time is par for the course.

The four go to the spot where the ghost is known to linger, and as is the nature in such stories, Hellboy and Archie go one way, while Anastasia and Margaret go the other. This gives the older couple a chance to impart some words of wisdom to the younger generation about life, love, and nature, or in this case, the weight of responsibility.

This bit of the book is especially charming because Hellboy, whom I have seen all my life being this stoic and careless bruiser burdened with great melancholy and very little mirth, seems positively smitten in a way I don’t know has come across even in other issues of Hellboy: In Love.

The relationships feel authentic and grounded, like the book has found its voice, and that makes the whole thing feel even more powerful in its quiet, cozy nature.

–Spoilers Follow–

They find the small ghost girl, who happens to have deep black pits for eyes, hence the name of the story. Hellboy introduces himself in a very kind and gentle way. I have seen him punt frog monsters, crush goblins,  punch Nazi monkeys, and fight all manner of the “good folk” from the first world. Seeing him treat this small ghost girl with kindness just lends more warmth and cheer to the whole proceeding.

The group learns that the ghost’s mother was lost in a bombing run during World War II, and unfortunately, the small ghost girl also lost her life. From there, the party takes her back to a place she is familiar with, and the story unfolds, telling us not just people, but places remember, as the small ghost girl is reunited with her mother’s ghost and the two fade away.

I’m one of those Hellboy fans who really does enjoy it when the character gets to show up in spaces that don’t require him smashing and bashing his way through problems.

Hellboy In Love: Black Eyes is one of those ghost stories that fits so comfortably into the well-storied world Mignola has crafted over the years. It offers a comforting, cheerful story that captures the softer side of Anung un Rama.

Until next time, there are certainly some omens of a future stained with loss towards the end of this book, but that is a story for another time.