The Death of Innocence

Hellboy: Darkness Calls – Chapter 4

Frontispiece Image: Vasilisa the Beautiful

Bodies, of course, will be prominent in most comics – yet Hellboy explores the presence, absence, and trauma of bodies in fascinating ways.  This chapter begins with a trail of the dead.  There is Perun floating in the river (see Chapter 3), a graveyard around a church, blood pooling on stones, an image of the body of the post-Crucifixion Jesus, murdered priests.  Then, at last, we find the fey folk – Gruagach and his companions, wandering into dark catacombs.  Their monstrous bodies are dwarfed by the dark, sprawling architecture of the place.  Then – emerging suddenly from the shadows – we see the face of a giant, the curiously gentle guardian of an apocalyptic queen in her prison-tomb.  Broken bodies pave a trail that only leads to monsters… and to the promise of more carnage.

Meanwhile, Hellboy and the little domovoi are still chatting together – until Koshchei the Deathless smashes his way into the house.  Koshchei seems a body of pure violence – a human form that has surrendered completely to the archetype of the warrior.  Indeed, he is not in possession of his soul, which is guarded by the Baba Yaga.  Such, perhaps, is an eternal predicament for a soldier, as Mary Wollstonecraft suggests in her Vindication of the Rights of Women: “subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline; and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprizes that one will directs.”

The relentless warrior is stopped only by the arrival of an incongruously innocent body – a young girl, equipped with a skull on a staff.  Brilliantly (in story, and out), Vasilisa first appears as a faceless figure shrouded in white light.  In most of the scenes that follow she seems to float above the snow, an angelic and ethereal presence in a world of blood and destruction.  “Koshchei the terrible, beaten by a little girl!” the domovoi mocks him.

It’s quite brutal when Koschei finally skewers the girl with an arrow.  She turns into a doll – she may have been one all along, animated by some ancient magic.  Even her dying words are mechanical and doll-like.  “It’s all right,” she keeps repeating, trying to reassure the traumatized Hellboy.  Curiously, while the original folktale does involve a magic doll, it doesn’t seem to feature such a transformation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasilisa_the_Beautiful).  It’s just another example of Mike Mignola’s impressive ability to absorb and transform myths in the service of his storytelling.

All of these body forms are variations on the human condition – mortality and spirituality in the priests and Christ, anger and disillusionment in the pig-man Gruagach, savage brutality in Koshchei, childhood innocence in Vasilisa.  Those last arrows from “the Deathless” Koshchei are just wounds for Hellboy – a torture that he can transcend – but they seem to pierce through everything and everyone with their unerring malice.

As Jane Yolen says in the introduction, “It is a deeply human story for all its monsters.”

As always, the art is incredible.  Duncan Fegredo provides some spectacular battles in this book, but his work also shines in subtle details: the texture of the wood panel behind the altar, the smoke and dust from the dark pit that looks jagged and bat-like, the weird geometry of the magical door opened by Vasilisa, the hewn sadness on the face of Hellboy.  The nuanced textures of the drawings capture a world erupting – seething, straining, shattering – and lurching like a wounded dragon through vast labyrinths of mythology.

Image: Ivan Biliban

The Medium is the (Blasphemous) Message

H.P. Lovecraft, The Whisperer in Darkness (Part 3)

It might be tempting to dismiss the mi-go as sloppy (or at least outdated) science fiction.  They fly through nonexistent ether, over distances that would take them countless years travelling, presumably, well below the speed of light.  Yet there is something delightfully creepy about an alien patiently flying the fathoms from Pluto to Earth – perhaps in a zen-like trance, or maybe bored to the point of extraterrestrial madness.  Such creatures might well hatch plans spanning eons and carry them out with the inter-generational patience of Frank Herbert’s Bene Gesserit (read Dune!).  Somehow Lovecraft’s wobbly science adds to the power of the story, rather than subtracting from it. 

Likewise, the narrator Wilmarth’s assertion that photography is “an impersonal transmitting process without prejudice, fallibility, or mendacity” is problematic, even in an age before digital editing.  Nonetheless, there’s an interesting paradox in that this “objective” evidence (of aliens in Vermont) is also described as vague and “damnably suggestive,” still retaining some sense of mystery and uncertainty.  This tension is vital to many forms of supernatural horror – teasing the reader or viewer with truths that must be solid enough to terrify yet elusive enough to defy rational reply.

So we have ether and old photographs – and it makes me think that Lovecraft is systematically exploring the notion of medium in this story.  How are truths – or horrors – transported from place to place, and to the minds of those who might perceive them?  By what substance or technology are they conveyed?  From the realm of the eye we move to the work of the ear – and the sounds that are provided on a phonograph record.  Wilmarth is troubled by an enigmatic recording of a terrible voice.  “Its sudden advent that first time almost stunned me, and I heard the rest of the record through in a sort of abstracted daze.”  This is such an intriguing presentation of strangeness – of the alien, as it were.  Madness is usually depicted as a collapse of rationality – yet for Lovecraft (as, I suppose, for many ancient societies) it resembled a kind of divine if terrible gift, the revelation of an alternate and largely incomprehensible reality.  “When the longer passage of buzzing came, there was a sharp intensification of that feeling of blasphemous infinity…”

And, this being Lovecraft, even the simple medium of writing can be dangerous.  Wilmarth speaks of “that terrible and encyclopaedic letter.”  It’s all building towards the rejection of the body as a medium or vessel for the mind – and those space-defying jars filled with human brains.

Image: Odilon Redon (Getty Open Content)

Camp Crusaders! - Ring Around the Riddler

Batman – Season 3, Episode 2 – Ring Around the Riddler

Batgirl continues to infuse the series with a dose of female empowerment – though surrounded by an assertive patriarchal culture.

The centerpiece of the show is a boxing match between Riddler and Batman.  Pugilism might reek of masculine brutality, but Bruce Wayne calls it “the manly art of self-defense.”  Riddler’s frenetic antics work well in a comic boxing match.  I think this is one of his better episodes, actually.  Anarchic though he may be, he still echoes the patriarchal order of Gotham City.  In the throes of melodramatic frustration, he asks “What’s looser than a thread, a fish, flying ribbons?”  The answer: “A woman’s tongue.”  It doesn’t even make much sense to me in the context of the scene, unless he’s mad at his henchwoman for distracting him with the offer of a drink.  He just lashes out with random misogyny.

At least the Riddler’s henchwoman isn’t too ditzy.  Actress Peggy Ann Garner offers a focused and worldly Betsy Boldface, befitting her role as a reporter, and infuses the character with a tinge of the campy cuteness that the show demands.  Her role as Betsy is sadly underdeveloped – I almost want to write some fan fiction about her life in Riddler’s gang.  We also get the introduction of Joan Collins as the slinky, sultry Siren.  And because just about EVERYTHING is gender-determinate, her hypno-sonic voice only works on men.

I’m more and more impressed by what Yvonne Craig was doing with her role as Batgirl.  She talks to her pet bird Charlie with sincerity and warmth.  It could sound crazy or sad, since Batgirl is profoundly isolated within the confines of her secret identity.  Yet Craig makes it work.  And Barbara gets a chance to show off her impressive education, reporting to Batman on ancient scroll-work at the temple of Kafajah.  Ms. Gordon makes a sharp contrast with the clever but uneducated Catwoman of the earlier seasons.  She manages to make Barbara Gordon optimistic, cheerful, and thoughtful in a show where women are so often ditzy, evil, or insane.  And all of that is in her role as an “ordinary” woman – aside from what she achieves in her villain-kicking costume.

Batman praises her in a condescending manner: “It’s lucky you were in the vicinity of Gotham Square Garden.”  Batgirl replies, “Yes.  Luck is an important weapon to a woman crime-fighter, Batman.”  At first I wasn’t sure whether the show was mocking Batgirl.  But Craig’s look and tone are revealing – she’s taking a jab at Batman’s condescension, even though he’s too distracted with work to notice.

A few other moments of amusement or interest…

The Riddler says to the Siren: “Well, then men you shall have.”  Joan Collins’ look is something between “Yes, please” and “Well, of course.”

I love how Batman tries to explain the weird convolutions of the plot.

Robin: Holy hieroglyphics.  How would Riddler know that, Batman?

Batman: The mind of a criminal like Riddler’s is a sponge that soaks up many strange facts, Robin.

Finally, a piece of dietary advice for the Boy Wonder, when he gets too excited about some camel-grass juice...

“Beware of strong stimulants, Robin,” warns Batman.

Personal Rating: B+

Riddler at the top of his game.  Batgirl being cool.  A campy boxing match.  Not bad.