With the popularity of reboots in comic books and movie franchises these days, Mike Mignola is proud that he’s never had to restart Hellboy — even after 20 years.
But working with acclaimed artist Alex Maleev, the Eisner-winning Hellboy series will now get a fresh start thanks to the decades of untold stories from the character’s past. With Hellboy and the B.P.R.D., which launches this week with a new #1 issue, Mignola takes readers back to young Hellboy’s very first mission with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense in 1952.
The Hellboy universe, which has grown since its 1993 debut into multiple spin-off comics, feature films and video games, has lots of room to grow in the past. While there have been mini-series detailing the 1945 origins of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D., this new mini-series — plotted by Mignola with scripting by John Arcudi — will open the door for a whole batch of fresh stories about Hellboy.
Plus, as Mignola revealed recently, the plan is to tell ongoing stories set in Hellboy’s early years — but with a rotating roster of writers and artists. In fact, Mignola already knows who’s drawing one of the next stories of Hellboy and the B.P.R.D., which is set in 1953.
That’s not to say all Hellboy stories will have a young version of the character. The new series runs concurrently with Mignola’s Hellboy in Hell, which takes place after the character died (back in 2011).
For this new series. Mignola gets to write an inexperienced Hellboy as he evolves into the leader he’d eventually become, as well as introducing, exploring and even killing off a few new characters to the Hellboy universe.
