Hellboy in Hell: The Death Card

Hellboy in Hell Volume 2: The Death Card (Collected 2016): written and illustrated by Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart: A moody and magnificent and hopeful and dark conclusion to the saga of Hellboy. 

Is it the end? 

Well, BPRD continues, as things look dire on Earth. Down below, though, Hellboy, dead but alive, battles enemies in the Underworld in the wake of his execution of Satan in the previous volume.

Satan's death has sent Hell into turmoil. Hellboy still has miles to go before he sleeps, however. But as one character notes, you're dead, and yet your story continues. 

More background gets filled in, explaining Earth's ongoing peril over in BPRD even as hope is offered up against those forces of darkness that continue to gnaw at the world's vitals. Hellboy's role in the Apocalypse is also vital, though utterly unlike that which he was born and bred for before his premature arrival on Earth allowed Nurture to defeat Nature.

There is some two-fisted action here, but the overall tones bounces between the bleakly comic and the elegaic. Saying much more would give things away. Suffice to say that Hellboy meets his destiny, both like and utterly unlike what one might have guessed more than 20 years ago when this crusader against evil, born of evil, first appeared. The end cycles back to Hellboy's arrival on Earth, bringing things full circle while leaving a certain amount of mystery in place.

Mike Mignola, writing and on art, and with collaborators that include Duncan Fegredo and so many others, has crafted a moving, personal, hilarious, dark epic of fantasy and superheroics. It's a great achievement. Highly recommended, though not as a stand-alone volume.