Weekend Con Round up!

It has been made official in today’s Cup O’ Joe panel, Jeff Parker and Gabriel Hardman of the amazing Atlas will be taking over Hulk. Which means I may just be buying my first Hulk title in over a decade.

The Crossgen Sigil and the year 2011 also made an appearance at the panel, which for long time Crossgen fans like myself is nothing but good news.

Alt-adult site SuicideGirls.com is getting its own comic from IDW with both Steve Niles and Cameron Stewart on board. John Byrne will be the next creator on the Jurassic Park comic. A Bleeding Cool rumor proved true as they announced a new Rocketeer title with an all star lineup of creators. Though apparently slated for the far-away date of December 2011, another personal favorite of mine will be returning at IDW: John Byrne’s Next Man, an all new run by Byrne himself. They finish up with the strangest announcement: a crossover called “Infestation” that ties their licensed books like G.I.Joe, Transformers, Star Trek, CVO, and Ghostbusters together and which may very well be zombie related. Odd.

In the most awesome of awesome video game news (and super-power related at least) is the announcement of new crossover game Street Fighter X Tekken. The awesomenest oozes from the very idea.

The new seventies-style exploitation trailer is extremely red band and makes it clear that Machete is nigh superhuman in his abilities as well. Do to its graphic nature I won’t post a direct link here, but you can check it out at Topless Robot.

The Spider-Man panel also confirmed another major Bleeding Cool rumor, with Amazing Spider-Man going biweekly with Dan Slott as the solo writer under the new banner name “Big Time”. Carnage and Norman Osborn will both get minis as well.

Vertigo announced that most of its former DC characters will be returning to the DCU. What this means for the futures of House of Mystery and Hellblazer is anyone’s guess.

Oh, and Marvel was daring enough to put the Infinity Gauntlet on display for everyone. Thankfully no one stole it and used it to reshape the universe in their image.

Pulp-Powered Comics: Hellboy Seed of Destruction

Having read the entire series a few years ago, I recently took the chance to look over the first volume of the ongoing series of miniseries Hellboy: Seed of Destruction again. The character, at least in his early incarnation, was decidedly adventure pulp in origin only coated in a fine layer of Lovecraftian horrors. But until recently I never noticed the striking resemblance between his first adventure and those of Doc Savage.

Basically, Hellboy is Doc Savage.

Artist Mike Mignola and scripter John Byrne have crafted a story about an intrepid agent with uncanny abilities that makes him far and away better than an average man and his allies. His father’s death sets off his first adventure. One his quest, his company of heroes follow him. A clear similarity begins to show itself.

Now clearly, it is by no means a straight pastiche. Hellboy is a demon with filed off horns. Instead of the Fearless Five, his aides are the fish-man Abe Sapien and pyrokinetic Liz Sherman. (His other allies would come later.) His father is killed by evil toads, not a South American assassin.

But I think the similarities are worthy of attention. Over the last sixteen years of stories, Hellboy, his supporting cast, and their ongoing narrative have easily become the most widely known neo-pulp characters in fiction.

I digress. I am here to talk about Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. The series gives us a brief origin of the character that opens up as many questions as it might solve before we leap head-long in to the story. The team quickly find themselves in to an ever growing web of evil crafted by the half-alive mad monk known as Rasputin. Things get complicated and Hellboy finds himself battling to save the world.

Mignola’s skills as a storyteller were still rough around the edges at this point. John Byrne providing the script to Mignola’s plot helps some, though at times the characters seem slightly off in their decisions. Viewed as a standalone though, it is nothing short of epic.

Each book in the series seems to stray farther and father from that initial pulp premise. But Seed of Destruction is definitely a good piece of pulp. Recommended.