Mike Mignola Considers This Batman Comic The First Hellboy Story – SlashFilm Trending Global News

“Legends of the Dark Knight” was an anthology comic with a built-in revolving door of writers and artists. Basically, it was a perfect place for someone to tell a small-scale Batman story. their way. (This is why the “New Batman Adventures” anthology episode is titled “Legends of the Dark Knight”.)

Mignola painted and colored both the cover and interior of “Sanctum”. That cover tells the reader that they’re in for something scary; Apart from Batman’s yellow chest emblem, everything is colored red and black. Above Batman are Cthulhu-esque tentacles, and beneath him, his cape casts a shadow that looms over the skeletons inside him. The points on the “A” and “M” in the blood-red “Sanctum” title text are said to be extra sharp, like vampire-slaying batons. Take a look at the full image below:

The issue begins with a serial killer, Lothar, hiding in a Gotham cemetery and painting a headstone’s glyph with the blood of his victims. Batman appears and a scuffle leads to Lothar being impaled on a metal pole and Batman unconscious on top of a broken coffin.

DC Comics

Batman awakens in a preserved Victorian hall, where he meets Lothar’s mentor Osric Druid, a 19th-century Gothamite who sacrificed his wife to “the Old Ones” for omniscience. Druid had to take his life after seeing the secrets of the universe. Now, as Batman lies in his grave, the Druid steals his blood in order to return. The battle ends with the Druid coming to retrieve the soul of the many-angled lord, with Batman taunting him: “Nobody wants the Druid to die, because they’re afraid of the unknown. But you No. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Batman jumps back to life in the cemetery with no idea what is real, and after Druid’s grave is struck by lightning, he decides the secret is best left buried. The final panel of the comic is a graveyard still, a contemplative angel headstone reflecting peace.

DC Comics

The setting of “Sanctum” immediately connects it to Hellboy. Lots of “Hellboy” stories take place in churches, cemeteries, or both: “The Corpse,” “The Baba Yaga,” “The Wolves of St. August,” “The Crooked Man,” etc. And in these stories, the backgrounds are filled with stone sculptures, which add atmosphere by blurring the line between scenery and human subject matter. When you walk through a church and pass statues of very old saints, you may feel as if they are watching you. The statues in Mignola’s comics have a similar effect. “I’m not made to draw cars and buildings, most things comics are made of […] But I can draw graveyards, scary-looking beauties, Victorian era beauties,” Mignola explained in “Drawing Monsters.”

There is also a clear progression in the color scheme of “Sanctum”. During the graveyard scenes it begins to turn blue, indicating the darkness of the night. When Batman enters the Druid’s realm, the background color changes to yellow; The dark figure of Batman now contrasts with the setting rather than blending into it. When Batman and the Druid fight the shadow turns hellish red, then changes back to blue when Batman arrives. All of these color schemes look completely different from the “Hellboy” comics.

Batman may not fight demons like Hellboy, but Mignola’s Gothic aesthetic fits the Dark Knight too, and “Sanctum” proves it. Batman’s black costume is often depicted as a moving shadow, which matches perfectly with how Mignola saturates his drawings with black ink to suggest heavy darkness. Also, like Hellboy, Batman himself blurs the line of heroic and scary. It’s no surprise hellboy and batman crossed (where they became active as thieves), or that Mignola has occasionally returned to Batman; Check out “The Doom That Came to Gotham,” the perfect Batman comic for fans of “Batman: Caped Crusader.”

Hellboy may be the son of Satan, but his true creator drew from several other pulp heroes to bring him to life. Don’t forget to add Batman to that list,