B.P.R.D., Vol. 10: The Warning

B.P.R.D.

by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Guy Davis (Artist)

Alors que le B.P.R.D. se remet de la disparition du capitaine Daymio, un mystérieux message recommande à Abe, Johann et Kate de se mettre à la recherche de celui qui hante les visions de Liz. Au même moment, en Allemagne, des créatures venues des profondeurs préparent le retour de leurs dieux sur Terre.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fantasy, Comic Book, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction

152 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2009

About the author

Mike Mignola was born September 16, 1960 in Berkeley, California and grew up in nearby Oakland. His fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age (he doesn't remember why) and reading Dracula at age 13 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore from which he has never recovered.

In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics.

In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries.

Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden.

Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the beginning of the trilogy that ends the Plague of Frogs storyline (Well, it morphs into Hell on Earth). Things get real, real quick as it's revealed how much trouble mankind is in. That moment with Johann driving through his home is heartbreaking. I like that Arcudi manages to thrown in some comedic moments in what is an "oh, shit!" story. The little nod to Devon's past made me smile. Arcudi and Mignola are so good at leaving little plot threads that will pop up volumes later. They are really gifted at complex storytelling.

[Oscar · Rating 5 out of 5]

The frogs are back!

[Artemy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Warning kicks off the final three-part arc of the Plague of Frogs storyline, and it’s appropriately big. There is a lot of massive destruction going on here. Think of the third act in almost any Marvel movie — in a way, that’s what this volume is like. Then again, it really isn’t, because BPRD is not your ordinary mindless superhero story — when Johann drives through the ruins of his hometown and sees the spirits of every person who died during the attack, you feel his loss, and you understand the scale of the tragedy. That’s a really touching scene, and it just goes to show that in this universe death and destruction mean something, it’s not all just a giant set piece to show off some superhero’s abilities. In general, for an action volume, this one was surprisingly big on character moments. Abe’s inability to let go and end his search for Daimio was a strong plot, and everything regarding Liz and Panya was also excellent. I really wish there was a bit more focus on Kate, because after Abe and Hellboy himself she is my favorite character. She does get some funny one-liners, though, so there’s that.

The series is still going exceptionally strong, and The Warning is yet another brilliant volume of BPRD.


First read: November 14, 2015
Rating: ★★★★・

Second read: October 29, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★

[Himanshu Karmacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amidst the dark, sinister and mysterious storyline, Mignola has managed to provide some character development as well as some heartwarming moments.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first part of what’s called The Scorched Earth Trilogy, as well as the beginning of the end of this iteration of BPRD. It’s uh…fine I guess? The BPRD decide to go on the offensive against the bad guy who’s been haunting Liz Sherman, only for said bad guy to immediately dog walk the team and send them on a completely unrelated errand. It’s a frustrating read, especially coming after Killing Ground which is also a story about the team hunting for a bad guy only to spend the book chasing their own tails. You can see what Arcudi and Mignola are going for here, the idea is that these people are all too wrapped up in their own issues to work together effectively which causes everything to go to shit but in execution it’s just not much fun to read about. Just this constant feeling of “come on everybody, get it together already.”

Despite this The Warning is not without its charms. The sequence at the end with Johann in Munich is really lovely. You’ve also got more Memnan Saa here and he’s one of my favorite bad guys in these books. It’s cool to see him finally take front and center. It’s not gonna last very long so let’s enjoy him while we’ve got him. Also I’m a big fan of Johann and Panya’s entire dynamic. Johann is a character who I kind of love to hate, so it’s always fun to watch Panya rub his nose in shit for no particular reason other than that he’s there and she’s bored.

Some good, some bad, it averages out to a solid ok overall. Three stars.

[Sud666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Warning is the start of a big trilogy.

It stars Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, Dr. Corrigan, Panya and Johann Kraus.

It is a rather big story. Apparently the mole men from BPRD previous story arcs are creating some really big machines. The war between BPRD and these forces erupts onto the streets of Munich and ends up in destroying the city. I won't spoil the rest of it. But the main focus here is Liz Sherman and her powers. She may play a special role..but more about that later.

This is the first of a trilogy-so the whole story remains to be judged. So far this isn't bad. Now the art style isn't that great. But it is not terrible. There is a lot going on here-Abe Sapien is one of my favorite characters (save Hellboy himself) and it's good to see an aggressive version of Abe. It was a joy to read. The rest of the characters I was not that familiar with-so I didn't have an attachment to them.

So far-good. Let's see where the rest of this story goes.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is getting very, very interesting. With every collection, I feel more and more like everything that's happened so far has been to some specific end. It's a good feeling to have about a series that's been around for a bit.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a Hellboy fan then the B.P.R.D. storyline is a must read for the fleshing out of the Hellboy universe. The overall long reaching plotline is a great complex interwoven war story with lots of cool characters, some of which don't survive to the end. Recommended

[Jamil · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'm telling you, these BPRD books are really starting to kick ass.

[Wing Kee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shit just got really really real...and this is just the warning shot.

Mignola does not play around when he throws end of the world scenarios and cosmic horrors at the world in his books. It's not like Marvel's Avengers where you see a wormhole open up and an alien army spill out only destroying a city block, when an army, or a small force not even an army, comes out of the earth with giant robot/frog hybrids they destroy a city...at least. So yes, the story that started with Plague of Frogs about 5 years ago (by floppy release) is not really coming to ahead but coming to fruition and this as I've said above is only the warning shot of what Mignola is gonna unleash on his world, and it is horrifyingly fantastic.

World: Guy Davis, no need to say anything else. Yes, 5 years worth of world building is almost coming to a head, the Fu Manchu guy without a name now has a name and a history, piece by piece the world building that seemed so far off (The Dead) is paying off. The world is pretty much fully built at this point, but Mignola still manages to cram in little bits of info and history here and there to make it even more complex and horrifying than it already is, amazing.

Story: 5 years of build-up and this is the warning shot, the next two arcs will change everything and man it is amazing. Coming off of the crazy Daimo stuff in the last arc, you would think that Mignola and Arcudi wuld go straight forward with that story, nope, they leave that behind to throw us into the deep end. There have been so many stories going on now for each character that any one of them would have been a great tale to continue, but this time around it's not Johann or Abe with their intimate tales, but rather Liz and the greater Plague of Frogs that has been going on for a while. The story is paced well and you don't know where it's going and the real point of it until it gets to Munich and then...things get real. Holy shit do they ever. Just read it and see where it goes and think about the implications of where Mignola is taking the story and his world.

Characters: Strong as always, Arcudi's influence is great and you see that each character has their own individual stories that not only build themselves but also the greater grander arc. I enjoyed the Panya stuff, but at this moment she's still a mystery and something that I and I imagine other readers are thinking about. The Liz centric story this time around is great and I like how she has evolved through the years as a character. I am however a bit irked that we are retreading the her being kidnapped thing again but I trust Mignola it is leading somewhere. Oh and a nice little 2 panel gag with Devon shows readers how much character work has gone on with even minor characters like him in this wonderful series (you'll see it when it happens and smile).

Man this series was already great but the stakes keep getting higher and higher I can't wait to see where the next two trades will lead us as they will end the Plague of Frogs storyline.

Onward to the next book!

[Melissa McShane · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the Plague of Frogs storyline complete (as much as any of these stories can be complete) we now get the beginning of the Scorched Earth series. I love the Liz-centric stories, and was glad to see the problem of her mystery advisor/mindworm/creepy stalker being taken up in this new series. His warnings, the visions he gives Liz of an apocalyptic future in which humanity is destroyed, haven't changed, but his approach has become more direct. I hate that he's so incredibly powerful and can easily evade the rest of the team, but the ambiguity of his nature--is he good or evil?--appeals to me. Also, Kate and Bruno! They're so cute. Kate's the most normal of the team and I like seeing a little romance going her way.

[Steve Bal4 · Rating 3 out of 5]

B.P.R.D., The Warning is ok. Kind of a mid-point in a larger ongoing story ("War on Frogs"). You get Liz, Abe, Johann, and a bit of the interesting new mummy character, Panya. There's also goblins, giant robots & big explosions. Something to nosh on, but not the whole meal, and maybe not exactly what you thought you were getting when you ordered dinner.

Although I appreciate that Mike Mignola has, and had to, expand his Hellboy-verse, not everything resonates the same way -- in particular the artwork with this offering -- so I was left a little unsatisfied, a little hungry by the end; artist Guy Davis has the "flavour" of Mignola's style, but not the full recipe.

...enough with the bad food analogies: I think it's most telling that I picked up B.P.R.D., The Warning 13 years after it was first released, and at half cover price, when most of the fully-Mignola-created Hellboy stuff is expensive, if not very hard to come by (in the wild).

Better than most of the crap Marvel & DC has to offer (these days), but kind of the lower end for what I enjoy from this fictional universe.
Meh, beggars can't be choosers.

⭐⭐⭐

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The series is hitting top gear and the end is in sight, things are getting out of hand for the team. Liz is now missing and the team is being tormented by the allied bad guys, which includes the creative villain Black Flame. The book doesn't end well for the team but the story is still in great hands, Mignola continues to deliver out there storylines and characters. The arc storyline is the key and it's interesting to see the team drop the current case to fight the plague threat.

[Matthew Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

90 / 100

[Aritra Dasgupta · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a sequence towards the end of the story where Krauss melancholic, puts his arm outside the moving car and lets his ectoplasm bleed out. As he does, hundreds of ghosts appear, men, women, parents and little children. The story of BPRD has been one of plague and impending inescapable doom.

And it is in moments like these that it really hits home, the level of destruction and loss we are witnessing. 30 pages of giant robots and monsters and burning cities can't bring the same sadness these few panels do. I wish we get more of these. I really like the story here and while it's not literary or anything, it is fun and intensely readable and always has moments of great writing like this, though it frequently gets overshadowed by big BIG fights and heavy exposition.

[Lara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was great--Abe's out searching for Daimio, Johann's looking for clues about Lobster Johnson, and Liz is trying to find the man who was speaking to her inside her head when Liz is kidnapped and all hell breaks loose in Munich. More proto-humans, giant killer robots, and death and destruction ensue. Plus Kate gets a date!

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

✭✭✭½

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't tell where the story is going here. Is the earth pretty much screwed?

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this volume doesn't quite get back to Daimio's story like I hoped it would, but it's still pretty solid--and much more palatable than the jarring, Nazi-era interlude of the previous volume. This one primarily focuses on the mysterious figure Liz has been having dreams about, with some time devoted to the Johann/Lobster Johnson subplot. Gilfryd (the one who's been appearing to Liz) gets fleshed out a bit, and is turning into a pretty interesting character in his own right. It's still not entirely clear whose side he's on, apart from his own, but I like what they're doing with him overall.

While volume 10 is a return to form, it does falter a little at times. Once the team runs into the primeval mole people again, certain story beats feel like they happen a bit too rapidly, just for the sake of the big reveal at the end. And it is a good reveal that really amps up the stakes, and shows a different side of some of the antagonists--it just feels a little off, pacing-wise.

I'm going to try to keep reading this, but the individual trades like I've been collecting are getting harder to find. And for some reason, from what I gather, Dark Horse decided to reorder things in the omnibus collections, so that material I haven't read yet is published alongside stuff I already have. That leaves me with an uncomfortable decision to essentially re-purchase stories I already own to get the whole saga, or to comb through resale sites and used bookstores, trying to find the remaining single volumes at varying price points and physical conditions. I admit, this last paragraph is largely me venting a little frustration; the bottom line is, B.P.R.D. is worth reading. Pick it up in whatever format you can. It's worth the investment.

[Pádraic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the usual large-scale B.P.R.D. volumes (the giant monsters/robots and visions of the apocalypse are always stunningly rendered) but I can't say that I'm particularly invested in this arc, despite the return of the underground proto-men and Johann cutting loose and the brief moments of our protagonists cracking under the strain of the end of the world.

Arcudi talks in the afterword about 'going big', which... that's never been the reason I've liked Hellboy and co. All my favourite Hellboy stories (maybe in Hell excepted) are the small-scale, quiet, measured, mood pieces -- as is my favourite volume of this series, The Universal Machine -- all entirely at odds with the scale of this.

[Centauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must be honest, but I think it should be rated 4 or even 5 stars, but I was lost on some of the story since it has been years since I have read any Hellboy (comic or novel). This made me wish I had never stopped reading them.
The mythos, pacing, mystery, and thrill is all there. Mignola has not loss his touch at all. It is crazy to see everyone's destiny beginning to be fully (and finally,) realized. Enemies are friends and allies, the world is on the brink of annihilation, and the team is still the team. Even without Hellboy present (whoops, ?SPOILER ALERT?), the BPRD is still kicking butt and trying to save humanity from the vile things that go bump in the night. I think I will have to pick up from the beginning of the series

[Bill Coffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

For so much of Hellboy and the BPRD, we see our heroes struggle against emergent threats, things that if not contained would undo the world. But they always contain them, and we rest assured that the world will live on. With this volume, we finally see that the threat facing humanity may very well be far, far beyond the BPRD’s ability to stop it, and that everything they have fought for may have been for nothing. So begins the story arc that will bring the epic first half of the BPRD series to its conclusion, and all the while, we read with ever-widening eyes at the magnitude of horrors may yet be in store. Mignola, Arcudi & company are in top form.

[Luke Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still not in love with the military procedural vibe of the BPRD vs the mythical quality of Hellboy proper, but I do really love Abe and Johann, I'm starting to love Panya, and I'm extremely curious to see if this pulls off making Lobster Johnson important. And I love that even when this series isn't as much my jam as actual Hellboy, it IS still about an army of ape men from the center of the earth trying to conquer the world with ancient magical giant robots. Like it's still... Pretty great.

(...And I'm happy that the fu-manchu lookin' guy seems like he's turning out to be a fraudulent Welshman rather than a racist stereotype?)

[Sean · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand that readers and characters both not knowing what's going on and trying to figure out a mystery or situation is a writing technique but too many times in this collection I struggled to understand the whys, who's, and what's. I enjoyed Abe being Abe whatever is going on with Johan. I'm still unsure about the purpose of Panya. I also believe Hellboy makes this book better. Guy Davis does a really nice job on the art chores. I love his Abe. Overall, this book is setting something up but I don't think Mignola and Arcudi were clear enough with their vision.

[Pavel Pravda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tohle je začátek něčeho velkého, jak ostatně potvrzuje i John Arcudi v doslovu. A opravdu je to epické. Ukazuje to Mignolovu geniální schopnost propojit všechno se vším a mít vše vymyšleno roky dopředu. Propojuje to Dutozem, žabí mor, záhadného Číňana i Černý plamen. Jenže přes to všechno tomu něco chybí. Snad jen špetka humoru, která by odlehčila hutnou atmosféru a pochmurnou náladu. Chybí tomu Rogerovy hlášky a jízlivé poznámky kapitána Daimia. Kresba je pořád skvělá a ten konec… Nacházím v něm paralely s Válkou světů H. G. Wellse.

[John Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what goes on at
The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense
(B.P.R.D.)
when Hellboy isn't around.
They go on about saving the world
anyways.

A new threat is revealed to the team
through the visions sent to Liz Sherman
by a mysterious mage.
Is he a friend or enemy of mankind.
Fighting the new foe the team led
by Abe Sapien ( who has become a badass)
discovers that destruction may be too close to stop

[novoten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opět se láká na dávné Hyperborejce, vzpomíná na Humra Johnsona i Edwarda Greye a spojuje téměř vše důležité, co dosud v sérii mělo nějakou zápornou roli - tedy žabáci a Memnan Saa. Ale protože jsem si všechny zmíněné série v nedávné minulosti načetl, působí celá kniha jen jako rekapitulace a příprava na věci větší než velké - a ani o chlup víc.

[Jiro Dreams of Suchy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lobster has something going on- these infernal machines!

Liz is being courted by an ominous man who seems to know the future (and it looks BAD) but maybe Liz can be the savior. Abe is still sour grapes with Johann, Johann sees his hometown of Munich destroyed by those weird little humanesque creatures.

This isn’t just frogs anymore, they have allies!

[Jonk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up the volume 4 omnibus because the cover looked cool and tried to read this before realising something had definitely happened before and finding the Hellboy reading order excel master list and making my way through that. Glad I did because the immensity of everything the series has built up to is now not lost on me. 4.5

[Koen Claeys · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seemed forced to me to shoehorn the molemen from the 'Hollow Earth' story in the Plague of Frogs epic. This collection felt a bit unnecessary for the overall story. Hopefully the auteurs turn it up a notch for the next collection. Still, an entertaining read.