The second volume of the Abe Dark and Terrible saga follows an AWOL Abe after his departure from the B.P.R.D. in the early chapters of Hell on Earth.
On the run at the end of the world, Abe seeks the truth about his own connection to the plague of monsters threatening to wipe out mankind.
But is Abe’s real goal to uncover the truth, or to run from it? Also seeking answers is a necromancer whose deal with the Devil was forfeited when Hell collapsed in Hellboy in Hell. Could Abe Sapien hold the key to the sorcerer’s attempt to make a contract with the masters of the impending apocalypse?
Collected in paperback for the first time, revisit Abe Sapien’s adventures above and below the waves with stories from Mike Mignola and others, brought to life by the sublime art of Max and Sebastián Fiumara.
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.
Volume 1 was a big letdown but this one was great again. The story is getting so much clearer, the artwork gets better and better, seriously can not shut up about it. And always great style to the book, with some sketches in the back and some info. Great stuff !
(4,5 of 5 for stepping in similar heavyweight like Hellboy in Hell arc) This book gives Abe the same "searching and not finding and the world closes to apocalypse in meantime" feel as Hellboy's finale. Without the finale, of course. Nonetheless, it's great, the atmosphere is thick, and watching the journey of Abe through the postapocalyptic world is thrilling. The art is great, even if I do not like how the both Fiumara brothers draw human heads. I don't know why, but it feels off to me. But it fits perfectly for the story and theme. I look forward to how this arc will continue, even if with BPRD, which always makes me a bit worried.
Strobl deserved better. As the ultimate nemesis to Abe Sapien in this listless wander through Hell on Earth, Strobl's side story had occasional moments of insight and interest, but his final confrontation with Abe was a wasted opportunity filled with monologuing and what felt like a complete betrayal of what he had been before. That kind of goes for Abe too. Look, this tangent was always going to pull back into the main plot - I'd read the other books so I knew what Abe's ultimate fate would be. But this collection that ostensibly directs him in that path really fails to do so. A Darkness So Great, the 5-issue opener that details the experiences of different characters (including Abe and Grace) in Burnham is the high point of the collection, and it has a decent resolution, but it ultimately feels like a point for the plot to shed the excess characters it has weighed itself down with. The Shadow over Suwanee has some decent characterizations but the situation makes very little sense. The Garden (II) is the pivot point for this whole side quest and yet it makes almost no impression on its own. The same for The Garden (III). There's a lot of stuff that happens here, but it's either too subtle or not really meaningful.
At least there's some good art here; the Fiumara brothers get some chances to shine, and even their standard panels have a good look and feel (definitely supported by Dave Stewart's color work).
Ultimately, this whole series feels like a digression that doesn't achieve its goals. I don't regret reading it, but I can't recommend others make the effort unless they have to read all of BPRD or they really like Abe.
This review is for Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible volumes 1 and 2.
Abe Sapien has woken from a coma to find himself mutated and more inhuman than ever. He leaves the B.R.P.D. and travels across the U.S. which has been overrun by monsters. Abe is searching for the truth about himself and the fate of the human race.
These were very interesting stories. The world has been overrun with monsters and humans are slowly being wiped off the face of the earth. Abe is basically on a journey of self discovery. He wants answers but doesn’t know where to look for them, or even what all answers he is searching for. I enjoyed seeing the world through Abe’s point of view. Abe isn’t the confident warrior like Hellboy was, which I liked. He is more insecure about himself and his place in the world, especially since people keep pushing him away.
As with all of the Mignola comics I have read, I loved the artwork for this book. The Fiumara brothers have done an amazing job at illustrating this story. I loved the mixture of dark and color for the panels, especially with the monsters and battle scenes.
Overall, I really enjoyed Abe’s story even if it wasn’t what i was expecting. I do think I should have read B.R.P.D.: Plague of Frogs before reading this but I don’t think it has impacted my enjoyment of the story.
Dark and Terrible has Abe traveling across America, helping people out of supernatural jams. He does some soul searching and becomes really emo. He questions who he is and wonders how he should go about figuring that out. It drags on. An egotistical villian, meanwhile, stalks Abe and continually goes on about his past exploits that make him so great, it's really annoying. The whole story has an air of being try-hard and edgy. When we finally learn about Abe's origin, it happens in the last pages with no lead up, followed by an anti climactic battle. I was looking forward to this series but the writers do not know what to do with Abe at all. A particularly bad chapter is the one where Abe hangs out with Megan, staring at clouds and being really emo with each other.
There is so much build up in this series of Abe wondering who is, what his identity is now that he remembers a past life that he doesn't relate to anymore. But the continual flashbacks of his past iterations as a person get really tiresome. Grace accuses him of having something dark inside himself, but it's only because he's not in denial that literal hell on earth is happening. It doesn't make you dark if you point out there are giant demons destroying the world instead of pretending like everything is fine.
I haven't read this series before so I don't know what happens after this, but if SPOILER Strobl is actually dead from that short battle with Abe after having to listen to him talk about how great he is for the duration of the volume, then he went out like a chump. I'm glad, he was annoying, but still...
Abe Sapien's journey, to find who he really is and what his part is in this 'Hell on Earth', comes to a semi-conclusion in this one. I followed his journey with much curiosity and I am content with how this book unravelled everything. There were lot of questions answered and there are a lot more left to be answered. He's been one of the more compelling characters from the Mignolaverse and his arc has aptly delivered a story worthy of the Big Red's himself.
Abe Sapien: Dark and Terrible Volume 2!!! Quick recap from my fucked up reading order. So, after being shot by Fenix, Abe wakes up and just leaves BPRD. He got shot, again, and evolves into a more feral look. He got banded with small, yet nice, cult and travelled halfway across America. Now in this book, they got to a quiet little town, that seems to be a safe haven from all the shitstorm happening in the world. Little did they know that this place is no exception to that shitstorm, it just had a nice façade. Abe goes off alone from here and continues his search for his identity. Eventually, he ends up in Dr. Bruttenholm’s old home, and he discovers old tapes on Bruttenholm’s own hypnosis sessions with Abe. Abe slowly discovers his won and even Caul’s story. Apparently Abe is something older, beyond Caul, and puts him right in a significant spot among the craziness happening all over. This end in a brutal fight with Strobl. Hopefully, Abe joins the BPRD again! A great spin off to the BPRD series!
Abe is probably my favorite Mignolaverse character, and that does some heavy lifting here, but overall the Abe solo series is my least favorite chunk of Mignolaverse so far. Thankfully, it's also the one with the most input from disgraced shithead and sex criminal Scott Allie, so I can dislike it with abandon and blame all the stuff I don't like on him with zero evidence to back these opinions up. Phew. Safely compartmentalized.
Some of the payoff to The Grand Abe Mystery is still REALLY fun and compelling, but I feel like it would have hit a lot harder if the whole arc were like half as long. Just feels padded out and direction less for HUGE stretches before it starts bringing things home.
Still, it's about my favorite fish-man and monsters and ancient cults and elder gods. There's some good shit in here, too. It's the part I love least of a universe I love a lot. Can't imagine I'll revisit any time soon, but I'm glad I got through it once.
This is the end of the Abe Sapien spin off series. Abe tries to understand himself as he wanders the wastelands of the apocalypse, doing what he can to help others. There is a lot of pondering over the mystery of his origins, and along with the previous collection I would say this mystery moves too slowly. Most of the stories are about life in the apocalypse with Abe turning up. I was not invested in most of the side cast. The pacing is disjointed and it only got interesting for me at the last two stories. I am happy with the answers we did get. and overall the end is strong. Abe is being pursued by 19th century occultist Gustav Strobl who has escaped Hell and is now here for Hell on Earth. Strobl has some interesting moments, though his final confrontation with Abe is disappointing.
Utterly pointless. A poorly-paced, poorly-plotted, meandering slog of a comic with an ending that makes the entire thing a waste of time. Abe has spent two entire volumes wandering around accomplishing nothing. I assumed by the end of this thing we'd at least get some big, inspiring new information about him that launched him toward the Mignolaverse finale. Instead, this thing just sees Abe start off wondering whether or not he deserves to exist, and then, after 6 million pages and no substantial new information, realize yes, he actually does. I love Abe. This is a true "look how they massacred my boy" moment for me. There is truly no reason to read any of this. If you skip this altogether I believe you will still be able to read The Devil You Know without missing a beat. Woof.
This is considerably better than the previous omnibus. Abe finally learns his purpose, and the journey is both compelling and surprising. There’s still some vagueness that I don’t like, but I suppose Mignola, Allie, and co. accomplished what they set out to do with Abe’s story. That is, provide enough information for the finale of Hellboy and Abe’s part in it. I love the art in this book, especially in the later issues. I can’t help but feel though that an Abe Sapien series missed an opportunity to have gorgeous ocean landscapes. There are some of those in these stories, but a lot of them were Abe just walking around. Oh well.
So I finally finished the Abe Sapien comics, and while I've been saying that Abe's fate has seemed worse that Hellboys for awhile, I still don't know if I can confirm that. This was a really good series, but I think I found it maybe a little too meandering? Don't get me wrong, I liked watching Abe's wanderings and his friends that he's made along the way, but even the Finale of this seemed like it was missing something, and I love monster fights! I have a feeling this story won't be officially wrapped until I finish the BPRD, so I'll sit tight until then, but I was slightly let down with the culmination of Strobles story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
How this ended up a favorite after the horrible experience of reading volume one is a miracle. Though it's very clear why volume two worked so much better. This volume is less of a slow-burn and when there are slower scenes they actually work this time. We FINALLY move on from the many unlikeable characters introduced in volume one, freeing up the plot to actually focus on...well, Abe. We get answers, the plot actually makes sense, Abe's motivations are much clearer, overall it just feels like a storyline worthy of a great character like Abe.
(Zero spoiler review) T first volume was a massive disappointment, as has been everything in the World of Hellboy outside of the series proper. I opened this, hoping against hope for something... anything to get excited about. I got a couple of issues in and the will to slog through another tepid bag of this slop drained from me like a fat kids resolve around an unguarded cupcake. I put it down, quietly chastising myself for ever believing this could ever come within a country mile of Hellboy. 2/5
This one wraps up Abe's series of wanderings and I suppose it continues one in the final BPRD HELL ON EARTH volume. Not a lot of answers to be found, but I did enjoy the more personal journey of this series, and the art is fantastic as is the norm.
Is it essential? I'm not sure, but I'm glad I read it.
I love the left-hand/right-hand, water/fire duality between Abe and Hellboy. Its not really complex or anything but it doesn't need to be. I wish we got more of Strobl, hopefully in volume 3 we will. Or maybe in a future series
Plodding and philosophical, the action is sparse as it focuses on the people Abe meets across America, to varying degrees of success. Consistent art bouys the slow, meandering story.
The second half of this series is more of the same, slow burn, melancholic wandering, but it’s still beautiful, and it does end with some big satisfying moments.
Scott Allie really needs to learn to write endings. Pretty much every story collected in this omnibus has a rushed ending. It’s especially egregious in the first part which not only ends abruptly (villain is gotten rid off in one page after five issues of buildup) but it also removes all side-characters (minus the overarching villains) with no logical reason to do so.
It’s so frustrating because some other things here are really good.
Volume one was a meandering and uninteresting bore. Volume two is much more interesting but still suffers from the same kind of obtuse vagueness of volume one. We get more in the way of answers this time but mostly it's filling out the kind of backstory lore that is supposed to be Abe Sapien's motivation. As it turns out the meandering, aimless feeling of the stories was intentional. The original point of the Abe Sapien series was to spin off Hell on Earth and tell stories John Arcudi wasn't much interested in. In Scott Allie's afterword he says the pitch was a Kung-Fu like series where Abe gets into adventures. That makes a lot of sense, but I don't think it works. Hell on Earth's story unfolds at an even pace where the earth as we know is falling apart fairly rapidly. Abe Sapien kills that momentum for seemingly no reason. While this book is much tighter than volume one the ending is still immensely unsatisfying.
The art is goddamn beautiful though so on a purely visual level this collection of stories is wonderful. The Fiumara brothers are really great. Now if only we could see them illustrate a story worthy of their talents.
Again and again Abe is giving his best to help people around him but in situations where everyone seems to came to terms with inevitability of dying at the claws or maws of one or another mutated monster Abe very soon decides to continue his journey alone.
Soon he finds out the truth about himself and what his role is in what all witches and warlocks call coming of the new age.
Unfortunately for Abe, mad Gustav Strobl gets his hands on mysterious power of the old world and two enter the conflict .
Again this is slow story arc with very strong horror flavor. Art as always is beautiful.
Recommended for fans of horror and Hellboy's universe.
This was a big step-up from the previous volume, the incredible art of the Fiumaras aside, the story of Abe Sapien was feeling repetitive and stale in a fashion that’s rare for the Mignola-verse. This last half of the run is much better, and feels like a satisfying conclusion to multiple story threads in the universe, with a stronger characterisation of Abe himself helping to make the story more engaging. Unfortunately Strobl as a villain never quite lives up to his potential, suffering from being kept separate from Abe for so much of the story leading for the conflict to feel unearned.
Im sure, one day, I will reread all the Mignolaverse books in (a as yet to be codified to my liking) chronological order. Until then, I'm gonna say that this was a little anticlimactic for me.
The Fiumaras' art has grown on me though. I hope those brothers success. What is it with twins being such great artists? The Ba/Moon brothers are also excellent and drew a few BPRD series...