Mike Mignola (‘Frankenstein Underground‘,’Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.‘) is returning to one of the most overlooked characters in the ‘Hellboy‘ universe in ‘The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed’ and I for one couldn’t be more excited. The book is being co-created with Chris Roberson (‘iZombie‘) and artwork by Paul Grist (‘Jack Staff’) in his first foray into the Mignolaverse which I just can’t get enough of. The focus of the book will be The Visitor and unless you have read all of the series you may not recognize the alien from this cover or know exactly where he came from. The book is a five-issue run which will be teased on January 5th, 2017 in ‘Hellboy: Winter Special 2017’ prior to the first issue’s release on February 22nd, 2017.
According to Roberson:
“In Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, readers were given a brief glimpse of a crew of strange looking aliens monitoring the supernatural doings on Earth from way out in space. We later learned that one of those aliens had been sent to Earth to kill him in 1944, but chose to spare him at the last moment. In The Visitor, we explore who those aliens are, why that assassin was sent to kill Hellboy, and just what he was doing in all of the years in between.
The Visitor is the story of a stranger in a strange land. Stranded on Earth for more than half a century, an alien assassin observes humanity’s capacity both for compassion and for destruction. We see history unfold through his eyes, just as the experience of living among humans changes who he is.”
While fascinating that he gets to cover the character it is actually Grist who seemed to ask the same question about him that I did when he talks about the experience in working on the book as:
“I remember when I first read Hellboy: The Conqueror Worm, halfway through Mike Mignola throws in this character who has been tracking Hellboy ever since he arrived on Earth, who then promptly dies and is dismissed by Hellboy in a single sentence. And I thought NO! You can’t do that! There has to be more to this guy’s life than that! And it turns out there was. And I’d like to thank Mike for asking me to help tell that story now.”
Seriously, that throwaway line had me wanting to know more and now we’re going to get the most in-depth look at these aliens yet and possibly a future realm to explore in the Mignolaverse.
Are you looking forward to being able to check out ‘The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed’? Do you hope that this will give us, even more, possibilities for future exploration of the word that Mignola built? Share your thoughts below!
Stuart Conover is an author, blogger, and all around geek. When not busy being a father and husband he tries to spend as much time as possible immersed in comic books, science fiction, and horror! Would you like to know more? Follow him on Twitter!
