Hellboy one shots are always interesting because they rarely
if ever tie-in to the main storyline of Hellboy. Instead they play to the lore
of the world and the agelessness of the character. In Buster Oakley Gets His Wish
what starts off as a missing cow case turns out to be alien abduction. It’s
suspected that some local kids have been practicing some evil magic and the cow’s
disappearance has some ties to their rituals. It turns out that it’s actually
aliens that have been abducted and the leader of the kid’s cult has been
transformed into a cow/man hybrid. Hellboy discovers this as he too is abducted by
the aliens. A fight breaks out in the ship as he must battle the little
grey-ish men with the help of the cowman.
If you like and are familiar with Hellboy you’ll enjoy this
issue as it’s a simple story and basically one long battle. If this is your
first experience with Hellboy you can still find enjoyment in the issue, but
you won’t find much in the way of details and back story about Hellboy. The
story has a great narration of captions that travel throughout the issue and
play into the ending which was fitting and interesting for the story.
The art and coloring are very beautiful and complex. Kevin
Nowlan (Name a book he’s probably worked on it) his pencils are most
impressive, but his inks out shine everything else. The line work adds a lot of
detail and gives the book a very distinct look. Nowlan’s art is probably some
of the closest to creator and writer of this issue, Mike Mignola’s art. Every
panel is beautiful to look at and the inks are so strong you almost do need the
coloring at all.
I personally liked the issue a lot and think that if it’s
great to get these one off issues of Hellboy that don’t require you to know
anything other than the character’s name to enjoy the story. It’s a fast read
for sure but thoroughly enjoyable with a clever ending. If anything it’s worth
it just for the art alone which does a great job of telling the story with the
captions working against it.
Overall Score –
8.0/10