Hellboy vol. 4: The Right Hand of Doom.

The fourth book of Hellboy is composed of several short stories and a long story that it’s related to the importance of the Stone Hand of Hellboy.

It starts with a joke. Pancake is a two page comic about Hellboy as a boy and his love for pancakes. It was a joke, but it stands as one of everyone favourites. The Nature of the Best is some kind of experiment to try Hellboy’s abilities against a dragon and King Vold mixes Norse gods and werewolves.

Part two is a collection of three tales with different kind of monsters to fight. Heads is a Japanese story about head-vampires. In Goodbye Mr. Tod we can see a Lovecraftian ectoplasm coming out from a spiritualist. The Vârcolac is a vampire story.

In part three is the main story of the book. The Right Hand of Doom is a conversation between Hellboy and Adrian Frost, a preacher from Lizarza, Spain and son of Malcolm Frost (if you remember, he tried to kill Hellboy). Our hero wants to know what all about this hand. This tale relates the importance of Hellboy as a key to awake the Ogdu Jahrad, and to conquer Earth and Heaven from Hell.

The story continues in Box Full of Evil in a longer format. Hellboy, Abe and Kate Corrigan, from B.P.R.D. face the menace of a minor demon and his summoner. They fall in their trap, stealing this demon the crown of hell from Hellboy. But after a battle of wits our heroes win. Not without taking good note of the important role Hellboy has in the main scheme of the war between Heaven and Hell.

This volume ends with a wonderful set of sketches of demons from Mignola himself.