Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 gives us an insight as to what fighting the supernatural was like before Hellboy himself. As it turns out, magic and technology mix together horrifyingly well.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 cover art.
Hellboy getting to relax while listening to someone else’s battles for once.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 is the 1st issue of a comic book spinoff of the main Hellboy series. Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Chris Roberson (iZombie), and Christopher Mitten cowrote this comic book series. Christopher Mitten is also the artist of this comic alongside Ben Stenbeck, with Michelle Madsen as the colorist. Oh, and Dark Horse Comics is the publisher of this comic.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 will go on sale on October 27, 2021. You can purchase physical copies from your local comic book shop for that sweet paper feel. Or, if you’re fine with the digital version, you can download it directly from Dark Horse Comics.

Warning: spoilers for Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 below. If you want to listen to an old warhorse speak of his supernatural hunting days for yourself, stop here, and come back once said old warhorse has finished his drink.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 ~ Plot Summary

The story of Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 starts off with Hellboy himself along with his adopted father Prof. Trevor Bruttenholm. Only, the story doesn’t star them. No, the story stars Simon Bruttenholm: Trevor Bruttenholm’s uncle. Apparently, he spends his days at a tavern called the Monk’s Head, drinking a pint while he tells tales of his youth to anyone who would listen. Well, now he’s got an audience in the form of Hellboy and his nephew, so he might as well begin.

Simon’s first story takes place in the early days of the radio before Guglielmo Marconi actually invented the thing. Simon is attending a demonstration of a prototype radio receiver, but things go wrong. Not as wrong as you’d imagine, but apparently, nothing but nonsense comes out of the loudspeaker. Simon is excited about it nonetheless since the nonsense still proves that the receiver is working.

The scene then cuts back to the Monk’s Head, but in Ye Olden Times, when the Silver Lantern Club was still young and active. After quite a bit of grousing the other members, Simon manages to eagerly tell the story of the radio demonstration to his colleagues. As it turns out, that demonstration, specifically the nonsense the receiver was spewing out, is actually relevant to them. 2 of the Silver Lantern Club were apparently carrying out an exorcism at the exact same time, but the demon escaped their grasp. They theorize that the demon escaped into the receiver, so they head over to investigate.

As it turns out, that was exactly what had happened. The 2 Silver Lantern Club members try to exorcise the demon, but none of their tricks are able to do it. The demon is about to unleash apocalypse when it just winks out of existence. As it turns out, just cutting the power to the radio was enough to kill the demon, since it needed a living host, and a machine without electricity was basically dead. And thus ended Simon’s current tale. However, he now has another one about a haunted puppet, which Hellboy really wants to hear. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #2 to hear that tale for ourselves.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 ~ The Good

The setting of Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 is its biggest draw. It’s not often that you get a steampunk fantasy horror comic like this one. Bonus points for it likely taking place during the Victorian era, given how Marconi hasn’t yet invented the radio. It reminds me of Bloodborne a bit, in that respect. Now, all we have to do is wait for the blood-starved beasts and eldritch horrors to eventually appear.

The great setting, in turn, leads to a fascinating story in Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1. I like this mix of magic/supernatural and technology, especially in the case of a demon possessing a radio, and how they killed it. You kill it by pulling the plug on the radio. Get it? I’m just going to move on now.

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 ~ The Bad

I think the worst thing about it is how short Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 is, but that’s just the nature of each issue being its own self-contained story. You need to resolve each story arc in a single issue, so each story is naturally going to be short. I do wish for a multi-issue story arc though. Even if it takes more than a single drink for old Simon.

I do have another major complaint though, even though it has nothing to do with the comic book itself. As you might’ve noticed, there are no images above aside from the cover art. Dark Horse Comics never posts any preview pages until the day of release. So until that day comes, you’ll just have to settle for my words alone.

Conclusion

Hellboy: The Silver Lantern Club #1 is a nice single-issue story about an old warhorse telling his tale of demons and emerging technology to an enraptured Hellboy and his nephew Trevor Bruttenholm. He needs another drink before he can continue his next tale though. We’ll just have to wait for the next issue of this comic book series from Dark Horse Comics to hear what happens next.

Source: Dark Horse Comics