Sledgehammer 44 Volume 1

Good story leading on from lobster Johnson - first book, lovely illustrations as per usual

Awesome little addition to the Hellboy universe. and makes me want to find the lobster johnson comics too.

Sledgehammer '44 collects two stories. The first is a two-parter with art by Jason Latour, which is a bit of an introduction to the character and the set-up. The Sledgehammer is a one-man robot combat suit powered by mystical vril energy and almost impossible to take down by conventional means, and he's spearheading the Allied advance across Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944. The character and concept were first introduced in the Lobster Johnson series The Iron Prometheus, so this two-parter acts mainly as a re-introduction for those who missed that.It's the second (three-part) story that I suspect most Mignola-verse fans will be interested to read, though. Lightning War sees the return of mystic Raimund Diestel, last seen on a gangster's payroll and causing trouble for Lobster Johnson in downtown Manhattan (the story collected in The Burning Hand TPB.) Recruited by the Third Reich at the start of the story and given a new purpose in life as Nazi super-villian the Black Flame, it's his interuption of a test flight for a new aircraft that sees him come into contact with the Sledgehammer. The story is arguably one extended fight scene, but what a fight scene it is! Artist Laurence Campbell knocks this one out of the park - the fight happens takes place in the night sky, during a rainstorm, and is the sort of filmic-quality scene that comics can do so well when everything works.So you may want to seek those Lobster Johnson series out for all that extra backstory, although everything's explained well enough here that you shouldn't have any trouble diving right in. A fun addition to the Mignola-verse that's well worth buying for the Black Flame story - and an essential one, too, given that the Slegdehammer suit next turned up in the present day, becoming quite important for the BPRD in their ongoing apocalyptic conflict...

I absolutely loved this, the story in both mini arcs is brilliant, faced paced and exciting. The art is stunning and the story answered some questions I has that were left unresolved from the Lobster Johnson series.