Hellboy was sent to Mexico in 1956 to investigate some mass killings and then went missing for five months. These stories cover Hellboy’s “lost weekend” south of the border.
Disappointingly, Hellboy in Mexico is mostly reprints of stuff that’s appeared in previous better Hellboy books. The original Hellboy in Mexico story first appeared in The Bride of Hell and Others while House of the Living Dead originally appeared as its own volume.
The new stuff included here? Four short stories: Hellboy Versus The Aztec Mummy is exactly what the title says though it’s also drawn by Mike Mignola so there’s that at least. Hellboy Gets Married sees Hellboy inadvertently hitched to a vampire lady after a night of boozing - Mick McMahon’s art is the only real highlight here. And then there’s The Coffin Man and The Coffin Man 2: The Rematch drawn by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba, two enormously gifted Brazilian artists who are also twin brothers.
None of those stories really stands out as particularly memorable or that interesting - they’re standard “Hellboy punches monsters” stuff. The best stories are the reprinted ones. Hellboy in Mexico sees Hellboy team up with three luchador brothers to fight vampires, and House of the Living Dead is the even better sequel where luchador Hellboy battles the Universal Monsters. Really entertaining stuff with wonderfully creepy art from Richard Corben in both.
If I’d never read any of these before, I’d definitely rate this higher, but as it is, with Dark Horse cheekily ripping off Hellboy fans with very little new content in a purportedly “new” Hellboy book, it only gets an average rating and that entirely for the fantastic art.
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