BPRD: Hell on Earth: The Abyss of Time #1: There and Back Again

Mike Mignola and Scott Allie have been doing the BPRD series for many years now and has become their bread and butter. Their newest entry, “BPRD: Hell on Earth: The Abyss of Time,” reads like the series has become routine.

The comic starts out with the BPRD investigating an abandoned warehouse in Chicago and then it abruptly changes genres, characters, location and time period. Here we meet Gall Dennar, a member of an unspecified tribe in an unspecified area of the world. Faced with an undeniable dilemma and emotional condition, Dennar is a change of pace for the series.

This sudden shift in narrative and unconnected storylines makes this one the weakest entries in the BPRD mythos. It’s stagnant, lacks focus and makes the reader think that Mignola and Allie have lost their minds midway and wanted to write a completely different comic. Mignola and Allie are fully capable of writing clever and dynamic stories for the BPRD universe, but here, it looks like they just don’t care anymore.

At least the art in the comic still has the charm the series is known for. It still has that gritty noir style that makes things look all dark and abnormal. Your mouth will still water. Yes, even in the tribal part, the art still holds up. The only downside is that whenever there is a long shot of a wide area with buildings the shortcuts are glaring. One example is the scene in the tribal part where there’s a shot of a Chichen Itza type city and everything just sort of blends into each other.

“BPRD: Hell on Earth: The Abyss of Time” is one of the weakest entries in the BPRD universe with a lazy story that abruptly shifts focus and is just not that interesting. Mignola and Allie might be going somewhere with this, but wherever “it” is is not going to impress anybody yet.