If you’ve never read any of the Baltimore series, The Widow and The Tank is an excellent place to start. Behind solid noir-inspired writing from Hellboy scribe Mike Mignola and art from the trio of Christopher Golden, Ben Stenbeck and The Goon’s Dave Stewart, the two tales in this comic represent a smart, fast-paced supernatural killfest.
It’s one that will engage you more than enough to give the other tales in the series a try. But the book the sword swings is a double-edged one. While the stories are well-written in Mignola’s signature fun, yet gritty style and drawn in a way that Hellboy fans will easily fall in love with, they are short and lack depth. While this may be the purpose of these small tales, one wonders what could have been had more time been spent in the investment of the story. Instead, the tales are more on the quick and dirty side.
Make no mistake, one-shots are tough business. Especially with characters that are far from household names the likes of Baltimore. With little time to develop a persona, writers often rely on quick one-liners, while artists use action and emotion to convey the type of passion need to steal a reader’s imagination.
Baltimore: The Widow and the Tank has both. But like a well cooked steak, it’s red in all the right places.
Lord Baltimore is what you’d get if you combine Blade and Vampire Hunter D in the early 20th century. Smart, but cold, he’ll quickly gain your respect and admiration. He’s simply too cool for school. He doesn’t have to say much either. He does the talking in other ways. This is ultimately the case in both short stories, as we see Baltimore kick some fanger rear after just a tad detective work. That said, Baltmore is more Hellboy than Batman. At the same time, his cunning and ability to read situations is a superpower in itself.
While it’s a fun read, it’s over far too quickly. Although it’s an injustice, in the best way possible, Baltimore’s exploits definitely deserve more than a handful of pages.
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