Baltimore: The Widow and The Tank Review: Gritty Supernatural Noir Done Right

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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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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