Unbagging Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Hellboy TP
#10TP-A

Release: Jun 09, 2010
Cover: Jun 12, 2010

Creators
Writer | Mike Mignola, Joshua Dysart |
Artist | Richard Corben, Duncan Fegredo, Mike Mignola, Jason Shawn Alexander |
Cover Artist | Mike Mignola |
Colorist | Dave Stewart |
Letterer | Clem Robins |
Editor | Scott Allie |
An in church, you say? That’s fine. Everybody knows the Devil can’t set foot in a church.
Last night I watched the most recent Hellboy movie, the one that barely even registered for a lot of people and that had what looked to be a rather slim budget.
While that slim budget made itself known in a lot of ways, it was put to good use in others, and overall – quibbles about some of the acting choices, like the actor playing Hellboy seeming to do a weird impression of Mickey Rourke, and some dodgy CGI aside – it was actually very good. A nice low-stakes story that suited its limited budget.
It was certainly better than the disappointing 2019 offering.
One positive thing I’d read about it ahead of time was that it hewed more closely to the source material than the two excellent movies – live-action and animated – with Ron Perlman in the lead role had, and I definitely got that sense as I watched it, even though I didn’t really remember the story it was adapting.
There’s a LOT of Hellboy material out there, and while I’ve read a significant chunk of it, I know there’s much I have not, but a quick glance at CLZ confirmed that I do have a trade that collects this story, and I know I’ve read all of the trades I have.
The problem is that back in 2016 I bought all of those Hellboy trades – twelve in all, of which this is the tenth – in preparation for being stuck at home while recovering from shoulder surgery, so when I read the story back then I was undoubtedly hopped up on prescription painkillers, which did my already shoddy memory no favors.
So, after watching the movie, I read it again.
Which means that I can say, yes, while there was a lot added to it, the movie was extremely faithful to the source material.
And it also means that we’re going to talk about about that source material, because why not?
One of the missed opportunities for the prior Hellboy movies is the ability to make period pieces, given that Hellboy has a very long history as a paranormal investigator and many of his adventures are set at different stages of his life
Like this one, set in 1958, in which we find a young Hellboy, having gone on something of a walkabout, somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains.
He’s looking over the paralyzed body of a young woman whose family tell him as been “witched” by someone named Cora Fisher. The family is then visited by a man named Tom Ferrell, a local who had been away and has returned after many years absent. He tells the family how to lift the curse and, after learning that his mother has died and his father is presumed dead, he resolves to go and have a talk with Cora.
Hellboy decides to tag along.
When they arrive at Cora’s place they find that she’s not there, but she’s a little something of hers behind.

It seems that Cora is out for an evening stroll in a different form, so the two decided to wait for her to come home and crawl back into her skin.
To pass the time, Tom tells Hellboy a little about himself. As a boy, he met a witch named Effie Kolb who talked him into practicing the dark arts with her, which ultimately led to an encounter with someone called Miser Witkins, or, more commonly, the Crooked Man.
Witkins was an evil man who eventually got his comeuppance in the form of a hanging, but the Devil sent him back to Earth to collect souls.
Like the one he had just collected from young Tom, who, in return, got a lucky bone – the leg bone of a dead black cat Tom was holding when he pledged himself to the Devil. Upon seeing the Crooked Man, Tom left town, ending up in the Pacific during the war, and then simply wandering about until finally deciding to return home.
Though he never actively used his lucky bone, he suspects that its power has protected him throughout the years.
Once Cora returns home, she tells Tom about how desperation and sadness at the loss of her husband and their children drove her to become a witch, but their reunion is interrupted by Effie Kolb, who looks just as young as she did when Tom knew her.
She tells Tom that the Crooked Man is waiting for him – and tells Hellboy that he isn’t at all concerned about him – and that she’s there to bring Tom a present in the form of the tired old horse she’s riding.
Once its bridle is removed the horse turns out to be Tom’s father, who dies shortly after being restored to human form.
Tom decides that his father deserves to be buried on consecrated ground, and though it will bring him closer to where the Crooked Man waits, he, Hellboy, and Cora begin making their way up the mountain.
Along the way, this happens to Cora.

While overwhelmed by the creatures that had been Cora, Hellboy passes out and has a disturbing vision, but he and Tom survive, thanks to Tom using the lucky bone to protect them, which, he fears, damns him even further.
The two make it to the church and find that Cora’s ghost has preceded them and informed the blind reverend of their coming. Which is good news, as it means the Devil was not able to claim Cora’s soul.
The Crooked Man and various witches show up but are unable to step on the consecrated ground.
We get a fun little interlude – and I’m glad they included this in the movie – in which we learn how to make a witchball.

Though he can’t set foot on consecrated ground, the Crooked Man can raise up the sinners buried beneath it, and so Tom, Hellboy, and the Reverend are forced to contend with zombies, while simultaneously being tempted by the Crooked Man’s power.
He offers to make the Reverend rich and also makes him young and restores his sight. He offers him one of the pretty girls the Reverend had his eye on when he was young.
But the Reverent holds strong and prays for his hard-earned years and afflictions to be returned to him.
Meanwhile, the Crooked Man offers to tell Hellboy what he knows about him and his destiny.
Hellboy reacts the way he always reacts whenever someone makes that offer.

With a bit of divine inspiration, the Reverent grabs Tom’s hand and the lucky bone and fills the bone with the power of the Lord, using it to carve a cross of light into the shovel Tom had been using to fend off the zombies.
He hands the shovel to Hellboy who uses it to take out the Crooked Man, which sends the witches scattering.
After burying his father, Tom and Hellboy head up to the Crooked Man’s home where the find him as a deformed creature jealousy guarding his small hoard of gold.
Tom tosses the bone at him and the Crooked Man combusts, his jars full of gold shatter, and the gold itself disappears.
He assumes the gold coins were actually the souls the Crooked Man had collected and he wonders if he’s set them free or if they’ve gone to Hell with the Crooked Man. Hellboy doesn’t have any answers for him.
As they’re making their way back to the church they hear a noise. It’s Effie, who, without the power of the Crooked Man to keep her young, is finally showing her age.
Seeing her, Tom realizes why he’d been carrying the bridle around ever since taking it off his father.

It’s a fun little story – albeit a creepy one – that serves as an interesting exploration of American folklore, which as he notes in the introduction, was a first for Mignola.
Painkillers aside, though, I’m not terribly surprised that this one didn’t really embed itself in my memory, despite the art by Corben, which was perfectly suited to the story.
But it’s not a particularly significant story. It’s just one of Hellboy’s many adventures, one that doesn’t do much in terms of worldbuilding or delve into Hellboy’s history, despite the promise – unwanted by Hellboy – of being able to do so.
Indeed, in being translated to film the story was expanded so that it did delve into Hellboy’s past, in addition to adding a framing device and introducing another character who was original to the movie.
To be clear, I’m not saying that the story is slight, or that there’s nothing about it that’s memorable – again, art by Richard Corben – but it just doesn’t have the same kind of significance that some other stories do, and it just didn’t embed itself in my memory.
But honestly, that’s just as well, as that meant I could read it again and have it feel like the first time.
There are more stories in this volume, but this was the one I wanted to talk about, and I’ve done that, so I’ll close out by recommending that you give it a read – there’s plenty of stuff I left out – and also check out the adaptation, which, as I said, expands on the story considerably while remaining very true to the core.

Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.