Review—'Koshchei the Deathless #6'—And Now, We Are Here

Koschchei the Deathless has finished his story. He is now looking for his lost soul.

Koshchei the Deathless #6, Writer: Mike Mignola, Artist: Ben Stenbeck, Colorist: Dave Stewart, Cover Artist: Mike Mignola

There are tons of cross references on this one.

Warning, Spoilers Below

The key part here is in his one and only act of kindness: in the last issue, he had saved Vasilissa the Beautiful. Now she reveals herself as a sort of guardian angel, which protected Hellboy from the Baba Yaga using her magical gifts: a comb that turns into a thorny forest; a napkin that turned into a river… three times she saves Hellboy from Koshchei, and in the third, she leads him towards the Baba Yaga.

What follows is deeply entwined with the Hellboy who has disappeared from sight at the BPRD, the Hellboy that now knows so much about his past that he even remembers having a sister. As I said, the cross references abound on this last issue, and some might be lost. Probably for whoever has read Hellboy but not ALL of it?

As a fan as I am of the series, I know for certain that there will always be loose ends. Not only because Hellboy has met an awful lot of people and paranormal creatures in his life, but because Mignola is a prolific author who has explored all of human folklore with this character. I, for instance, had no idea that Hellboy has a sister, beautiful and terrible, with a role to play on it all, as of course she must. And her reference left me at least intrigued, so I′m looking forward to hear from her, or catch up with her…

As for Koshchei, Baba Yaga has finally lost interest in him, and his soul, hidden successively inside a goat, a duck, a hen, an egg, and a needle, has decided to run away, carrying the entire gang with her. That is the final reason why Koshchei encounters Hellboy in Hell, a place that no longer is what it was, and that now rests empty: he is looking for the one truly important thing he has lost, all that time ago.