Review by Ian Keogh

Margaret Truesdale leads two lives. In Victorian England she’s comatose, but in an age where humanity was but one of several races populating the Earth she’s Anum Yassa, a fearless warrior.

Mike Mignola’s taken the basic idea from Robert E. Howard’s James Allison character who dreams of past lives, and like Howard he’s more interested in the idea of the heroic figure than the potentially more interesting flourishing of a woman living in an era of repression. That’s restricted to the single uncontextualised scene.

It’s partially because comparatively Anum Yassa’s experiences occur not long after the world’s creation and she mixes with those other beings populating the planet. Mignola’s Hellboy continuity presented legends dating back from the dawn of humanity, and the origins of his hand were supplied in Miss Truesdale and the Fall of Hyperborea. Here the revelations concern the Ogdru Jahad and Ogdru Hem, dropped in passing at the start, before possibly hinting that Hellboy himself is another reincarnation of Anum Yassa. This is by no means definitive, as the visuals suggesting it are wordless.

Jesse Lonergan’s art is even more impressive than on the first volume, often conflating the complexity of different eras via interlocking circular panels as per the sample art. As Anum Yassa is a personification of battle it’s a state she’s constantly engaged in, taking on the representatives of the gods on Earth, and battling each to a standstill. This combat is startling as delivered by Lonergan, with energy and imagination spilling off the page, and a welcome visual density.

For all that, clarity isn’t Mignola’s intention. There’s a suspicion that it’s necessary to have read specific Hellboy stories to make complete sense of Miss Truesdale and the Rise of Man, as Hellboy is frequently visually referenced during key scenes, suggesting an eternal battle. It leaves a great looking story aimed at the converted rather than at converting.