Hellboy creator Mike Mignola is teaming back up with longtime BPRD collaborator artist Duncan Fegredo for Giant Robot Hellboy - a three issue limited series coming from Dark Horse that is all about exactly what it says in the title.
In the limited series, which is rounded out by colorist Dave Stewart and artist Clem Robins, a literal giant robot version of Hellboy will take on a series of kaiju. Giant Robot Hellboy #1 features a main cover by Fegredo, and a variant by Mignola and Stewart. Subsequent issues will feature variants by Geof Darrow along with series colorist Dave Stewart, and Art Adams.
"Inspired by Mignola’s viral-hit pencil drawings from Mike Mignola: The Quarantine Sketchbook, Giant Robot Hellboy features a Mecha-Hellboy and Mega-Monsters," reads Dark Horse's announcement. "In this all-new series, Hellboy is kidnapped and hooked up to a massive mecha-Hellboy for a mission on a mysterious, faraway island, but the island might just put up a fight of its own."
"I had the idea for this one a long time ago but figured it was too silly to actually do - then the pandemic came along and I started to do all those sketches I would post online," states Mignola in Dark Horse's announcement. "I had never given a serious thought to what a giant robot Hellboy would look like but I knocked out a few sketches and I liked them - and so the thing started to seem like something that could actually be done."
"But I knew I wasn’t the artist for it and I knew both Arthur and Geof were busy with other things, so the only other artist I thought of was Duncan," he concludes. "I had no idea how Duncan would respond. Too silly? I didn’t know, but I figured I'd pitch it to him and if he said no that would be an end to it. The rest is history."
Fortunately for Hellboy fans, Fegredo did dig the idea, and so Giant Robot Hellboy is an actual comic with a totally bonkers premise that somehow seems like it also makes perfect sense.
"Hellboy awakes to an out-of-body experience and simultaneously has to deal with the usual fallout from mad scientists doing their thing whilst learning to walk again," explains Fegredo. "Come to think of it, that pretty much describes my return to collaborating with Mike Mignola… if you enjoyed my previous forays into grand scale storytelling, whoops, I did it again!"
Giant Robot Hellboy #1 goes on sale October 25.
Hellboy is one of the best supernatural superheroes of all time.